26. Filled with God

God always fills us as Himself, as a Person, His Person inside of our person and our person inside of His Person. His consciousness inside of our consciousness and ours inside of His. This is the essence and center of our relationship forever, a continual friendship of equality and a shared heart. There is another Person inside of me and that Person is God. His Person fills every part of me in fullness and we, He and I, walk always together in sweet communion with no reference whatsoever to what my eyes might "see," or what my feelings might "feel."This is what it means to be human. Adam never did become a human being; Jesus is the first One of our kind. 

© Daniel Yordy - 2012

". . . that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."

There is no statement in the Bible more mind-blowingly impossible than this one. How could any human being, or even all human beings put together, ever be filled with all the fullness of God. Was this a slip of Paul's pen? Was his mind just flipping along in the wonder of expression, exuberantly saying things a bit beyond actual reality the way I sometimes think I do?

Not just filled with God nor filled with all of God. Not even just filled with the fullness of God. But three superlatives in a row before the word 'God," which itself is an above and beyond word. "Filled" with "all" the "fullness" of "God." Paul kept right on going with four superlatives in the next verse, "exceedingly" "abundantly" "above" "all" you could ask or even imagine.

Was Paul just having a moment of poetic exuberance?

Because if Paul was not just being poetically silly, if his words are absolute truth, then we must deal with a reality no Christian writer or minister has ever faced.

Let me explain a critical element in sound thinking. Reality can be explained ONLY by explaining, fully, those odd anomalies that do NOT fit. Agatha Christie's great detective, Hercule Poirot, pursued any murder mystery by seeking the least, most insignificant fact or anomaly, the thing that did NOT fit. While the police followed the 'obvious' to a dead end, Poirot followed the anomaly until he found the answer to it. When the odd fact that did not fit was answered, fully, the case was solved.

Here are a couple of critical anomalies in two different fields. Unless a scientist can explain in full and repeatable detail every chemical, physical, electrical, and biological process by which a fantastically complex crop circle comes into being, that scientist knows almost nothing real about physics or cosmology. (The popular argument, that they are man-made hoaxes, I find absurd and without actual evidence, except for a few that look obviously man-made.)

Unless an historian can explain to full and final satisfaction, drawing from both society and spirit, exactly how it is that every single American president, from Washington to Obama, is descended by blood from William the Conqueror, from the kings of England, and each one an heir to the throne of England, yet elected every four years by the people, that person knows almost nothing real about history.

I can explain neither of these phenomena.

No true knowledge exists except that which gives full and duplicatable answer to the oddest out-of-place anomaly in that field.

Thus, no Christian who does not know in present experience being filled with all the fullness of God, who cannot explain, in simplest terms that even a child can understand, what it is, what it means, all the ramifications of being filled in the present moment with all the fullness of the Person of God, that person knows hardly anything real about God, or the Bible, or the gospel.

"From the beginning God determined to conform me to the image of Jesus Christ" is the defining verse of the Bible, yes. But "filled with all the fullness of God" is the anomaly verse. It is that weird, out-of-the-way verse, that seems to be completely unnecessary and that has no place in anyone's definition of man or the gospel.

Right now I am filled with all the fulness of God, but I don't know that, not yet, not really. The moment my eyes open, the moment I KNOW that all of God in all fulness fills all of me, my body will be transformed and I will live from that moment in all the visible manifestation of the resurrection life of Christ.

God flowing out of me is the obvious second to God filling me full. But God filling me with all of His fulness is the most impossible, odd, out-of-place statement ever written or uttered on this planet. And to most people, the most BLASPHEMOUS!

For about six months now, I know, every moment, that the person of God fills me. This knowing began when I wrote "The Weakness of God" and first understood God, not as the separated God defined by Augustine, but as the becoming God shown to us by the only definition God gave us of Himself - the passage of Jesus through the atonement. Since writing those words, I have known that God fills me and I know that knowing every moment, and I get so beside-myself happy sometimes, because I know that this intimate, precious knowing of the Person of God resting fully inside of me is forever and will only grow and increase.

So now, let's grapple with the one MOST out-of-place, odd, impossible, separated-from-all-other-knowledge statement ever uttered in all creation.

That you might be filled with all the fullness of God.

We can dispense with "that you might be" quite easily. That phrase follows as the end result of something that comes before and the something that comes before is that we might know the unknowable. That is, that we might KNOW the unknowable love of Christ.

Every word God speaks we make personal and now. Today IS the day of Salvation. That is the only faith that pleases God.

To begin, there is God. Yes, God is infinite and eternal, rightly defined as NOW and PRESENT - both absolute; He is all-powerful and all-knowing; He is the beginner and the finisher. Yes, He is all those things, and every element of every part of what God is in all those things is included in ALL of God. But God is first a Person. And as, first, a Person, God is heart. That means God feels and hopes, He desires and dreams. Yet God's feelings and hopes, desires and dreams are infinite and eternal, that is, they are now and present, yes, but they are VERY, VERY personal.

