31. I Know the Father
Now we have come to the main point of everything and to the drive of my heart since, at age 19, I read in my Bible that the Father would make His home with me.
There is nothing more; there is nothing else. To say, “I know the Father,” is to be above all. To say, “I know the Father,” is to be beneath of all, lifting them up. To say, “I know the Father,” is a treasure belonging to me alone; it is to know myself. To say, “I know the Father,” is a treasure shared with many; it is to know one another.
To know the Father is to share life with God; to share life with God is to know the Father.
The Beginning. Sharing life with God has a definite beginning in the life of a believer in Jesus. That beginning is that moment when, having entered the Holiest through full confidence of faith, and knowing to full measure that Christ is the only life you are, you turn around as now seated upon the Mercy Seat.
Sharing life with God begins for you when you tell yourself the truth, “I am filled with all the fulness of God,” until that moment when you KNOW that it is true. Then you begin to acknowledge the Father inside of you, “God, You share this difficulty with me,” – symmorphy.
Knowing What Is. Now, it is true that God shared your life with you from the moment you were conceived in your mother’s womb, for you came out from His thoughts concerning you, words that were part of God before they became you. But you cannot KNOW that unless you follow God’s required path – Shut your mouth (about yourself) – stand still (confident faith in the Atonement) – and SEE the Salvation of God, which is Christ Jesus your only life.
Age-unfolding life is not what is. Age-unfolding life is to KNOW what is. Age-unfolding life is to know that every next step comes out from you and Father sharing life together.
This Present Experience. I have a tentative layout on the Jesus Secret page, but I’m not sure how this will flow and so I will take only one box at a time. In fact, I have just changed the first box from “Father” to “Placing Father and Me.”
This is the most momentous thing I have written about – to know the Father – a topic I have only begun to know in this present experience of completion which began only in this Study of John after we had arrived at John 14:20. This is the essence of Jesus’ task, having already and fully redeemed me, to now place Father and me together. And it has to be “me” first, before “us,” for knowing Father is utterly personal.
God’s Thoughts. To accept “Father and me placed together” is to accept that Jesus does His job and that He does it well and always.
I begin as God’s thoughts inside His own being concerning me, even though those thoughts are not yet me, but God. The thing is that, if I were to see the words of those thoughts inside of God, I would recognize myself, and I would know that God already sings harmony with me. No matter how much I would recognize those thoughts, however, they are not yet me, but only God. Only when those thoughts pass through the good-speaking of Jesus do I become, each next moment. – John 1:3 & Hebrews 1:2-3 JSV.
Two Expressions of Word. The moment Jesus speaks me and I become, the Father recognizes me as a distinct person of honor and respect. Then, with Jesus, God comes alongside of me, treating me in every moment with utmost dignity. So it is that, the Words that are to become me inside of God, Words that are God, AND the Words that are spoken and have become me, Words that are Christ Jesus as me, these two sets of personal living Words, Father and me, are walking side by side in perfect harmony.
My next step truly is God; God’s next step truly is me. And it is Jesus, our Covenant Bond, who makes it happen.
Accepting Ourselves. What is that moment when that harmony of sharing life together with God can actually begin? It is that moment when “Give thanks inside of and for the sake of all things” first enters your awareness as the true way to live.
When we first accepted “Give thanks,” not just for the good things, but even more for the difficult things, we imagined that God required us to accept things He was forcing upon us in order to be “obedient” children. What we did not and could not know was that we were actually accepting ourselves coming out from God and us together.
Placing Father and Me. ~ Father, I know that, as Jesus shares all with me, so also do You. Jesus joins You and me together every moment. Father, I know that you share life with me in every circumstance. As I give thanks inside of and for the sake of all, so I accept every next moment as coming out from our shared life. I know that Your thoughts concerning me are part of You, and I know that those same thoughts spoken through Jesus become me. Father, You and I are made for each other in harmony forever. ~
Each Next Moment. Next we must consider the term “age-unfolding.” An age is a set period of time with a beginning moment and an ending moment. Inside an age is a very large number of moments. Thus we see that LIFE inside of us generates each next moment, one at a time, that become together whatever age we are in.
The idea that we will live separate from time is absurd. If one moment and one second are equivalent, then think of your every moment in one year – 31,536,000 moments. Can you handle every one of those moments, with all their words, thoughts, and actions, AT THE SAME TIME?
God Every Moment. Can you do every action of 10 billion years, all inside the same one moment? Are you God? No, you are not, and you never will be God. Time is God showing up in your life, sharing each next moment with you forever. Time is just about the most wondrous part of being human.
Here is what I wrote a few weeks ago that changed my life forever. ~ Life itself is my Way, moment by moment and step by step, not ‘to’ something, but rather life-unfolding, the living and dynamic expression of God-with-me unveiled new every morning forever. ~
Our Dwelling Place. Let me use one word to describe sharing life with God. – JOY – And let me use one word to describe every next moment as coming out from God and me together. – Excitement. – This is LIFE, unfolding every moment, forever.
