8.2 Our Connection with God

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 Testimony, about everything which I will give you… (Exodus 25:22).

We come with bold speaking to the throne of grace and favor, that we might receive mercy and the timely assistance of God’s enabling presence. – Through two unchangeable deeds [spoken word and sworn oath], in which it is impossible for God to lie, we possess STRONG encouragement… as an anchor of the soul [of the story we tell ourselves about ourselves], both certain and firm… entering into that Holy of Holies within the veil… (Hebrews 4:16 & 6:18-20).
Yet we do not remain “in front of” the Mercy Seat.

The Throne of God. The one presently and actively overcoming, I will give him to sit with Me inside My throne, just exactly as I also overcame, and sat down with My Father inside His throne (Revelation 3:21). The Throne of God is the Mercy Seat upon the Ark of the Covenant inside of the Holy of Holies. The Mercy Seat is the Throne of God.

In that day you shall KNOW that I am inside of the Father and you inside of Me and I inside of you (John 14:20). – And she brought forth a male, a son, who is about to shepherd all the nations with a rod of iron, and her child was seized into God and into His throne (Revelation 13:5). To live seized into God is the normal Christian life.

Anchor of the Soul. To speak boldly, “I am seized into God and into His throne,” and to live in the consciousness that this is my only reality, is to eat of Jesus, to drink of His cup and eat of His bread. To say, in all waffling back and forth, “That can’t be talking about me,” is to eat of the table of demons. Yet, when we say, “God,” we do not mean the arrogant being most people imagine when they hear that word, but rather our Father, meek and lowly of Heart, and we inside of Jesus safe inside of God.

Now, my purpose in this lesson is to place the meaning of the words of Hebrews, “an anchor of the SOUL,” into this flow of understanding of what we are as humans.

A Blood Covenant. Before we can arrive at what is the anchor of our soul, our continuous story of self, however, we must expand on our knowing of Jesus as our All-Connection with God. Not one thing can be said about us in our humanity, and not one thing can be said about God in His divinity, that is not Jesus as the All-Connection, causing Father and us to share all together. A Blood Covenant is a merging of all.

I love the term, “two as one,” for as we have seen, “oneness,” that is, collectivism, erases the distinct person that is myself and the distinct Person that is my Father, and makes us both into an indistinct blob and leaves me all by myself. In complete contrast, the term, “two as one,” which is God’s wording, is pure and holy and good.

The Mercy Seat. Yet the most wonderful thing is that Jesus, even as He serves forever as this Blood Covenant causing God and me to be one, yet He also remains distinct as His own Person, my Savior and my Friend.

The picture God wants us to have is the Mercy Seat upon the Ark of the Covenant, sprinkled with Blood, and to see ourselves seated there, tucked utterly into God inside of Christ. And we know, seized into God and into His throne, that we are turned around. That means that all things are finished, and now we are all that God intends through us into our world. More than that, seated here, we know that such copious amounts of Word that is God through Jesus is flowing out from that Pillar of Fire and into all the fabric of our souls.

The Love of Christ. To know even more the surpassing, beyond-all knowledge of the love of Christ, that you might be filled unto and with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:19).

At this point of time, the amount of and meaning of and impact of “all the fullness of God” that we have considered filling us full to overflowing, is so tiny and so limited, that we have hardly begun. You and I might be overwhelmed with the meaning of God inside our souls that He is giving us now, but we rest assured that we “ain’t seen nothing yet.” And this God, filling our human consciousness with Himself as infinite Word, connects with us through the LOVE of Christ.

All of God. All of God is never too much for us, never, for we rest utterly inside our Friend, whom we know intimately and deeply, that He knows exactly how to keep us safe inside this overwhelming God, and that He is very good at His job. Yet, even though God overwhelms us forever, He is always GOOD and always TRUE.

This is what I am hearing as I write this series. “Rest utterly in all Goodness; rest utterly in all Trueness.” And thus Jesus, already the authority of God in the universe, is the ANCHOR of our self-consciousness, the bottom hold of all the words of our self-story. But let’s continue with our picture of sitting here inside of God.

Inside of God. We might be sitting here inside of God, inside of His throne, the Mercy Seat, in complete and utter REST, but this is no passive place, for all the Energeia that is God is flowing through us, through our souls and into our world. Our words, the words that we speak, are filled with and carried by the Energeia that is God, and they flow out from us inside of Rivers of Spirit, carrying the effect of God-Life upon all things.

And he said to me, “What do you see?” So I said, “I am looking, and there is a lampstand of solid gold with a bowl on top of it, and on the stand seven lamps with seven pipes to the seven lamps. Two olive trees are by it, one at the right of the bowl and the other at its left” (Zechariah 4:2-3).

The Normal Life of Firstfruits. And I further answered and said to him, “What are these two olive branches that drip into the receptacles of the two gold pipes from which the golden oil drains?” Then he answered me and said, “Do you not know what these are?” And I said, “No, my lord.” So he said, “These are the two anointed ones, who stand beside the Lord of the whole earth” (Zechariah 4:12-14).

