21.3 Creating with God
Is creating something new out from word never before spoken part of our human design?
Here’s the thing. My human life is a life I share with God my Father. God’s life is a life He freely shares with me. Let’s consider a word already spoken. – That you might be filled with all the fulness of God. We speak this word concerning ourselves and the truth of it grows slowly, yes, but ever more deeply and more real.
Being filled with all the fulness of God, however, is nothing new. It is a word already spoken and thus established in full inside the human experience. It is already part of the fabric of our human design.
Speaking What Has Been. Then consider that Jesus, though He is the Word through which all the fantastically complex universe of heaven-earth comes into being and is sustained every moment, nonetheless, during His visible earthly ministry, He spoke nothing new into people’s experience. Every miracle of Jesus was simply a restoration of things already formed. Jesus did not add anything to the natural order.
Paul, on the other hand, took seemingly insignificant word he found in the Old Testament, and pressed that word into meanings never before known. Yet what Paul did was simply transfer word already spoken to us as filled with Jesus. For instance, God’s law written on tablets of stone Paul transferred as Christ written upon our hearts.
Way More Not Yet Spoken. But then consider these verses. – This One who is continuously giving life to the dead and calling into existence things not existing (Romans 4:17). – Now to the One who is able above all to do hyper-abundantly more than we ask or think, according to the power energeoing inside of us (Ephesians 3:20).
Everything that exists in both the physical and the spiritual realms comes out from Word inside of God that is spoken by Jesus. Everything that exists can be studied and known by us. Let’s paraphrase. – Everything that comes into existence is called out from God’s Pro-Knowing. – There is hyper-abundantly more Word in God than has ever been called forth, word we have never known or imagined.
Your Tomorrow. Yet consider this – your tomorrow is a word inside of God that has never yet been spoken by Jesus. As you wake up in the morning, your day is brand new; it is exthesis. Our every new day is a greater miracle than anything Jesus did in the gospels. Think of the possibilities beyond imagination.
More than that, Jesus does not “rule” you; rather you and He share form together. You yield to Him even as He yields to you. We walk together with Jesus, the One through whose voice all things come into existence. His Word is in our mouth. The next word out from God, never before spoken, becoming your next step in the day, comes out from your own heart and mouth as the Lord Jesus sharing all with you.
A heart for the sake of others rather than for self-gain opens all self-blessing, the very windows of heaven.
Creating Worlds. One of the things I like about Star Wars is all the invented creatures they have imagined. I was twelve when the idea of an entire invented world, Middle Earth, entered into my understanding as something a human loves to do.
You see, J.R.R. Tolkien was a linguist, and it was new languages that he invented. But he realized that no language can exist unless it is spoken out from real living experience over long periods of time. All words are spoken inside of a context and all words carry purpose and life inside of them. Tolkien invented Middle Earth in order to give such a context and purpose to the languages he created.
Out from Language. You can learn the two elvish languages that Tolkien invented and you can converse in everything needful with another person who also speaks that language. Yet in using those words to think and to relate together, you are tying yourself into an entire history out from which those words came. The meanings of Tolkien’s languages come out from the world he created to give them story and person, purpose and context.
I am not promoting “fantasy.” In fact, most modern “fantasy stories” descend into incredible wickedness, that is, the created worlds allow the authors to include wickedness as part of nature. What we are doing is asking – what is a world that has never before been spoken that comes out from God’s thoughts?
Innumerable Life Forms. We have enough word already spoken to turn the present earth into paradise. Just read through The Jesus Secret II and you will see what I mean. The words of the Bible are already a generation of infinite life. Yet all of them are found only inside this present heaven-earth that we are now calling our Jerusalem.
Inside our present heaven-earth, there are so many differing life forms beyond count. If God is so prolific in creating differing life forms inside this one tiny place, why would we imagine that there is not ever more varieties of life forms yet inside of His thinking. What if God breathed a heaven upon Mars? What new kinds of life forms could populate an entire other world?
Thinking of Exthesis. God gave me a large and relentless imagination. When I was younger, I created in my mind and on paper many different fantasy worlds. I dreamed of God giving me planets to form and to guide the life forms that would be generated there. I drew many maps. Part of why I did that was to fill the empty hole inside. Part of why I no longer do that is because I am filled with a God who shares my life with me; that is, I am filled with joy.
My purpose thus far is to place before us the thought of exthesis, that is, of bringing forth new out from word never before spoken. Word already spoken tells me that whatever I might imagine, God is hyper-abundantly more.
Our Jerusalem. Yet I made a statement just above that turns my thoughts in the direction of my heart, and my heart is not right now engaged with forming new planets on the other side of the galaxy. Here is what I said. – The words of the Bible are already a generation of infinite life… inside our Jerusalem.
The place where my heart dwells is the shaping of life inside this present heaven-earth through the Age of Tabernacles. Jerusalem – Jerusalem, the House and Dwelling Place of God.
