10.2 Our Fatal Flaw

What is the human heart? It’s been awhile since I have asked this question directly. Here is Jeremiah’s accurate description of the human heart empty of the knowledge of God. – The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9). This is what Adam chose with his eyes wide open.

Yet if the human heart can be this awful, as Paul said, the source of the river of sin and death cursing all God’s creation, what is it in the first place, as it is meant to contain all the fullness of God All-Carrying? What IS our human heart?

Humans Are Different. I will not attempt an answer to that question until the next lesson; rather, we place it now in the center of our discussion so that everything can circle around it. Yet we do know that this sharing of Heart with heart is called “Fellowship/Communion.” And we do know that it is the center of the Ekenosis, meek and lowly of heart.

God could create animals without any “fatal flaw” in them. God could create angels without any “fatal flaw” in them. The serpent did not fall because of a fatal flaw inside himself, but rather, because he attached himself to Adam’s heart. It was Adam who subdued the serpent into lying and murder. But it was impossible for God to bring forth a human, in His purposes for the human, without the human being fatally flawed.

Knowing Ourselves. God, by His nature, cannot sin. It never enters God’s mind to force His knowledge into anyone. Man, by his symmorphic design, cannot know himself apart from Fellowship with Father through Jesus. Fellowship is of the human SOUL, 100% and absolutely FREE.

God made you to be filled with Himself in all knowing AND He made you completely free of Himself. You are completely FREE to forge your own story of self, your own identity, without any regard to God and apart from any Fellowship with Him. But you are NOT free to cease being symmorphic; you cannot become an animal.

Anointed by Demons. Here is a law of human psychology. – The more humans try so very hard to be animals, the more demonic they become. Humans are symmorphic. To reject a self-identity coming out from Fellowship is to embrace a self-identity anointed by angels who are made evil by the very practice.

And you, being once dead in your own falling short and your own missing the mark, in which you formerly walked according to the cosmos of this age, according to the sources and influences of the authority of the air, the spirit now energeoing inside the sons of willful unbelief, that is, the sons of refusal, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the desires of the flesh, doing the wishes of the flesh and of its thinking; and were by nature children of angry opposition, just as the others (Ephesians 2:1-3).

Filled with Conflict. “The spirit now energeoing inside the sons of refusal” is speaking of the unclean spirits of darkness. Defining human identity, then, the story we tell ourselves about ourselves, is central to any definition of symmorphy and of being symmorphic.

Animals are content in themselves and go through whatever life throws at them without any thought otherwise. They possess no conflicting story of self, no contention inside themselves. Angels are content in themselves and go through whatever life throws at them without any thought otherwise. They possess no conflicting story of self, no contention inside themselves.

Humans are not so. Humans are filled with conflict.

An Action of Equality. ‘Passive acceptance’ of ‘fate’ is for animals. ‘Passive acceptance’ of ‘fate’ is for angels. ‘Passive acceptance’ of ‘fate’ is NOT human.

The Mercy Seat is gold first, that is, God’s Heart, beaten into shape by the beating of little hammers until His Heart FITS ours. And the Mercy Seat is our heart in response, beaten into the shape of God’s Heart through many afflictions. Sharing Hheart with God is a fundamental action of equality. Sharing Hheart with God is full reciprocity; it is the most impossible thing ever thought up by God. A human sharing Hheart with God is something only Jesus can pull off by His mighty ability.

Forging Identity. But sharing heart with demons is the work of wicked humans. Demons do not “possess” humans; it’s quite the other way around. The forging of a personal self-identity is the work of a life-time, although it’s basic patterns are set early in a child’s life.

In the next lesson, we will look at how we formed our human self-identity from the moment of our conception. And this is the fundamental place of human freedom and respect, that no one else, not God, not demons, not other humans, not bullies – NO ONE else has any power over the formation of human identity inside the individual soul. This is a task belonging only to each individual person.

Our Symmorphic Nature. In this lesson, then, we want to continue to understand how our symmorphic nature becomes our “fatal” flaw.

Nothing in the design of our humanity makes us more the likeness of God than our symmorphic nature, that is, designed to contain and to reveal another Person and to be inside of and to express one’s self through another Person. It is this very design, then, that places us, as Jesus said, into the center of the wondrous Fellowship taking place between Father and Son as equal members of that Fellowship. Yet this Fellowship that is meant to be the anchor of the human identity we forge concerning ourselves can begin ONLY with the entrance of the Lord Jesus Christ into our hearts.

