26.3 Know God's Knowing of Us
© 2018 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
In that day you shall know [He calls his own sheep by name] that I am in the Father and you in Me and I in you. – Abide in Me and I in you [Put on the Lord Jesus Christ]. – And this is age-unfolding life, that they may know You [Father], the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent (John 14:20 {with John 10:3} & 15:4a {with Romans 13:14} & 17:3).
I shall know just as I also am known (1 Corinthians 13:12b). Or we could say – I shall know God’s knowing of me.
I want to include portions of Psalm 139, but we are reading David’s words in an entirely new light. David undoubtedly saw more than most Christians read in his words, but, at the same time, David knew God only in part, as Paul also said concerning himself.
Psalms 139. Now, I am not acquainted with Hebrew, a more difficult language than Greek, but I want to include a few slight alterations from looking up the meaning of David’s words at biblehub.com. Consider as well as the meaning of “know” as from God’s own Story of Himself, not as “know about.”
O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought for a long distance. You send forth my path and my lying down, and are benefitted in all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O Lord, You know it all [already]. You have hedged me behind and before, and set Your hand upon me {Christ put upon me}. Such knowing [of me] is wonderful to me; it is incomprehensively high.
Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? …Even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me [as Your own possession].
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and distinctly made {the two words denote coming out of the action of God}; Your works [Your energeoing as me] marvel; my soul knows abundance [too-muchness]. My frame {all the structure that is me in You} was not hidden from You, when I was accomplished [completed] in secret {same word as Psalm 91, In the secret place of the Most High}, and woven together in the lowest land on the earth {the Jordan – He humbled Himself}. Your eyes saw my substance [as an embryo}, and all that I am is written in Your book [Your Pro-Knowing], my days [my unfolding] fashioned for me, before I am in them {before my days exist in time and appearance}.
How precious also are Your thoughts [of me], O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them [relate, tell – speak them as my own story], they would be more in number than the sand; when I watch, I continue with You.
Search me, O God, and know my heart [my inner man] {Christ as me – Your words written upon my heart}; examine me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any idol way {false story – unbelief} in me, and lead me in the Way unfolding forever.
Knowing God. It is clear that the Old Testament is far more filled with light and glory than the shadow that has also been cast upon it by unbelief. David knew Christ; he knew God’s knowing of him. – Know God’s knowing of us.
I don’t think I have ever considered any words more profound and beyond all wonder. They are found in the same incredible heights as these words, “I have found Me a man after My own heart.” These five men, Moses, David, Isaiah, Paul, and John, KNEW God beyond what anyone has ever realized. And beyond all wonder, God is edging us into that same knowing of God as well.
I think I now know what “LIFE” is. Life is the unfolding of God’s own Story of Himself as us together through our confidence that He IS.
A Spirit Experience. To KNOW God’s knowing of us is a Spirit experience; it is not something I can convey to you with logical explanation. One could even say that Jesus Sent is God’s knowing of us, and thus to KNOW Jesus Sent is to know God’s knowing of us. Yet we are speaking of the materials God is using to construct His house according to the pattern, that is, you and me inside of Jesus and Jesus inside of us.
How wonderful we are. We have never known ourselves. Yet, amazingly, such knowledge does not lead to arrogance, for we exist only inside the thoughts of a God who is meek and lowly of Heart and who sees all others as better than Himself. And as we discover ourselves, so we can never look upon each other as we once did.
Actions. The words “fearfully and distinctly made” are problematic in the Hebrew, because the word “made” is not there and the two words are action verbs. But I cannot see how to write them into English verbs any more than the regular translators. But we can understand them as existing inside the active energeoing of God, that is, that we are constantly being generated as living beings distinct from one another inside the fear of God, that is, inside of Fire. God is a big deal; He is not some pipsqueak grandpa whose cheeks we could tweak. Yet that Fire generating us every moment is Love and we live in certainty inside that love.
Places in God. I want to share two visions from Annie Schissler that portray God’s thoughts. As you read these visions, understand that they are visions requiring a certain measure of interpretation. That means, primarily, that we do not think of God as defined either by space or time. When we say, “Places in God,” we are not speaking of geography, for all of God is all here now. And when we say, “brought forth,” we are not speaking of an event in God that happened “a long time ago,” but rather of the generation of that which is always all here now.
Nonetheless, these visions give us a sense of what and where we ARE, right now, inside of God. Annie is giving us a brief human view of the Pro-Knowing that is God.
The Place of His Thoughts
Today the Lord took me directly up into a new place in Himself - a place of His thoughts which was revolutionary, conclusive, and extremely violent and stormy; though it was neither the stormy violence of love nor of wrath. In this place, countless numbers of His thoughts were coursing, each one along its own path. The fact that most impressed me was that somehow, these thoughts were revolutionary in character, but I did not know why they were. The measureless multitude of thoughts in this place was very final and could not be changed in any way. Their violent coursing reminded me of a great traffic circle at the peak of the turbulent evening rush hour; but here there were no disorders nor collisions, all His thoughts moved in perfect and exact order, and were completely under control, moved by the greatness of His power.