As we have seen, every next step is also Father and me building our dwelling place together. And every next step is Father and me as the Kingdom of God, the dwelling place for all, where ALL can belong, Father and me just being ourselves together.
Our Determination. God’s determination is our source and thus it is just as much my determination as it is God’s. But that determination does not depart from us to become something other, something in the future, fixing a rigid set of steps we are bound to follow, that is, “fate.” There is no such thing as “God wills it” as something coming at me from outside myself.
Prophetic Word, then, is an unfolding of DESIRE into space and time and is entirely dependent on the active participation of the human in how it unfolds. What I “figure out” beforehand in my fantasy cannot be what Father and I desire in the moment of prophetic fulfillment.
The Fear of God. We humans have a fantastic ability to twist anything of God into advantage over others, even if in no other place but the imagination of our minds. Many would use “sharing life with God” in a way that gives “God” advantages to themselves even while leaving God Himself out in the cold, out of their picture.
A life of intimate participation with the Father requires a distinction of person, just as Jesus said, “The Father is greater and mightier than I.” True symmorphy with God requires an underlying sense of face-on-ground in the presence of God’s determination.
A Consuming Fire. To give thanks is to accept yourself as Father with you, but to justify God includes accepting others as Father with them. For me to accept you as Father with you is to humble myself in your presence; it is to see you as better.
We live inside a Consuming Fire; indeed, we are proposing sharing life with a Consuming Fire. To share Hheart with God, seated upon the Mercy Seat, is to be the tip point of that Fire that consumes all things. Yet here alone is the generation of life and the unfolding of days. Every next moment comes out from Fire, Father and me together.
Age-Unfolding. ~ I love God’s creation of time and space, for the Joy I know inside a shared life with God becomes unending excitement towards each next step coming out from Father and me sharing life together. Time is each next moment with the Father; space gives us direction and room for each next step we take. All of my days forever are inside of God, before I am in them. Yet they become my days in truth through my faith and permission. God honors me and I honor Him in return. I see my brothers and sisters as sharing the same life with God; I justify God in all that they are and do towards me. I share life with a living Fire; because I fear God, I am never afraid of Him, for we share the unfolding Ages together. ~
Intimate. As we have seen, when Jesus said that He and Father will make Their home WITH me, that word in the Greek, para, includes the meaning of intimate participation together. Because we fear God, we are not afraid of Him at all. And thus, acknowledging God as God, we live in the continual awareness of a relationship of intimate Love.
Intimate (adj.) 1630s, "closely acquainted, very familiar," also "inmost, intrinsic," from Late Latin intimatus, past participle of intimare "make known, announce, impress," from Latin intimus "inmost, innermost, deepest" (adj.), also used figuratively, of affections, feelings, as a noun, "close friend;" superlative of in "in" (from PIE root *en "in").
Tender Affection. Definitions taken from Etymonline: https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=intimate
God makes the deepest parts of Himself known to us INside our hearts, our innermost being. This is both an impression and a feeling of affection, and it is also fully reciprocal. We give of ourselves back to God always that which God first gives us of Himself.
Intimacy (n.) Sense of "sexual intercourse."
There is definitely a sense of sexual love in this shared life with God, not in the sense of lust, but in the sense of tender affection.
Full Reciprocity. God wants to share my human limitation with me. You see, that is the only way He can enter into His creation – through a limiting form, to be seen and known. God shares my human limitation with me first, that is, He humbles Himself. Then, in return, I am enabled by Jesus to share His divine un-limitation with Him, out from a God who has limited Himself to me.
Those who seek superiority first or who pretend to “obey” will never know Him. Symmorphy is full reciprocity, full back and forth, an equality of togetherness inside the deepest respect.
Participation – Synergeia. “Participation” is the name of an action, to do all things together. Actually, the best word is “synergeia.”
Synergeia: From syn - together with, and energeia - the life force of all living things. 1. The combining together of two life forces sharing the same purpose and goal. 2. The dynamic and living togetherness of two persons in their inward workings and in their outward accomplishments.
To Synergeo: 1. To share the same life force together. 2. To join life forces inside of one another, person inside of person. 3. Inside of this sharing of life forces together, to actively direct all accomplishments together.
Paul’s gospel confirmed by John.
Intimate Participation. ~ Because I honor God as God, I am never afraid of the closest intimacy with Him inside my own heart. Through Jesus, the Father’s life and my life are entwined together as in pure matrimony, the very sharing of life with life. God gives to me all of Himself, thus enabling me to give Him all of myself in return. God limits Himself to my limitations so that our life forces energeo together as we turn all things into pure and intrinsic goodness, as we make a place of light and life and love for all created things. ~
I Know You, Father. What do we put into the box titled “To Know the Father”? This must be us speaking to the Father and it must be inside the common humdrum of our daily lives. We cannot even begin to cover all that ought to be inside such a declaration of faith; all we can do is taste.
“I know You, Father. – I know You, Father.”