You May Freely Eat. For Adam, the act of eating of the Tree of Life was symbolic of his receiving Jesus into his heart to become his life and joy. And to paraphrase God’s words to Adam, “Of the tree of life you may freely eat.” “You may freely eat” is our fatal flaw.

Now understand, God made us weak as humans, as the perfect counterpart to His mighty strength. What we call “our human weakness” is GOOD and entirely of God, for God shares all of it with us. This “fatal flaw” is something quite different. Human weakness and human foolishness did not kill us; human so-called “strength” and human so-called “wisdom” did.

Each Man’s Pleasure. Here is an expression of an absolute law inside of God. – The king made a feast lasting seven days for all the people who were present in Shushan the citadel, from great to small, in the court of the garden of the king’s palace… And they served drinks in golden vessels, each vessel being different from the other, with royal wine in abundance, according to the generosity of the king. In accordance with the law, the drinking was not compulsory; for so the king had ordered all the officers of his household, that they should do according to each man’s pleasure (Esther 1:5-8).

Eating and drinking of Christ, that is, forming one’s self-identity by the words that are Jesus, is never compulsory, but limited and directed by each believer’s pleasure.

What Do You Want? The central issue of heart is desire – What do you want?

Consider the desire of God by which you were conceived. – Out from His own desire, He gave birth to us by the Word of truth. The expression of desire found in human sexual release is a tiny but specific mirror image of the expression of Desire found inside of God as He sends His Word into us. But desire is relative. Which desire is greater in God? Is it the expression of desire that is released when He sends His Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, into the world? Or is it, rather, the wondrous experience of that same Son, sitting down inside His right hand, having been proven faithful and true by fulfilling all that God means by what He speaks?

Which Is Greater? As I consider my own children, I look from the joyous release of love by which they were procreated to all four of them seated with Jesus proven faithful and true, sharing Hheart with God. Which is greater? A few seconds of physical pleasure or ages to come of knowing that Kyle, Johanna, Katrina, and James are mighty in God, as love poured out, as the sending of rivers of Spirit into the lives of so many?

Yet here is the perversion of the human. – Millions of men prefer the brief physical sensation, over and over, and give NO thought to the immense value and reward of knowing sons and daughters as the Lord Jesus, proven faithful and true. – What do you want?

Out from Jesus. This is age-unfolding life, to know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent (John 17:3). – Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and – do not create a self-identity apart from Him (Romans 13:14 – partly paraphrased).

Our human identity, the story we tell ourselves about ourselves, is meant by God to develop out from the Lord Jesus Christ living inside our hearts as the connection of Fellowship between each one of us and God our Father. Inside this task given freely to us, of forging our own self-identity, then, we are invited to eat of every Word God speaks concerning us, as much or as little as we wish. BUT – we are also freely capable of creating a self-identity, entirely in our imagination, with no connection to Jesus at all.

Free of God. Every single individual human lives and moves and has their being inside of God, inside of GOOD and inside of TRUE, with no actual connection to anything else. Every single human is brought forth, carried, and sustained every moment by the good speaking of Jesus in power.

No human exists separate from these absolute dynamics, yet every human is free, inside all GOOD and all TRUE, to spin a fantasy story of twisted perversion. All humans are free of God; it never enters God’s mind to force His Word into any human soul. If you want to be formed by Word, you must eat of that Word yourself. You must make it your own.

Pointless in Their Thinking. Indeed, the anger of God is unveiled from heaven upon all disrespect and injustice of men suppressing the truth inside of injustice. Because the knowing of God is made visible among them, God indeed has made it visible to them. Indeed, His invisible qualities of unending power and divine Personhood are clearly perceived from the creation of the cosmos, being understood by the things made, so that they are without excuse. For having known God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but they became pointless in their thinking {a false story of self}, and their non-comprehending heart was darkened, asserting themselves to be wise, they became foolish. And they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God {which they were} for the likeness and image of dying man… and creeping things (Romans 1:18-23 – rough JSV).

Any Self-Story You Want. And what is the root of man’s fatal flaw? Very simple – Neither were thankful.

Because we are symmorphic, the absence of the knowledge of God means the presence of the anointing of demons. Nonetheless, no demon has ever taken away from any human the power of their own self-story. The proof of that is the story of the Gadarene whose voice was given to the demons, but whose feet remained his own – taking him to Jesus.

Each individual human, then, asserting him or herself to be wise, freely builds any self-story they want out of words that belong to God in the first place, but which are now twisted and turned in false directions, a pointless and dark travesty.