God's heart is so personal that He has shown it in only one time and place inside creation before now. God opened His real and inner heart in the atonement, and there we were, inside that very heart.

The first part of ALL the Fulness of God filling us full is God's heart. Everything proceeds out of Heart first. God places His very heart inside of us as the beginning of "filled with all the fullness of God."

God's heart and my heart are the same thing. I share heart with God.

Say this to yourself. "I share heart with God. His heart is my heart and my heart is His heart." Say it over and over in a Spirit of faith, cleansed always by the Blood. Let the full meaning of these words carry you forward and always.

The kingdom of God flows entirely out of this shared, mutual heart, God and us. Anything that does not flow out of this shared, mutual heart, cannot be the kingdom.

We must now deal with this word, "filled."

As I write (the first two pages), I am sitting in the tabernacle of a 'move of God' community, the place from which I draw much of what I teach, yet occupied by a people who believe they are the ones most in tune with what God is doing in the earth right now, primarily because of the church order in which they move. I am writing four of these last letters (the first part of them) of the Kingdom of God series in this setting. The brethren are without question filled with the love, the kindness, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. They know and speak "Christ in you."

Yet their prayers and prophecies and songs are filled with separation from God, shoving Him out into the cold, not "one of us." I know without question that their underlying theology speaks against this word "filled." All of Christianity and all Christian theology I have known screams in open hostility against this word "filled" in every possible way.

"Christ in you" is one thing. God fills all of me is something entirely different.

Let me bring you to the cross. There is no stronger statement of clarity and power that God could possibly speak than "It is finished."

Even when I read those who teach no separation from God and those who teach "Christ as us," I see clear statements of unmistakeable separation. The idea that all of God FILLS all of me is just beyond human thinking to cope with or to grapple with.

Let's look at "filled." It's easy to say, "My spirit is filled with God," partly because most have no idea what their spirit is. Many cannot stomach saying, "My heart is filled with God." Or try these: "My mind is filled with God" or "My will is filled with God - All and Absolute." Now, incredibly, all Christians must admit that their bodies are filled with God - the words on the page are too plain and clear to deny that. But let's come to the brass tacks: "My flesh is filled with God.

Here is the bottom line; here is Christ versus anti-Christ.

"My flesh is filled with God. Not only that, but my flesh is the flesh of God. God's flesh is my flesh; my flesh is God's flesh. - God manifest in the flesh. - That the life of Jesus might be revealed in my mortal flesh."

God made man weak; that is, God made man flesh, that God might be revealed through man's flesh. The fact that our flesh is dying right now just proves God's glory more completely as He fills our flesh.

The sin of Adam was hatred of the flesh God gave him. Adam hated weakness and inability. He hated "making mistakes." He devoted his life to covering up his flesh, getting it under his foot, controlling it, subduing it, dressing it up, making it look good. All who live in the tree of knowledge practice the same sin of Adam, pulling as many Bible verses into their separated minds as they can, never understanding that God made man weak for the very purpose that God might fill man with ALL of His fullness. Adam rejected God filling his flesh.

"My flesh is filled with God; that is its purpose and glory."

What about sin?

When I might "see" sin, I cannot see it. All I can see is Christ. The sin is forever dead and buried. Grave digging is not part of the Christian experience. - And Christ is always billowing up from beneath of me, from within me, catching me up into Himself every moment, conforming Himself to my weakness, stumbling with me along my way, taking me into His death, arising into life and ascending on high, and I always in Him, always all and every moment.

God IS Now!

My flesh, all of my flesh, is filled with all of God NOW! I believe that will all my heart. When I know it is true, all creation will be swallowed up in the glorious liberty of the sons of God.

"All the fullness." Not just all of God, that's not enough for God. But "all the fullness of God."

This shows us two things. First, it shows us the determination of God. If God created man to be filled with all the fullness of God, then this MUST BE the determination and intention of God for man - to fill us with ALL of Himself. Second, this is utterly impossible. Can finite man be filled with all of an infinite God?

What is man?

Is man really finite? Or do we NOT know who we are, as John said?

And the moment we know who we already are, what will happen to us? How much will we be different from what our present ignorant and blind "seeing" demands? Yet we will still be ourselves, no doubt of that.

But remember, God always fills us as Himself, as a Person, His Person inside of our person and our person inside of His Person. His consciousness inside of our consciousness and ours inside of His.

This is the essence and center of our relationship forever, a continual friendship of equality and a shared heart.

There is another Person inside of me and that Person is God. His Person fills every part of me in fullness and we, He and I, walk always together in sweet communion with no reference whatsoever to what my eyes might "see," or what my feelings might "feel."

