23.4 Each Other
© 2017 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
A butterfly casts off its chrysalis in order to draw all the life and strength that is in it out into its full appearance, that it might live as a butterfly. God has prepared the same process for us together. We are sons of God, but we do NOT know what that means.
God has an exercise for us prepared just for us, not for our failure, but for our victory, an exercise designed perfectly to cause us to reach deep within ourselves and to draw all the life and strength of Christ out from our innermost beings and out into all the expressions of our life in this world. That exercise is to cast the curse from off of this heaven/earth in which we presently live, and to do it together.
The New Creation
The curse that remains on this earth is the outer appearance of the old creation. The New is already full and complete, here and now. The problem is that no one can see it, including ourselves. Yet we see the New Creation full and complete entirely by faith. And that New Creation is a family of people walking together in love.
One thing only is the defeat of all that is sin and death, and that is the real image of God, a fully successful Christian church on this earth, Christian community. And here we find the weapon of the Holy Spirit, and that weapon is one another together.
Helping One Another
Two are better than one – And a threefold cord is not quickly broken (Ecclesiastes 4:9 & 12). Yes, we can find the Lord Jesus, even in Ecclesiastes.
Not one individual person found among the manifest sons of God setting creation free will be there by their own inner relationship with God. Every individual person in that company will arrive there by helping one another, by walking in a living commitment towards two or three other believers, at least. We cannot arrive at being the many-membered Body of Christ without being the many-membered Body of Christ, without walking together as if we actually were members of one another.
Holding God Accountable
We, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another (Romans 12:5). – Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another… submitting to one another in the fear of God (Ephesians 5:18-21 – condensed).
I do not read these things as suggestions or nice ideas or that we should try our best, even though we know that God has no intention of having a church on this planet actually walking in all the fullness of the incorruptible life found in these words.
I read these words as absolute, spoken into this earth by a God who tells us to hold Him fully accountable to His WORD. And I read them as our third and most visible weapon of war.
My Covenant with God
I cannot win the desire of my heart without you. And you cannot win what you desire, whether you know what that is or not, without me.
I want to refer you to a letter I wrote six years ago, in the Spring of 2011. I titled it Cutting the Covenant. Please take the time to read it. Even though I am losing readers by what I am writing now, I have never written anything else.
My covenant with God and He with me, a covenant birthed in the searing fires of God, means that I will know and be a part of a people walking this earth in all the fullness of Christ, committed utterly to one another. – I will find my way home.
So Much Word “Out There”
You see, here is my problem. I am writing about the Kingdom of God, about the revelation of Jesus Christ. Yet many of God’s people are in need of or want only a word of Christ-as-them in comfort and simplicity. There is no thought in their minds of God’s determination through them or of setting creation free.
At the same time, there is so much word in power out there, that it’s easy to find a word that allows some to turn union with Christ into union with self, as many do. At the same time, the image of the serpent as the image of God is so strong in so many, even of those who seek deeper truth in the altar of incense, that this tiny voice of Daniel Yordy surely can’t be God speaking to me.
A Precious Few
And I have lost so many readers. I don’t know how to keep them; I don’t know why they go. I see those who promote everybody and anybody in their websites, but they have no place for what I share.
Yet there are a few, a precious few, who, each in their own way, reach out to me to be connected in some way to me. I cannot tell you how much I need you.
I forgot; I was supposed to talk about the two witnesses of Revelation 11 and the anointing oil flowing through them as part of the weapons of our warfare. Here, I think, is where that oil goes, our commitment together.
The Two Olive Trees
And I will give to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy… These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands standing before the God of the earth (Revelation 11:3-4).
Let’s look closer at those two olive trees in Zechariah 4. “There is a lampstand of solid gold with a bowl on top of it, and on the stand seven lamps with seven pipes to the seven lamps. Two olive trees are by it, one at the right of the bowl and the other at its left.” – “What are these, my lord?” – “What are these two olive trees—at the right of the lampstand and at its left?” – “What are these two olive branches that drip into the receptacles of the two gold pipes from which the golden oil drains?”
So he said, “These are the two anointed ones.”