“You are sharing this with me” is part of where we start, but symmorphy requires us to say, “I am sharing that with You.” Unless God shares with me my weakest moment of vulnerability and pain, then there is no knowing of God.
“I know You, Father, because You first know me.”
Completion. As I am pondering inside my own heart the deepest meaning I know of this sharing everything of life with the Father, the one word that seems to include everything is the word – Completion. “Completion for God in us – completion for us in God,” this is the meaning of All-Salvation.
And “home” is just the best word that makes completion intimate and together. The HOME I share with Maureen is a place of peace and intimacy, a place of work and togetherness. It is a most beautiful place. This is where I BELONG.
Christ Community. Yet that sense of HOME, that sense that “I Belong,” is far greater inside the experience of Christ Community. Yet I do not consider such an experience except with Maureen.
Knowing the Father must include knowing you. And me knowing you must include you knowing me. One hundred percent personal; one hundred percent together. As we enjoy intimate participation together, with pure hearts fervently, so we know the Father. As we know the Father, sharing every moment of life with Him, so we know one another.
Life. This is why we must have the whole Church complete, for this is essential to how we KNOW the Father. Never have we shared with Father in a greater meaning than in our prayers together for our fellow Christians. Yet such a knowing is real only as it comes first out from my own deep, personal intimacy with God sharing my every moment.
Life is to know the Father; to know the Father is life. Life is two things; it is synergeoing with God, His life force and our life force acting together. And it is the story of the unfolding of our days, Father and me, together.
To Know the Father. ~ I know You, Father. I know You. You share my life with me in every moment and circumstance. I know You, Father, because You first know me. I share Your life with You, Father, because You first share my life with me. You are at home inside of me and I am at home inside of You. We share intimacy together; we work together. I come out from You, Father through the good speaking of Jesus every moment. You belong inside of me. ~
~ I know my brothers and sisters in Christ, Father, in the same way that You know me. You share life with them just as You share life with me. I know You even more as I know them and they know me. As we walk together, loving one another with pure hearts fervently, so we know You in our midst as Love amongst us. I synergeo with You, Father, and together with all my brethren, to turn all things into goodness and into Your knowledge. The story of our life together, Oh God, unfolds forever. ~
Then we have our final box on the page – The Rule:
~ I know You, Jesus, for You join me with God. I know You, God, my Father, for we share all of life in intimate participation together. ~
Glory. I have touched only briefly on so many things that are essential elements of knowing God, yet there are many other things that ought to be included. Nonetheless, I am satisfied that I have captured the essence and meaning of knowing the One True God, of sharing life with Him, at least as we are able to know it now.
We know God in heart, by Spirit, and through Word, all three together, all the time. Knowing God is our reward; God known through us is God’s reward. Another word for reward is “glory,” the celebration of All-Completion.
Reading for Next Time. The next lesson is titled “I Am with Jesus inside of God.” This is the remainder of John 17. For that reason, read all of John 17 again.
We have only two pages more in The Jesus Secret II for John’s gospel. Then I have to complete the introductory parts and it will be ready to post. Nonetheless, we have four more Zoom sessions in John’s gospel, one on Chapter 18 and the other on Chapter 19, before returning to the final JS page, “Jesus Sends Me.”
Father, I desire that those whom You have given me might be with Me [where I am] – [I am in the Father.]
Let’s Pray Together. Our prayer is synergeoing with God making all things good. Good means God-Known. – Go[d-kn]o[wn]d. But let’s make this prayer personal to each of us.
“God, my Father, I know You. I know You because You first know me. I know You have made Your Home in me, inside my heart.
“God, our Father, we know You together, even as we know one another inside of Your love joining us together in every way. Oh God, we are seated here together upon Your Mercy Seat, upon the union with You that is our shared Hheart together, and we see Your people all across heaven-earth.
“God, our Father, we synergeo with You and with one another in all expectation of faith and in the sending forth of a pure Spirit Word into Your Church. Cause Your people to KNOW You, God, to know that they are filled with all of Your fulness. Cause them to know that they live in All-Salvation now, the Lord Jesus Christ.
“Yet we do more than see Your Church and our Jerusalem, oh God, for all who belong to Jesus are in our hearts as well and we are members of them and they of us. Therefore, Father, we speak as and for the sake of Your entire Church that we KNOW YOU, Father, as we KNOW Jesus Sent into us and into all who belong to You. Let our words be the words spoken by all who belong to You.
“Father, we have a dream. In our dream, we see Christians everywhere loving one another with pure hearts fervently, filled with all the fulness of God in all personal knowing.
“In our dream, Father, we see the Church of Jesus Christ as a praise among all peoples on this planet. We hear them exclaim, ‘Come, let us find Christians and ask them to show us what it’s all about. Let’s search out their wisdom; let’s know through them that God sent Jesus into our world.’
“Father, we see Christians everywhere walking together in the commitment of Church Life. We see them clothed with the Lord Jesus Christ; we see them bringing the knowledge of God into creation. We see their bodies swallowed up by life. This is our reward, Oh God, inside of Jesus’ name."