This is what it means to be human.

Adam never did become a human being; Jesus is the first One of our kind.

Just as God gave Adam the joy of shaping the nature and role of each animal God had created, so God gave Adam the place of finishing himself. God created Adam as half Breath of Life, yes. But the Breath of God was only the first part of God in Adam. The Tree of Life would complete Adam. If Adam had eaten of the Tree of Life, he would have become a full human being as God intended from the beginning.

 

This is not Adam; Adam did not become this, though he had the opportunity.

This is the Lord Jesus Christ, before His resurrection, after His resurrection, and right now. The only thing that changed inside of Jesus was the quality of His flesh. And notice, this diagram is identical in makeup to the Ark of the Covenant, though my limited resources require me to use circles.

You and I, right now, are flesh of His present flesh, personal and real.

Fully God in Person and fully man in person. This is what we are; this is what we are becoming.

The heart we share with God IS the Mercy Seat, the throne of God, the throne of heaven John saw in Revelation 4, the path of the Atonement.

Adam chose man as God, rebellion; God intends God as man - His image.

Jesus answered and said unto him, "If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." John 14:23

This "make Our abode with him" is not an aberration; it is the true nature of man as God intended from the beginning. We do not become who we are by human effort, but by God.

God speaks many things. Of all that God speaks, which words will we keep? Which words will we watch over? Which words will we guard?

That you might be filled with all the fullness of God.

Rivers of living water shall flow out of his belly.

And they cast down the accuser.

Are being transformed into that same image.

The revealing of the sons of God - glorious liberty.

And her child was caught up unto God and to His throne.

Let it be to me according to all that You speak.

That you might be filled with all the fullness of God.

Most Christians will chose the easy words, the ones we can humanly do, man as "God." But who will keep those words no man can "do," except God be all inside of him?

It is true that those who are faithful in the least will be given much. That is true. We never despise the day of small things. And we never despise our flesh, the flesh of God, flesh of His flesh.

Why flesh? Why a heart of flesh?

I suspect that human flesh, pure and holy, is more like God's heart as it is for real, than any other element in creation. I suspect that sharing heart with God is the most normal and natural thing we could ever experience as humans. I suspect that despising one's flesh, one's weakness, is to despise in equal measure the very heart of God.

Look at fallen man's definition of manliness - to be hard, to be closed, to be ruthless, ambitious and conquering.

Look at a man broken by the hand of God - gentle and tender and kind. Yet filled with daring boldness and laughter, quietness and meekness, fullness of joy and adventure, pleasure forevermore, dreams and hopes, sorrows and cares - gentle and tender and kind.

This is God. This is man.

Man is God revealed.

We cannot define man except the Person of God Himself being the largest part of that definition.

Thus we see that the "man" Adam chose to be, a morally responsible creature, accountable to a God outside of himself, just like the angels (gods, as the serpent meant the word), cannot be real. Thus, all effort coming out of that definition of ourselves must be abhorrent to God, even effort to "keep" His word.

Sin is living as if the Person of God Himself is not our very life.

Doing "all that God commands" as a "morally responsible creature," is sin, as Paul argues. Even "faithfulness" outside of Christ our life, in the end, is sin. It is falling short of all the glory of God. The law of God is right and just; it is the human living outside of God that is false. When we are filled with God Himself, we are no longer concerned about the outward specifics of the law. The true law fills our heart, as the New Covenant says. Yet it is not "law," but Person. And when that Person is at home inside of us, then all that we do, coming just naturally out of our hearts, is in full agreement with the meaning of that outer law given to men living in darkness.

One time, reading through Leviticus, it dawned on me that all that God was really saying, was to explain to a people who did not know how to love one another, just exactly how you do that. With Love abounding in our hearts, we no longer need to be told "how to" love.

Let's come back now to "filled with all the fullness of God."

"Filled" means every particle of who and what I am, spirit, soul, and body. "All" means all. There is not a particle, a dimension, a realm, a place, a character trait, a quality that is God that is not also IN me, filling every particle of me as me. All of God.

Unless we believe what God says, making it personal and now, we do not love His word. Nowhere does God say, "Understand My Word"; He says, "Do you believe what I say?"

The "Fullness" of God. Fullness is billowing, it is explodingness, it is above and beyond. All of infinity is inside of me, yes, but infinity in FULLNESS, omnipresence in fullness, omnipotence in fullness, eternality in fullness, holiness in fullness, love in fullness, light in fullness, exploding, billowing, rushing mighty rivers of God, all of Him inside of me, all of Him flowing out of me.

This is man.

But there is a radical and core element of God, this Person of God who fills us full, that we must reckon with.

God is fire. God is purpose and determination. He is Sending - Mission.

"And to know Jesus Christ whom God has sent."

