21.2 Knowing the Ekenosis
© 2018 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
It has never been about us as a bunch of individuals entering into God. It has always been about God entering into His creation through us together. And it is in the Mercy Seat where we – turn around! And it is turning around upon the Mercy Seat that gets us killed – but that’s not until the next lesson.
How do we KNOW God made visible through us together?
I have one point to make in this lesson, but it is a point so knife-point essential, so a matter of life or death, victory or failure, with all the dreams and hopes of God Himself resting upon it, that I intend to drive this one point home in as many ways as I can.
We Did not Know! All through my years in Christian community, God was revealing Himself through our life together at every moment and in every circumstance. God Himself, all through those years, was the Energeia, the Fire working all things in every individual in the communities. God Himself, all through those years, was all the connections taking place among us. We were the image and revelation of Father to creation.
There was one little problem, however: we did not know. WE DID NOT KNOW!!! And so God could pay every price in the book to be what He IS in us, but it did Him no good at all, because we did not know.
We Are at War. Why was it that we did not know?
I feel right now that I am a commander of armies and I am taking you into the greatest WAR ever fought in the history of the universe. WE ARE AT WAR – and we have an enemy.
You might think I have been writing about “Christian Community”; I am writing about the great knife-point of victory arrayed against the concept of defeat as God has cast His story. Others have their role to play in this mighty conflict, but you and I have been granted to give that mighty blow that will shatter the FAKE image of the serpent as the likeness of God.
The Sword-Point. But that is the topic of the next lesson, “Living as the Ekenosis.” In fact, I am just amazed at the power that binds these ten most important verses together, as if they were made for each other; the topic of this lesson – the very sword-point of Victory – will be the recurring theme of the next six sessions.
We are talking about KNOWING Father and KNOWING Jesus Sent. But out from that knowing, then, the sword of our Victory is – our
CONFIDENCE – that God IS.
The False Lens. That is the sword-point of Victory, and I intend, now, to come at that one point from many directions again and again through the remainder of this course. It is BOLDNESS entering in; it is CONFIDENCE going out. For without faith it is impossible to please God.
The charge is leveled against God – if God is real, then why doesn’t He make Himself known? God is always making Himself known; that’s not the problem. The problem is the false lens that makes everyone look for God as He is NOT and thus fail to see Him as He IS. And our task is to shatter that lens of false seeing with the confidence of the real, that is, to shatter “heaven.”
Five Parts of Our Confidence. So, how does the actuality of the Ekenosis, a transcendent God showing Himself, not just as immanent, but as a Being moving in form (the Church) as a part of creation, actually happen for us? How do we ourselves KNOW?
| Jesus Sent as the Energeia energeoing all things in each one - God is a sustaining Fire. |
Confidence |
You and me as we are, weak, real, His strength made perfect only in our weakness. |
| ~~~ Father God as all our connections together - God is love |
~~~ We together, one another, full reciprocity, knowing as we are known. |
Tithemi Psuche. Let’s begin as well as end with confidence. Here is a paraphrase of two parts of our eighth most important verse. There is no greater revelation of God than a Man laying down His life for His friends – by this we KNOW God [among us] a Man setting forth His soul for His friends.
I continue to use both “laid-down life” and “set-forth soul” in the same place primarily because, no matter how much I have written, I have no idea what “tithemi psuche” really means. But I do know this. I KNOW that a man, in his worst moment, reached out to me in my repulsive perversion and drew ME into himself that he might carry me, in my sin and shame, inside himself through a way I could never traverse, all the way through death and into life, now, sharing Hheart with God.
A Personal Confidence. In previous lessons, I talked about commitment. You might think, “That sounds like a big deal.” Yes, it is, and no it’s not. My commitment is sealed and final; it is not something I ever review. My heart belongs to Jesus and Jesus’ heart belongs to me.
But look again at the Heart of the Ekenosis. That CONFIDENCE, that filled with faith-ness, is the center of each of the other four things in that table as well as the very beating by which all four are merged as one. A Man laying down His life for His friends. – And inside of the middle of the throne was a [living] Lamb-slain. – Christ lives in your hearts through faith.
