23.2 Our Togetherness
The largest concern by far in all the writers of New Testament epistles, was that relationships together as members of one another be filled with God, that is, with Love. The term “righteousness” does not mean – “do you have a sin nature or do you not have a sin nature.” It MEANS – how do you treat your fellow Christians?
In other words, our “being fitted together” is not a side issue, just another “interesting truth” in a Bible filled with many “interesting truths.” Our “being fitted together” is the whole point of everything and the drive and meaning of most every verse. For how can God be known except He have a House in which to dwell, a Body through which to act?
Made for Each Other. Built together, fitted together, knit together, gathered together – all these terms are used, but I want to consider “fitted” and “knit” or “woven.”
A human is a being who is designed to fit together with other specific humans. A human is a being who is designed to be woven or knit together, in the flow of life, with other humans. Just as God fits me and I fit God, so you fit me and I fit you. Where you have a “bump,” I have an indentation. Where your side is shaped in one direction, my side is shaped to counter your direction smoothly, that is, I am different, but perfectly compatible.
My wife and I are made for each other. The local Church and I are made for each other, just the same.
Working Together. In Ephesians 2, Paul is referencing the building of a temple, with every stone perfectly shaped to match the stones placed on each side and above and beneath. Yet the joining of metal gears is also a good picture for us, for metal to be joined in working together, there must be a continual bath of oil flowing over all the parts.
Don Howat and I were very different, yet we worked well together because he was gracious and kind enough to provide the anointing oil that smoothed my roughness. Brian Dwyer and I were also very different, yet, even though we were more compatible than we realized, neither of us had sufficient anointing oil in graciousness to smooth the roughness, and so we “ground metal” quite a bit.
Designed to Fit. We use our experiences of in-part togetherness, however, to make clear that of which we are speaking now, and that is an all-committed togetherness, filled with the graciousness of the Spirit and working as the revelation of Father.
You are designed by God to fit together with other believers in Jesus in ways far beyond your present understanding. You are designed by God to give your commitment to others inside of perfect liberty. You are designed by God to function in life together with others as the revelation of the Father, with the bath of the Devoted Spirit flowing through all. It is your nature, Christ as you, to work together with other believers in Jesus. Yet God also designed you to require real out from your heart, and thus He waits with patience.
Human Interaction. In this lesson, we want to consider exactly how our togetherness reveals the Father, that is, what God obtains for Himself from our togetherness. In the next lesson, we want to consider what we obtain from our togetherness, that is, “Father at Home” among us.
What we are saying is that it is human interaction that reveals an invisible God, enabling all creation to see and know the Father. Some might think that Lesson 17.3 “Human Action” is a “less important” lesson than some others in this text. Yet human “interaction” comes out from human “action,” and human interaction is the practicality of God Revealed. Human interaction is “where the rubber meets the road,” as they say.
Love Your Brother. And so I will bring in the primary points of human action in order to understand human interaction in the same way. Remember that another phrase meaning “human interaction” is “God manifest in the flesh,” and another is “love one another.”
Let’s re-word 1 John 4:20-21 & 5:1 to a positive statement. “He who is conceived out from God loves the Father who conceived him and loves his brother who is also conceived out from God. This one makes his love for God visible to all by his actions coming out from that same love for his brother.” Here is another way to say the same thing. “This is age-unfolding life, to know You, the only true God [Love], and Jesus Christ whom You have sent [conceived out from God].
The Laws of Human Action. ~ The first law of human action is that every single thing that every human does, is done for a purpose, known by the person choosing to do that action. That purpose, then, is always to gain something, to benefit one’s self in some way. ~ The second law of human action is that the choice to do one thing is always a choice NOT to do something else. Every human action is a discrimination against all other possible actions in that moment. ~
Then, all human action takes place inside an environment of scarcity, and the essential question of liberty inside human action is – Who makes the decision? And thus, human action that constitutes liberty comes from a choice made in the absence of pain or coercion.
Re-read that lesson to understand these four points again.
God Humbles Himself. I want to apply those four points to human interaction in order to show exactly how God is seen and known inside creation through our togetherness. But I want to set out a couple of other thoughts first.
Consider Philippians 2. Paul’s main point is the Ekenosis, how an invisible God appears inside creation as a Man, and then, to show what He does as God – He humbles Himself. Yet Paul introduces how God becomes visible with – “Let this same mind be in you.” And Paul introduces the whole topic out from these words. – In lowliness of mind esteem one another as better than yourself in full reciprocity, each considering not just your own things, but also the things of each other. That is – human interaction.