God’s Perfect Memory
In prayer, I saw another place within the Cloud where His thoughts are operating - a place vastly different from the Place of His Thoughts of a revolutionary nature. It appeared like the very heart of the memory of God, where His thoughts already thought, His words already spoken, and His purposes already purposed, are all held. It was similar to a great archive or memory bank; but not an inactive file of stored and quiescent memories, such as we would envision. To the contrary, it seemed as though each thought of God, once brought forth, could never cease nor be laid aside. Each one of these multitudinous thoughts was maintained in constant activity, ever scrutinized and always active. None was ever forgotten or ceased to be, nor were they laid aside, covered or hidden away. They never had to be called forth as from a memory bank, for they were always in the active state of being called forth continually.
In this place of His myriads of thoughts, although there was ceaseless activity, yet everything moved in such harmony and complete order, that it's incomparable perfection amazed and frightened me. As I watched, I realized that God could never forget even the smallest detail, the briefest thought or the simplest word. In this place so filled with light and knowledge, not even an insignificant detail could ever be lost or go astray in the complicated maze of His thoughts concerning His people. Not one word, or inflection of a word concerning His own ones could ever fade, be forgotten or fail to remain ever before Him.
In God’s Present Perception. Consider that last line. “Not one word, or inflection of a word concerning His own ones could ever fade, be forgotten or fail to remain ever before Him.” We interpret the words “before Him,” not as spatial words, but rather as a mental reality, that every thought of God that we are forever is known in God’s present, all-here-now perception.
Now, go back through David’s words, and then Annie’s visions, and then David’s words again. They are speaking of the same thing, but from two different viewpoints. They are speaking of you and me existing inside of God. Use the word “place” as it refers to God’s all-here-now-ness, to mean a “place” in which all of God’s knowing of you exists.
John 14:20. I want to bring in another of Annie’s visions, similar to the two above. But as you read them think of those two action verbs David used to describe God’s generation of us – fearfully and distinctly made. At the same time, think entirely of John 14:20.
Here is my comment alongside of Annie’s vision. “This place of the generation of life cannot be anything other than the Lord Jesus, sustaining all things by the Word of His power, that is, for us, John 14:20. You see, we must know a word such as John 14:20, you in Me and I in you, not as a "quaint Bible idea," but as Annie sees John 14:20 here, a greater power than all the power of creation.”
The Birthplace of Life
As He brought me into His presence, l found myself in the vortex of a bottomless abyss - a deep of which there was no end, an infinity in which my finite atom was entrapped. Captured by the pure joy of that glorious, eternal and endless deep, I never wanted to leave. And, in spite of the total silence of this place, there was no feeling whatsoever of abandonment; to the contrary, I was completely at rest there and felt no fear.
From the depths of this vortex I was forcibly impelled into another place which is very difficult to define. I heard strange noises unlike any sounds or voices heard before in the heavenly spheres. They were the sounds and voices of creation itself and of the beginnings of all things - the sounds of life in the concentrated energies of its beginnings. This place seemed to be the very center of the generation of life, where all things begin and where nothing ever ends that has begun. Within this place were violences far fiercer than the violence in any sun or star, and constant explosions of life that was pure, holy, strong, penetrating and filled with a light radiance beyond measure. It was like the center of a cosmic storm of gigantic proportions; nevertheless, this was a storm of life – tangible, radiant, creative and eternal life - where death is as absent as darkness is absent in the presence of blazing light.
Filled with violence and glorious turbulence, it throbbed with harmonic energies that were ever forming new life in this birthplace of life; it seemed like a vast generator of all life forces, forces that never cease. Life produced in this place could in no way die, for it was eternal.
The “Me” and the “I.” Again, as you read this last vision, think ONLY in terms of “Know that I am in the Father and you in Me and I in you.” You are reading, in this vision, the “ME” in which we live and the “I” who lives in us.
Now, let’s take this word “place” a bit further. When I look at you, inside the Community of Christ, that is, the Church, I am seeing this very “place” inside of which God is generating all that you are, the generation of life. I am looking at a fearful and distinctive PLACE of God, that is, at you. As you read through “A Birthplace of Life” again, see everything Annie sees as happening right now inside of you, for you are this place.
Falling on My Face. The thing is, as extraordinary and mind-blowing as Annie’s visions make the simple verses of the New Testament, we are looking at nothing more than Jesus’ words. Whatever you do to the least of these My brethren, you are doing it to Me.
The only thing that prevents me from falling on my face before you, dear reader, and crying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord,” is that same Jesus inside of you, lifting me up and gently reminding me to worship Father only. You are fearfully and distinctly generated inside the God who fills you with all that He is.
Yet we are talking about nothing more than brothers and sisters in the Church, the materials of God’s House.
As We Know One Another. Now, I want you to take all this glory and wonder you have just read, both from David and from Annie, and see it all as the materials of God’s house. See it all as brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, children and old folks, walking through life together daily, loving one another with a pure heart fervently.
Glorious power AND family ARE the same thing. Both are describing God in His House.
As we know God’s knowing of us, all of God’s thoughts concerning us, generating us as life inside of us, so we know one another. And as we know one another, so we know ourselves.