Those who adhere to the arrogant “Christ,” see a word like this as speaking of something “elite,” even super-human. But Jesus said that the least little one inside of Him is greater than anything found in the Old Testament. Zechariah was seeing the normal human life of God’s firstfruits, yet he could hardly understand what he saw.

The Least Believer in Jesus. Zechariah is another of those Old Testament prophets who, like Ezekiel, saw things in very strange pictures. Yet we know that Bible visions are meant to be “interpreted,” and that the ruling verses of the gospel define all such interpretation. – He who believes into me (the least believer in Jesus), out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

Zechariah’s vision and Jesus’ words are two pictures of the same reality. Yet I hope to impart the meaning of that reality to you in terms of my own soul, and conversely, yours. God means to add this picture to our understanding of our human selves, seated here upon the Mercy Seat of God, the entrance of God All-Carrying into our world.

Little Drips of Oil. The oldest olive tree today is on the island of Crete. This tree was producing olives when Jesus walked this earth and it has produced olives every year since. I am seated here inside of God as an olive tree. Up through my roots in the earth, down through my branches in the heavens, I draw all the Spirit Word that is my God flowing overwhelmingly into me.

Yet this Spirit Word that is God, as Paul said, resides in my heart and in my mouth, and I speak that same word. And God does not go forth from me into my world as floods, but, in this picture, as drips of oil, living Spirit Word, that flows out from me in a measure that can be received by others.

The Flow of Oil. This flow of oil that is God through us, through the confidence of our faith, transforms the entire world, causing all of its inhabitants to see and to know GOOD and TRUE. This is our purpose as God’s firstfruits, seized, here, into God and into His throne. And this is how I see myself, not in my head, but in my heart mind, in the overshadowing of my spirit over my heart.

As I contemplate the meaning of all the fullness of God coming through me into my world, I hear, as I have not heard ever before, “Rest in My GOOD; rest in My TRUE.” And these words sit there, at the bottom of my soul, of all my human self-consciousness, as an ANCHOR holding in place all the pathways for my human thoughts.

The Ark of the Covenant. This lesson, however, is about Jesus as our All-Connection with God. Yet we must see God through us in order to place that Bond that continuously enables this mighty Symmorphy of God and me sharing the same form. Every part of the Ark of the Covenant inside the Energeia of God Here and Now shows us Jesus as the fabric of this Bond.

The anchor of everything is the Covenant itself, Jesus in Person, written upon my heart as every Word God speaks. I am never troubled by the overwhelming volumes of God-speaking, for it is Jesus that is all of that and He is written all through my human heart of FLESH. This Covenant Jesus is the beating heart of my humanity, covered with God inside and out.

Inside the Ark. Yet Jesus is more than every Word God speaks, for He is also my own personal “hidden” manna, that special Word that is meant by God for me alone. And Jesus is the confidence of resurrection life, as Aaron’s rod that budded after lying all night long inside of God. You see, the gospel terms all of this as “hope,” that is, what we do not yet see outwardly, until that moment when our bodies are swallowed up by life.

When we say, “God, You will not give me LIFE unless You give LIFE as well to all my brothers and sisters,” we know that this Life and our certainty is also the Lord Jesus, this One upon whose breast we lean our heads. Jesus connects us with God on the inside and on the outside.

Upon the Mercy Seat. Then it is Jesus who is the Blood upon which we sit, sprinkled here upon the Mercy Seat of our hearts, the One who having crafted through Himself the full cleansing away of all falling short, sat down inside the right hand of exalted Majesty (Hebrews 1:3). Again, this full cleansing away is the Blood upon the throne where we sit.

And it is Jesus who speaks through the two cherubim who steady our arms – God, KEEP THEM. God, Make them Holy, make them Devoted to You. And it is Jesus who is the tip-point inside of us of the Energeia that is that Pillar of Fire that is God entering into us.

The Faith of the Son of God. I am sitting here thinking that this picture of being seated upon the Mercy Seat provides nothing, actually, for our backs. What is it about Jesus that has our backs?

As I have come to know my own soul as and by this picture God has given us, to KNOW ourselves as humans, I am realizing a trust in a God who remains INVISIBLE forever. And then I know that it is FAITH that has our backs, and that faith is also Jesus, the faith of the Son of God. Jesus, whom I know, is my Faith in an invisible God who is all my backsides, for I am tucked utterly into God. I am seized into God and into His throne. It is Jesus who does this every moment.

Fellowship as Anchor. To some extent, the speaking of Christ our life has been in the seeing of our minds, transforming our thinking by glory. Yet what is happening now is that there is a seeing inside the depths of our hearts that KNOWS beyond-all, that Jesus as LOVE causes me, the human me, my human soul, to be filled with all the fullness of God. And this God is moving out from me into my world everywhere I go through this same Jesus as Love.

In the next lesson, we will start with Jesus as my Connection with myself, then with everything and everyone else. But first, take the meaning of your humanity from the last chapter, FELLOWSHIP with Father through Jesus, and place it with everything in this lesson, the ANCHOR down deep inside the depths of your soul.