Sharing Choice Together. Yet out from this staggering “be just like God” passage, Paul then places the center issue of symmorphy, the critical question of liberty – WHO makes the decision? Here is another way of saying one of the most incredible statements in the gospel, Philippians 2:13. – God and I share choice together.
God and I make each decision together as one, and we make our decision inside a total absence of compulsion or obligation, violence or the threat of violence. God and I make our decisions together based on what we value most in each moment, and what we value most is that which benefits you, even as you and God value most that which benefits me.
Three Purposes for Rivers. Next, I want to bring into our backdrop the wondrous opening of understanding God is giving us in “Studies in John.” God has three purposes in the present time for the Rivers of living water flowing out of us. Purpose 1 is to bless and to heal in order to place the attention of each person upon the Lord Jesus. Purpose 2 is to teach each individual the full meaning of Jesus Sent into them. And Purpose 3 is that individual believers in Jesus might be built together into a dwelling place for God.
Through the 1970’s, as I shared, Sam Fife placed a people, including myself, into the full experience of Purpose 1 and Purpose 3. Yet it all came to ruin BECAUSE he placed the wrong thing into Purpose 2.
The Missing Ingredient. The “missing ingredient” in all Christian teaching and practice everywhere I look is – knowing the full meaning of Jesus Sent into you. Studies in John develops that full meaning. Instead, Sam Fife placed into the center of human interaction in the move of God communities what he called “the missing ingredient” which was the same old violence of Constantine’s “cross.”
When I wrote the chapter on the true cross inside community in Symmorphy V: Life, I finally understood the reason for the great agony I knew inside through all my years in community. I loved the environment of Holy Spirit power; I loved being built together as God’s House. But I knew that the “violence” placed as the bond between was just all WRONG.
Our Bond of Togetherness. In the end, the bond of our togetherness was an obligation to please a God who will be “displeased” with us unless we “get it right” however “get it right” might be defined in that situation. But here is Paul’s “bond of togetherness.” – Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone and the secret place or bond, inside of Whom the whole building, being fitted together, is increasing…
The word translated “cornerstone” has three distinct meanings, all important. And, of course, Paul means “KNOWING Jesus Sent into you,” Jesus Himself in Person. The cornerstone is placed first, with every other stone coming out from it and being fitted to and by it. Then, Jesus must be known by each in personal intimacy before becoming the BOND that ties every interaction together as one.
Designed for Jesus Sent into You. But a “Jesus faraway” can’t do any of that, and so the violence of Constantine took His place. You were not designed for violence, that is, the tree of right and wrong; you were designed for Jesus Sent into you, that is, the tree of life.
And so John said, in our re-worded verse, that “He who is conceived out from God… loves his brother who is also conceived out from God.” “Conceived out from God” and “Jesus Sent into you” in all that “Jesus Sent into you” is and means, are the same thing, as has become so profoundly clear in Studies in John, specifically the “thread of LIFE” that John wove through his gospel.
Reciprocal Love. One final note before we return to the specifics of human interaction as God-made-visible. The Love that reveals God is NOT “unconditional love.” Yes, there is an unconditional love found in our rule over creation as the authority of God. But that is not the love that shows God as He is.
The Love that reveals God is reciprocal love, a love that flows back and forth between two and among many. The Love that reveals God is a Love that always expects itself in return. You were designed by God specifically for reciprocal love, and there are parts of your human person that you cannot comprehend until you see yourself moving inside a full reciprocal togetherness.
Who Makes the Decision? Here, then, is reciprocal LOVE. – In lowliness of mind esteem one another as better than yourself in full reciprocity, each considering not just your own things, but also the things of each other (Philippians 2). “In lowliness of mind” MEANS – one with the Father, you and the Father making the same choice together for your shared purpose.
We are now ready to spell out the laws and conditions of that human interaction that is God showing Himself through His visible form, our togetherness. We have started with the second condition – Who makes the decision? Let’s place our thoughts, now, into the speaking of Christ as me. The answer is – The Father and I together as one.
Father and I Together. Jesus Sent into me places the Father and me together as one in our desires and in our decisions. Jesus is the bond between Father and me; Jesus is our Hheart shared together.
Because of Jesus in-between, Father and I together know nothing of any separation or of any “violence.” When we perceive violence attempting to place its obligation upon us, we simply walk away quietly. We do not know violence; Father and I cannot be separated. Neither does any thought of placing violence upon another enter our mind.
