11.2 Meek and Lowly of Heart

Take the two lessons, 10.4 “Identity from the Lamb” and 11.1 “Must Come Together,” and place them as what the entirety of this course is about, and the entirety of your life forever. “Identity from the Lamb” is the what and the where, and “Must Come Together” is the why and the how. There are so many things in these two lessons that must be expanded in our understanding, and we will do that through the remainder of this course.

The Ekenosis is a man, Jesus, showing creation God as-He-is through himself as-he-is. The Ekenosis requires a man who is willing to allow God to share his life with him. We are looking at the heart of that man who holds all authority.

The Mercy Seat. Now, the final section of this text will be several chapters on the second Ekenosis, the second incarnation, God as-He-is showing Himself to creation through us as-we-are, that is, through us together. For that reason, we will not teach specifically on the Ekenosis here. Rather, the learner should understand that the heart of authority is the heart that calls God through and into our world.

Consider this verse again. – You shall put the Mercy Seat on top of the Ark, and in the Ark you shall put the Covenant that I will give you. And there I will meet WITH you, and I will speak WITH you from above the Mercy Seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the Ark of the Covenant… (Exodus 25:21-22).

God’s Design of Us. Notice that “you shall” comes first and it comes twice; then, “I will” comes second and it comes three times. YOU shall put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

You (the person at the center) shall put the authority of Mercy upon your human frame, and inside your human frame, in your heart of flesh, you (the personal you) shall write the Covenant that I will give you. And there I will meet with you (energeoing together) and I will fellowship with you from between Keep and Devote, where you belong, seated upon Mercy, seated upon Blood.

Every element of the Lamb Slain and every aspect of God’s design of us fits together, in power, in this central metaphor.

A Contradiction. Consider this extraordinary contradiction. Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart – versus – human ambition, as you have been your whole life and as you have known all other humans.

Let me point out something important to you. You have never loved anyone except yourself your entire life and neither have I. “Let’s just love one another” as voiced by most Christians is arrogant superiority cloaking itself with dishonesty. It’s the way we climb on top of these people among whom we want to appear as “close to God.”

I now understand salvation. Ultimately, Jesus is not saving you from God; He is not saving you from Satan; and He is not saving you from sin.

The Real Rescue. Yes, being saved from sin, from the evil one, and from wrath are all in the picture, but, though necessary, they are peripheral. Jesus has the most difficult task ever given to anyone; He must save you from the most wicked, perverted, and dishonest tyrant you have ever known. Jesus must save you from you.

To rescue you from yourself is impossible, almost, even for Jesus. The truth is, He has yet to be fully successful with anyone. This rescue, in which Jesus seeks to save you from you, is speaking, not about some evil human “nature,” but of your story of self, the story you tell yourself about yourself inside your spirit self-awareness, the salvation of your soul.

Above or Beneath? The biggest problem Jesus faces as He deals with a conniving and deceptive you is your authority to rule, that is, ambition. You want to be “on top.” Even my desire to hear “Well done,” is fueled by my ambition to be “on top,” to be the one of whom everyone says, “Hey, look, Yordy had it right.” Yet the Father is underneath. And so, to be “on top” in one’s made-up story of self, a story we invest so much work into, is to be as far away from Father as one can get, inside of fantasy.

And yet – God’s picture of our rescue from our own cruel and wicked rule begins with – Place My authority (Mercy) upon your human frame. This is why the Lamb Slain begins with – I have been crucified with Christ.

A Miracle Is Needed. Already symmorphosed with His death (Philippians 3).

I often used a line in my earlier writing. – Only the lost know salvation; only the forgiven wash His feet with tears. – If you are a present human, then you ARE locked into a false, perverted, and wicked story of self, wherein you seek, in every subtle way and to everyone else’s hurt, to establish your own rightness. It takes a miracle of God to open your eyes to see the vast extent of HURT and PAIN that your self-rightness has brought to everyone with whom you have ever related. The only ones who actually switch over to Jesus’ life for their own are those who never again want to know the normal but awful fakery of being right and strong in a lying self.

Reciprocal Honesty. My purpose is to get right at the terrible meaning of the cross of Jesus Christ. I can tell someone who desperately prefers Jesus’ rightness above their own in their story of self quite easily. Walking together with anyone means that they will do or say something that is very hurtful to me. When I share that hurt, the one who prefers Jesus’ rightness will express back in Godly sorrow, “Please forgive me, Daniel, I was wrong.” And there will be a full reciprocity of honesty face to face with me and me with that person. But one who is still establishing his or her own self-rightness will avoid an open reciprocity of respect in one way or another.