Our confidence us utterly personal and tangible.
Christ as Me. Next, I want to talk about the two things in the top row. In fact, we cannot separate the Energeia of Jesus from our humanity. It’s Christ, but it’s me; it’s me, but it’s Christ. Life for life, soul with soul. Two merged together in all ways as one, sharing sweet communion.
In the last few lessons, I presented you with some “big” things, knowing the power and demonstration of God in the Holiest, inside of Church together as Christ in reciprocity. You might have thought, “This all sounds fantastical, but I don’t know. That’s not really ‘me.’ I’ve never really experienced these things.”
Never, never, does any word from God remove you from being what you ARE, just as God made you, Christ as you.
Going to School. Think about when you first went to school, not knowing how to read. Yet now you read fluently as if it is the simplest thing. We went to school for years and years in order to learn the specifics of the physical realms and the particulars of the human story.
Here’s the thing. We have always lived in heaven, as much a part of heaven as any angel or any dead Christian, and we are made of heavenly substance as much as physical substance. You are as familiar with heavenly things as a child is with sticks and mud – and with the squiggly lines on the book being read to it. Yet because of our blindness, we have had so very little training in heavenly things already known to us.
This is how we should view entering the Holiest together. We are learning God completely natural to us.
Energeia. Here is the absolute of the Ekenosis of God inside of each one of us as we are, weak humans, as God made us to be. The Church, all the gathering together, which is His body, the fullness of Christ [the full meaning that is Christ] filling all in all, Jesus filling with Himself everything in everyone (Ephesians 1:22b-23 – JSV). There are varieties of operations [effects of energeia], but the same God who energeoes all inside of all (1 Corinthians 12:5 – JSV).
Here’s what this really means. The first thing I learn is that Jesus lives as me, Jesus filling with Himself everything inside of me. And the second thing I learn is that this same Jesus lives as you, the very Energia of God who energeoes all inside of you.
I Know a Man. You see, if I did not KNOW that God is meek and lowly of heart, and if I did not KNOW that my human weakness is God’s chosen dwelling place, then I could have no confidence at all. And I KNOW both because I KNOW a Man.
But that’s not yet the Ekenosis. The Ekenosis begins when I see you in your human weakness, as Jesus Himself, the Energeia and Fire of God, the source and the sustainer of YOU in all that you are. But that’s just the beginning of God made visible, that is, God made visible to me. Knowing Jesus Sent is the first part of the Ekenosis, but knowing Father is the primary thing and the purpose of Jesus Sent.
Our Connections Together. And God is Love. That is, God IS all our connections together. But that’s not quite the full Ekenosis of God. The full Ekenosis of God is known as we together KNOW together that God is all our connections together coming out from Jesus as the only Energeia of each one of us and entirely as weak humans, just folks enjoying one another’s company.
Let’s place again our confidence. Moreover, without faith one is incapable of pleasing God; indeed, it behooves the one approaching {everything in the Holiest} to believe that God is and that He becomes the rewarder of those seeking out and requiring of Him (Hebrews 11:6 – JSV).
God Is the Reward. Let’s recast this line. – Believing that God IS means believing that Jesus is the Energeia of each one who belongs to Him, filling ALL that they are in all they find themselves to be with ALL that He is. And believing that God IS the reward means believing that Father Himself, God-Love IS all our connections together.
We believe because we have made the simple decision that God speaks truth to us. We know because we first believe. And then we SEE what we know; we see God as life together. Yet this thing that causes what IS to become seen and known by all is our CONFIDENCE, not as isolated individuals, but that quality of faith-filled-ness in reciprocity together.
No ‘Rapture.’ Next, I must correct another thing that could go out of balance in our thinking. I have presented Christian Community in such a way that someone might think, “Wow, Yordy is saying that until we are ‘raptured’ into this ‘utopia’ we can’t really know Christ.” This is why I have not written in this extensive and detailed way about Christian Community before now. I am writing only to those who KNOW that I am not presenting any such thing.