God has released His entire creation from any obligation to Himself, yes. But He has NOT released Himself from obligation to His creation in any way.

This One who fills us full; this One whose heart we share gives Himself away, pours Himself out, lays His life down, without reservation or limitation or slowing down.

He will take your breath away - and risk your life with Himself. Being filled with all the fullness of God is the scariest thing in the universe and the most exhilarating and the most glorious.

God's heart, this heart we share, labors over every single created being, human, angelic, animal, and any other realm of existence, fallen or unfallen, it makes no difference to God. Yet He has purpose for each individual one and times and seasons.

Yes, evangelizing the lost is a huge part of God's determination. Part of the problem with modern evangelism is the false paradigm of "go to heaven, escape hell" in which it operates. But regardless of the false, any individual person, coming into the knowledge of Jesus as Savior, is beyond wonderful and we rejoice with all joy.

But Jesus said, "All whom the Father has given Me shall come to Me." His words are absolute and true. Some are gifted to birth these words into reality through their sending, but the Father's house has many dwelling places.

Central to the passion, the fire, the intense determination that fills the heart of this One who fills us with His Person is that precious Bride, the woman of the Lord Jesus Christ, clothed with the Sun, in labor to give birth, fleeing from the face and wrath of the serpent, right now, in this hour of her trial.

How His Bowels inside of us long over her!

Jesus said, "WE will come to him, and WE will make OUR abode with him."

That means so very much to me. I have never known who I'm supposed to be talking with. Talking to the Holy Spirit has never felt right to me when I hear people say that. The Holy Spirit keeps Himself in the background, if we glance at Him, all we see is a bony finger pointing us straight to Jesus.

Jesus said, "The Spirit does not speak of Himself, but takes what is Mine and shows it to you."

Jesus is the Always-Talking of God.

But it is the Father who fills me full. Yet Jesus is never absent. It's really not possible to separate them; there is only One God.

Yet this Jesus who fills us full, this Always-Talking of God, also fills every particle of our beings right now with His other present-day passion - the vindication of God - proving that all that God speaks is true and certain and fulfilled in the earth into which He speaks and in this age.

The vindication of God and the care of the Bride of Christ, these two fires fill us full right now. We have a Tiger as our life, not a kitty-cat.

There is not one concern of God Almighty that does not fill every particle of our being. There is not one concern of God Almighty that He does not intend to reveal through us in its time. God is infinite and we have eternity to reveal Him.

The Kingdom of God is God being Himself through us.

It is the normal Christian life. It is the normal human life.

God is always coming up from beneath of me, embracing into Himself ALL that is me, and carrying ME inside Himself, stumbling and falling with me along my way, He arises into life and ascends on high, and I in Him.

That is God. When I look inside myself, God is. Even when I "feel" far away from Him, depressed and cast down, all that I know is that God is.

I know Him. And in knowing Him, I know that He is meek and lowly of heart. And I know that all I could ever be is just like Him.

And thus the Kingdom of God MUST flow out of me, not as an individual, but as a member of a simple-hearted and quiet people, a people who know their God, a people who are doing and will do exploits.

The Kingdom of God is the fulfillment on this earth of the four most important verses in the Bible through us. Romans 8:29, "God determined from the very beginning that we would be just like Jesus." Ephesians 3:19, "That you might be filled with all the fullness of God." John 7:38 "He who believes in Me, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." And Revelation 12:11 "And they overcame the accuser."

Let me give these four in their larger context.

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified. Romans 8:28-30

That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height - to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. Ephesians 3:17-21

On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. John 7:37-39

Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, "Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. Revelation 12:10-11

The Kingdom of God, in fulfilling these four verses, comes through a specific and definite passageway as found in the following two passages.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. Romans 8:18-23

Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth . . . And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born. She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne. Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there . . . Revelation 12:1-5

I have included the entire text of these six passages, three from Paul and three from John. Let me make it eight with the words of Jesus and the words of Mary (paraphrased) as recorded by both Matthew and Luke.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Look at me, God, I belong to You. 
Let every Word that You speak be fulfilled in all that You mean inside of me.

Why? Because I want you, dear reader, to be caught up in the birthing of the Kingdom of God upon this earth with me.

Here is how that will happen. Allow these words to take up residence inside your heart, not as ideas, not as conjecture, not as doctrine, but as the life of God Himself, Christ inside of you. Immerse yourself in these words, allow them to plant themselves as Spirit words, as Life words, deep inside your heart. Allow these words to grow, grow, grow inside of you. Water them with speaking in tongues, groaning in the Spirit over them. Allow the person of Jesus, the sunlight, to shine upon these words inside of you. Allow these words to draw out of all the depths of your human weakness God's strength made perfect.

The Kingdom of God is God being Himself through you. You are God revealed.

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