Father and I together do not owe anything to anyone. We are bound by no vow; we come under no one else’s intent.
The First Law of Human Action. You can see how this way of thinking casts Marxism down into the dust and exposes the “vicar of Christ” as the vicar of the other guy. Consider the overwhelming argument being presented by all powers in every direction in our world today. “If you love your neighbor, then you will receive the mark of the beast, (that is, the injection that will alter your genetic makeup and connect you to the world wide web). And if you refuse to receive the mark of the beast, it’s because you hate your neighbor and are responsible for his death.”
That brings us to the first law of human action, which we will translate into human interaction. Your every choice is made on the basis of obtaining what you value most in a given moment.
The Measure of Value. ALL valuation is personal and perceived. I will pay for something ONLY on the basis of how I value that thing for myself, and not on any other person’s claimed “price.” If I don’t like the item offered or if I don’t like the price, then I walk away, taking my money, my own “value,” with me.
The measure of all value in the universe is the Blood of Jesus. I know my own value by the price God paid me to win me for Himself out from the horrors of my own fake falseness. There is no greater VALUE than Jesus Sent into me, for God placed that name above all other values that could be named. Then I look at you and I see Jesus Sent into you.
Your Friendship. My, oh my, oh my, how you take my breath away, for I do not know of any greater value to me than the Jesus whom the Father sends to me as you. What would I pay to win the treasure that is you? If winning your friendship cost me my life, I would have won something far more valuable to me.
Yet I do not and cannot and would not “own” you, for you and Father together are inviolate. Yet Father and I together are fixated on Jesus Sent to us as you. What a wonder you are; how much we would gain by being fitted together with you. Father and I together have a trick up our sleeve that wins our treasure for us every time. – We humble ourselves.
To Be Loved in Return. Father and I together humble ourselves that we might lift you up, that you might be blessed and honored in all things utterly free from us.
You see, Father and I together have a deep strategy for winning your love, which is of greater consequence to us than the whole world. I love you first, because I want that same love to return back to me from you. I give to you first, because I desire to possess for myself the same giving back to me in return. And why do I desire to possess for myself the same giving back to me in return? It’s because I know that there is no greater expression of my Father than to be fitted together with you.
The Meaning of Scarcity. You see, we live in a world of scarcity. Even with the curse lifted and forgotten and the abundance that is Father poured out everywhere, there is still a quality of God that must be known by one facet of scarcity. As Mr. Incredible’s former fan and now arch-enemy said, “Then everyone will be super, and if everyone is super, then no one will be super.”
There are hundreds of millions of believers in Jesus all across the earth. I cannot possibly know any more than a tiny fraction of the whole. The ministry in the move of God knew personally and carried in their hearts thousands of people, an incredibly high number, but they lived in community with only a small number.
Seventy-Five Expressions of Father. I have placed seventy-five people, + or - twenty-five, as an optimal number of people for a healthy Christian community. It is possible to KNOW one another deeply and intimately inside those numbers. Communities that were 200 to 300 people in size made the individual feel lost in the rush.
But think of that. Here are seventy-five people who are as Jesus to me. Seventy-five people, each one of whom is worth the very life of God represented by the Blood of His Son. Here are seventy-five personal expressions of my Father, seventy-five ways in which my God comes to me to be a part of my life. What are they worth? What would I give that I might gain the return of all the qualities of their lives to be part of my own daily life?
Forsaking All Else. For this reason, a man shall LEAVE his father and his mother and shall be joined to his wife, that the two might become one flesh. The love of Christ in me for each one inside the local church and for our gathering together is a greater committed union than the marriage I share with Maureen. In fact, Maureen and I together would share the treasure of that gathering together.
For me to enjoy the value of your life, your gifts and oddities, your skills and silliness, your ins and outs, your ups and downs, as the greatest treasure I could ever know, I must forsake all others. I must discriminate against all other choices I could have made.
You Are Seeing God. Then, here inside of committed community, I discover that just as I have forsaken all in this world to know your love for me, so you have forsaken all to know my love for you.
As I think of your interests that I might win the treasure of your friendship, so you think of my interests that you might win the treasure of my friendship. As I value your oddities and ways of doing things, so you value my oddities and ways of doing things, not in any pretense, but for absolute real.
I belong inside your belonging and you belong inside my belonging. And if you can see of what I am speaking, then God has won all He ever wanted, for you are seeing God.