There may well be exthesis coming into this heaven-earth, our Jerusalem, through God and us together before the completion of the Age of Tabernacles, but I want to spend the rest of this lesson on our synthesizing with God to shape this present world by Word already spoken.
Word inside Jerusalem. The Jesus Secret II demonstrates the vast extent and power of Word already spoken, Word made personal as us, yes, but also Word that goes forth from us to become the life of all. In fact, the word “synthesize” technically means the same as “homologia,” that is, speaking the same word.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. – The meaning of these words is phenomenal beyond comprehension and extends in every direction. Yet always Word spoken remains the knowing of a Personal Jesus. And always Word spoken lives inside our hearts. You see, The Jesus Secret II is just one way for the vast extent of Word already spoken to become life inside Jerusalem.
Out of Breath. Yet Paul insists that there is always more Word energeoing in us and synergeoing with us, hyper-abundantly more.
What I’m trying to say is that we are sharing life with a God who is always far, far more than is needed, a reckless God who gets carried away with doing too much. The more confidently familiar we are in knowing this God who fills us with all of Himself, the more out of breath we will be. It’s not a question of “God – fulfill Your Word,” but a question of “God – slow down,” – when we actually believe what He has spoken.
Now, synthesizing and synergeoing are two terms that go together, that is, sharing the same Word and the same Spirit.
Three Topics for Questions. For discussion purposes, let’s consider briefly three topics inside of our synthesizing/synergeoing with God in the formation of a New Jerusalem inside this present heaven-earth.
First, let’s consider the restoration of open relationships between humans and angels. Second, let’s consider the design of villages and village life, whether as Christ Community or among the general population. And third, let’s consider the role of “power-enabling energeia to subdue” (Philippians 3:21). Of truth, there is a fundamental Indo-European base word that means the same, the English form of which is “magic.”
We will mostly be asking questions.
Humans and Angels. What would be a world in which heaven is openly visible, at least to those who are resurrected? Paul said that we will teach angels. What would my classroom be like if there were as many angels crowding in as humans?
How would we use word already spoken to bring healing to the great hurts caused by humans inside the angelic realms? God created angels to serve humans. What would that relationship be like inside a world ruled by love?
What abilities do released angels really have? What contributions would they make to ordinary human life? Could angels teach us to sing the material things of this planet into new and beautiful dwelling places?
Building Community. The devotion of my heart is and has always been the building of Christian Community, something I first became aware of when I was just fifteen years old. The larger part of what I mean in that devotion is the shaping of the village, both in the layout of vegetation and buildings, and in the layout of craft and method.
What role would a pattern language, as conceived by Christopher Alexander, have in the shaping of human villages? My construction work in community mostly had to do with restoring buildings constructed on the “five-year plan.” What would be the construction and design of a village that was built on a “five-hundred-year plan?”
Patterns of Home. How does Word already spoken bring honor to the individual? How does Word already spoken establish commitment to the togetherness? How do we weave these two types of Word together in practice?
Will “Patterns of Home” be so written upon my heart that every creative thought coming through me into the design of village life would be an expression of those wonderful patterns?
How do I bring the contribution from each individual member of a community, whether human or angel, into the formation of that design? How will we love one another? How will our Father laugh inside the Home we build together?
Enabling Energeia. To the one overcoming… I will give authority upon the peoples, and he will shepherd and care for them with an iron staff or scepter, as a broken earthen vessel; even as I also have received from My Father (Revelation 2). – Who will transform [our outward appearance] down to the finest details of the Energeia, the mighty continuous and swirling action of His ability to cause ALL to be subject to Himself (Philippians 2).
We share this “enabling energeia” with Jesus and He with us. And I think we can include the outward appearance of all heaven-earth inside this same equation. We know that all healing is inside of this enabling energeia, but is there more than healing?
Shepherding Jerusalem. What levels of beauty and expression are to be found inside this one word, “according to,” that is, “down to the finest details of?” Have I opened your understanding, just a bit, to the vast and wondrous possibilities to be found in that word “shepherding” of our Jerusalem through the Age of Tabernacles? What will a world be like in which humans are doing the job for which God created us, that is, to synergeo and to synthesize with God to make all things good?
And in all of this discussion, we have never once left the meaning of “Learn of Me,” and “Feed My sheep,” Spirit and Word together – the Eucharist as all good-speaking.
Defining the Human. God designed humans to create together with Him. To create includes a gentle word spoken that can create hope or understanding of truth or a sense of belonging in the heart of another. God gave us hands that we might make things that are useful. We speak Word already established that we might create the Kingdom of God inside heaven-earth. We speak Word not yet spoken as we step into every new day coming out from God.
This quality of creating is our most important ability; in fact, love, in the affective domain, is a form of creating and is the motive behind creating. Human living is the raw material out from which we create. Human learning is how we learn to create. Human adventure sets our hearts ablaze to do something new. Human judgment gives us the ability to make the right decisions as we do what God made us to do – create with Him.