Finding Jesus in One Another
There is nothing of God that is revealed as it really is except inside the simplicity of a family of people walking together in love and in all the reality of the gospel of Christ. Because we have shattered the image of the serpent as the one who shows us “God,” we no longer look for big things or for the exaltation of elite powerhouse individuals. We look for Jesus in one another and we find all that we seek.
This anointing oil is a quality and function of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is not found separate from the Church, from Christ in us, in the least and the littlest. Yet it is a specific function of the Holy Spirit nonetheless, something not known by most.
The Flow of the Oil
I refer you back to the friends of Po in Kung Fu Panda 3. Keep that picture of all the members of the community sending forth the Holy Spirit to Po that he might possess all victory over the evil one. You really have to be free from all religiosity, thank God, to merge that picture of Po together with this vision of Zechariah.
Let’s trace the flow of the oil. The oil begins (1) in the two olive trees. Olive oil is the fruit of the olive tree, but fruit that has been pressed under heat until the anointing flows out. That oil passes from the trees themselves and (2) into the branches of the two trees. Then the oil flows next (3) into two gold “pipes”; we will assume one pipe for each tree.
The Care of All the Churches
The anointing oil flows down through those two gold pipes, two that somehow (4) become seven gold pipes; the text is unclear. That oil then flows out from these seven gold pipes (5) into the seven lamps of the gold lampstand. We know that the lampstand is the fullness of all the churches of Christ (Revelation 1). And we know that the Church itself IS the fullness of Christ (Ephesians 1).
And you know what, this proves what I have known all along, that these two witnesses, whatever and whoever they might represent, care more about the Church of Jesus Christ upon this earth than anything else. …what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches (2 Corinthians 11:28).
His Hands Shall Finish this Temple
But inside of his vision, Zechariah heard these words.
This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ Says the Lord of hosts. ‘Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain! And he shall bring forth the capstone with shouts of “Grace, grace to it!”’” “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this temple; his hands shall also finish it. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent Me to you. For who has despised the day of small things?”
There is a word and there is an anointing, utterly together, that flows out from the throne of God and that is completely pure.
I Care about One Thing
Many people want many things. I want one thing. I want God to fulfill His Word in the core of His Covenant with me in all fullness in my life now in this age and here on this earth. I don’t care what revelation anyone else has. I care about these lines ONLY and only whatever else from the Bible and the Spirit that makes them our full and incorruptible experience.
Symmorphosed together with Jesus as the image of God – filled with all the fullness of God – rivers of Spirit flow out of you – they overcame by the blood of the Lamb – love one another as I have loved you – you are members of one another – and you also ought to lay down your lives for the brethren – know that I am in the Father and you in me and I in you – put on the Lord Jesus Christ.
I Commit Myself to You
For me to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, I must also put you upon myself, for He comes to me through you. And we also.
I commit myself to you, that I will not turn aside from this word, that I will not relent, that I will hold God accountable for what He says, that He will fulfill it in us, that I will call forth an invisible God into the appearance of His church.
I commit myself to you, that I will be that vessel that holds nothing for itself, nor that binds you to myself, but that allows the Holy Determination of a Fathering God to flow through me to you, that you might have that same Word and that same Spirit and that same grace that places you into all the fullness of the revelation of Jesus Christ.
I Need You
But I need you to understand something just as important. I am a weak and frightened little man; sometimes I feel like just a boy caught in a world I do not understand. I am lonely, and I have no ability to gather a fellowship around me so that my family and I can walk together with other local believers.
I need you. I need your commitment together with me IN this same word that I share, this core word our Father speaks. I need your response of connection. I need the extension of your faith. I need your face towards me and your commitment. I need that flowing out of the Holy Spirit from you to me.
You are that olive tree to me as much as I could ever be that olive tree towards you. We will not make it into victory by ourselves; we are members of one another.
We Win by Church
You know what. There might be some who say to themselves, “Being Daniel’s support, being utterly together with him regardless, through thick and thin, through ups and downs, just might be my ministry and calling in God.”
You are the weapon of my warfare; and I commit myself to you to be yours through whatever might lie ahead. Yet I also commit myself, Father through me in all determination, to the entire Body of Christ, to all whom Father has given to Jesus, that they will love one another.
The battle is not against evil. The battle is against God-not-being-known.
We win by Father revealed; we win by Church.