Jesus has you where He wants you right now, and Jesus does all things well. Not one thing that I have shared about God among us is kept apart from you by any present isolation.
Change Your Seeing. What must change is what we SEE.
The word “repent” is an awful religious word, almost as bad as “predestined.” It is so fun, now, to see that the word that is badly translated into “repent” simply means “change your mind; change the way you think about things, the way you see.” What we will see when God does place us into our place in His Church will be no different than what we see now.
And so I look at every specific individual in my present life, every one who belongs to Jesus, including each member of my natural family, and I SEE Jesus energeoing away inside all that they are as normal and weak humans. I see each one as that Pillar of Fire that is God upon the Mercy Seat.
Seeing by Faith. I now know exactly what God means by “a woman clothed with the sun.” We will look at that inside of Refuge and Outlook – Setting Creation Free together.
Then, I look at every moment, particular, and circumstance of my interaction together with each person in my present daily life, family member or not, and, entirely by faith, I SEE God-Love as the source and the consummation of each interaction. And Church is when we see Jesus-Energeia-Within and God-Love-Among, when we SEE together.
God revealed happens when we KNOW together that God is. But before we can know such a thing together, each of us must KNOW God always among us in every present connection.
The Almighty. Our job is to see God; God’s job is to put it all together. Stand still and SEE the Salvation of God.
But now we want to come at CONFIDENCE from a different angle. God never, never, never inserts Himself into anyone’s life except through faith, through their express permission.
There is a term I use – the Almighty. In doing the JSV for Revelation, I see that an earlier definition I had used for the Greek word pantokratór in my earlier writing (Through Eyes of Fire) was actually from the hyper-Calvinist section of the webpage. “Unrestricted power exercising absolute dominion.” This definition is nonsense – God does not know sin.
The All-Sustaining One. Here is my JSV paraphrase of Revelation 1:8. I am the A and the Z, the source and the completion, says the Lord God, the One who is existing [I am] and who has existed and who is continuously and actively coming, the One who takes hold of all {the word translated “Almighty” could just as well mean “the One who sustains and carries all”}.
The all-sustaining, all-carrying One, this One who is actively coming to us in every continuous moment. Here is our confidence, yes, but now we must place that confidence. And it is the ruling verse of the Bible that always teaches us where everything fits. Consider the rule of Romans 8:28 on the one hand, always balanced perfectly with the rule of Romans 8:30 on the other.
Until a People Believe Together. What I am getting at, first, is this. God will never be seen and known inside His creation apart from our faith that He IS. God is, so what – no one knows that God is until a people believe that He, a God who carries all, is all they are together.
When the Son of man comes, will He find faith in the earth? This is the knife-point on which our Victory and the Desire of our Father hangs.
First, the RULE of Romans 8:28 teaches us that God wants to do everything together with us, with humans who love and know Him, as part of their everyday life. God wants to work together with us, to sing together with us, to laugh together with us, to weep together with us. And it happens when we KNOW.
All Work AND All Rest. But the problem is this, everything I have written about life together in Christian Community is nothing more than a simple, first expansion of Romans 8:28.
And so someone who does not really know God might read all this stuff about life together and think – “Oh, this is all ‘separation,’ this is all human performance. This is all just a foolish man dreaming up another cult.” We never think that way because we also live fully by the RULE of Romans 8:30. The process is already completed; everything is already perfect. God is – just know that He is. And everything I have written about our precious union with Christ is nothing more than a simple first expansion of Romans 8:30.
Being the Mercy Seat Together. And so someone who doesn’t really know God might read all this stuff about union with Christ and think, “Okay, it’s over, there’s nothing else. Let’s just live whatever, who cares; it’s all Christ anyway. All is one; no need for fellowship, no need for each other.” And thus they break Father’s heart. We never think that way because we also live fully by the RULE of Romans 8:28 – God is all about working together.
It’s all about the Mercy Seat, about being that Mercy Seat together.
And do you know what God calls that moment when, in absolute CONFIDENCE we see God-Love as all our connections together? – The First Day of Tabernacles, God filling His House, God now made visible.