Caught Between Two. The BIG question, then, is – How then can we be saved? I have lived my whole life caught between two impossibilities. On the one hand I have carried a deep certainty that I WILL give an account of my life to God naked and alone. And on the other hand, I have known only utter failure at pleasing God.

Then Jesus comes to me and says to me, “Daniel, I will let you share My story of self before God if you will let Me share your story of self in all the press of your daily agony. Daniel, when you stand before God to give your account, I will let you present to Him My glory as your own – IF, right now, you let Me call your stupid failures, your stumbling idiocies, your poor treatment of others, to be My own.”

How Can We Be Saved? But Jesus does not stop there in His overwhelming gift of Himself to me. You see, in my past Christian experience, the words “I am crucified with Christ” meant that I “had to die,” which was just one more thing I was no good at doing, ever. And the thing that “had to die” could be best called “ambition.” But a human without ambition is a mindless slave – something inhuman and utterly contrary to God. Actually, it’s something completely untrue, and the Christian who pretends to “want nothing” is still locked into a fake story of self.

How then can we be saved? It is with great care, dear reader, that I have brought you here.

Place Me Upon Yourself. Having been symmorphosed with His death.

Jesus comes to me and He says to me, “Daniel, your ambition is that everyone would know that you are with Me. But My ambition is for others, for My people, that they would know the Father through Me, regardless of all their fakery and lack. I will place your ambition upon Myself, Daniel, if you take My ambition and place it upon all the awfulness of your foolish life.

“IF, right now, you let Me call your stupid failures, your stumbling idiocies, your poor treatment of others, to be My own, and if you, by My faith which I have given you, turn all the mistakes of your daily life into suffering for others, that they might know Me, then you will share all My glory.”

And We Also. And in that moment “sharing fully with Jesus the form of His death” becomes something few have ever known. It becomes – And we also. It means that when I set forth my soul, my story of self in all the agony of 65 years of endless failure, for the sake of others, placing the Mercy Seat that is Jesus upon the entire fabric of my life, that Jesus is, in fact, sharing with me His redemption. I get to be His salvation for others. I get to be Salvation revealed.

God gave me the authority to RULE, and it never enters His mind to remove that authority from me. God never eliminates my ambition. But my ambition will destroy everyone whom I meet for its own pleasure UNLESS – .

Unless. My ambition only destroys – unless I place the ambition of Jesus – NOT upon my “pride,” but upon my humiliation. And, of course, my “pride” becomes part of my humiliation when I see how fake and unreasonable it is. And how do I do that? – As I have taught you. “Father, this awfulness is You, sharing Yourself with me, for You are part of me. Let my humiliation turn out for the sake of others, that they might be blessed and lifted up, even if they never know from whence their blessing comes.”

But why on earth would I do such an extraordinary thing? That’s easy. It’s because I am an ambitious man, and I want to RULE, made just like God. – Now, I say “easy,” but such ambition does cost me everything.

Unimaginable Treasure. The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field (Matthew 13:44).

This “man” can become me only if I first allow him to be Jesus towards me. When I allow Jesus to have sold His life so that He might save me from myself, then He as me sells everything of my present self, now true as His own, to purchase for myself the treasure of His glory. If we share together with His sufferings, so we shall also share together with His glory.

What I have shared in this lesson is the gospel truth.

Meek and Lowly. And so we come back to “meek and lowly of heart.” “Meek,” of course, does not mean timid or powerless. Meek means that I am willing to lose all right now so that I might gain all in glory in the face and presence of God, also right now. And “lowly of heart” means that I place the Heart of God my Father upon all my own ambition, and then I turn our shared Hheart together towards His precious people, deliberately seeing them as better than myself, that they might also be saved from themselves into Jesus.

It costs me everything, for real. Yet I lose nothing, for all that is truly mine returns to me forever. This is the heart of the Man who holds all authority.

The Authority to Rule. Another amazing thing has happened. It turns out that each of these five chapters that I had already penciled in to follow “Being Symmorphic” actually does correspond to each of the five aspects of the human heart and in order.

The AMBITION of the Lord Jesus Christ is the Mercy Seat, the throne of God, the authority to rule all by real love. The commandment of the gospel is that we place that same Lord Jesus upon all that we are, and especially upon all our desire to rule, not as fiction, but in the choices of the moment.

This specific “placing upon” is essential before we can then consider our true work forever, that is, synergeoing with God making all things good, causing all to know the Father.