7.2 Expression and Belonging

God-Life is love one another. Love one another is God-Life, God among us. There is no love one another apart from togetherness. There is no love one another apart from regarding the individual in the highest respect. And there is no completion of Christ apart from love one another. Love one another is the completion. Love one another is the goal. Love one another is what humans are. Love one another is what humans do.

By the word “expression,” I mean the individual, and by the word, “belonging,” I mean the togetherness. Belonging is the larger meaning, but only an individual can “belong.”

Our Internal Self-Story. Since you have purified your souls [the words of your self-stories] inside of a submitted hearing of the truth resulting in sincere brotherly love, love one another out of a pure heart fervently. You have been conceived from above, not out from perishable seed, but out from imperishable Seed, through the living and abiding Word of God (1 Peter 1:22-23).

This entire statement is profoundly personal AND profoundly social AND profoundly God procreating His LIFE through us together. No one will “love one another with a pure heart fervently” apart from an internal self-story that is pure and true and good. And such a self-story comes only out from the continual acknowledgement of a profound redemption.

The Need to Belong. I think that the deepest need inside every human soul is the need to belong, to be safe inside home. And I think that the second deepest need in every human soul is to be valued by others in one’s gift and giving, that is, expression.

At the same time, I think that the greatest crime all humans commit is the crime of contempt for the expression of others, and the result of that crime is a sense of un-safeness, “I don’t belong here.” Of course, “I don’t belong here” is not expressed outwardly, except by fleeing into some form of isolation, but what is expressed back is the same contempt in return. Isolation takes many forms, but contempt is all the same.

Human “Respect.” Before considering the true, let’s look at the false and common a bit further. We humans are our own worst enemies. We demand respect from others, but we refuse to give respect first. The common statement is, “You must earn my respect.” Yet no one ever actually does. And thus, human “respect,” that is, the desire to be appreciated and to belong, never becomes more than an empty hole. Even when someone does “well,” like an entertainer or an inventor or business person, that place of “respect” given to them is paper-thin, lasting only as long as they “produce.” The moment they fail, they are cast out of favor and never considered again.

What Is Human Nature? God is the opposite of this insatiable hole that is the nature of empty humans. God always gives first what He then expects in return. – We love Him BECAUSE He first loves us.

And this is a very simple equation, easy to understand, a definition that applies to every instance of human difficulty. What is human “nature?”

A human, by nature, is symmorphic, a vessel, created to contain ANOTHER Person and to be that other Person’s outward expression. A human, by nature, is made to be filled with all the fullness of God and, by nature, is made to reveal God to all. A human empty of the knowledge of God is the source of evil.

Anti-God. What is it, then, that causes the absence of the knowledge of God inside any individual human? One thing only – accusation, accusation against God going in two directions at the same time. The first direction of accusation against God is a hatred of the way God made me, and the second direction of accusation is a certainty that God is up to no good in every circumstance coming my way.

All the years I was seeking to discover “what was wrong with me,” I was, in fact, hating the way God made me. And all the years I tried to “control” everything, God and others, I was, in fact, accusing God of being up to no good in directing my steps.

Hades Is Personal. Can a born-again and Spirit-filled Christian accuse God of falseness inside their own souls? And can such a Christian make use of demonic anointing to express that accusation? Absolutely – and all the time. In fact, such a Christian lives in hades in the present moment more than many pagans.

All accusation against God and all that is hades is entirely internal and personal; it is an abject refusal to be human. All human attempts to control other humans are nothing other than the attempt to control God’s thoughts concerning us. And all human abuse of other humans is nothing more than an attempt to inflict pain upon God for His falseness.

The Source of All Evil. And all of it is a screaming meaninglessness going on inside All-Goodness and All-Trueness, with no cause or purpose whatsoever.

This is evil; there is no other evil. Angels succumb to participate in this evil because humans abuse them as well. A demon is an angel caught inside human abuse and the refusal of God. They are servants only; they are not masters.

Humans, then, in their constant accusation against and refusal of God, are the cause of all evil and all hurt in the universe. Yet they then turn and blame God for all that is wrong. And Christians cultivate this same internal rejection of God just as much – and include it in their “theology.”

“Father with Me.” What, then, is human wholeness and salvation? Only one thing – acceptance, a joyful acceptance of Father with me and of all good favor coming my way.

In writing the story of my life, I have traced out the entrance of the knowledge of God into my knowing, by each word spoken along the way, whether directly to me or through Bible verses. Yet I cannot find the entrance of the most important verse to me personally, John 14:23. I think that is because “Father with me, at Home in my heart” was always the only thing I ever wanted, and when my brain first registered those words, I suspect that it added nothing to my already established desire. God, in all that God is, sharing my life with me as Father.

I Accept; I Refuse. I do not want to frame this profound understanding in terms of my redemption, but rather, in terms of my completion.

For eight years, now, I have acknowledged Father with me, sharing my life in all things – for the sake of others, with no shadow of accusation ever allowed. This is not something God “does to” me. Quite the contrary, it is something “I do” to God. Let me explain. God is with me, as He is with all. There is no other possibility. But it is I who accepts that knowledge of God into my self-story, and it is I who refuses any other thought. Even when I “feel like” accusing God of falseness, I place Father with me sharing that awfulness with me – for the sake of others.

To Belong. Yet I am able to allow God to BELONG inside of me by only one absolute confidence. I am confident that I already BELONG inside of God through the redemption that is Jesus. God belongs inside of us, sharing our life with us, BECAUSE we first belong inside of Him, sharing His life with Him.

In all the years I lived with my mom and dad, and in every moment of being with them, whether at home or elsewhere, I BELONGED such that I never once thought otherwise. Not belonging in the presence of either mom or dad was a sensation I never knew, a thought that never entered my mind. Conversely, I have always waged war successfully (mostly) against any expression that would disrupt in any of my children that same sense of “I BELONG” when they are with their dad.

I Am in Charge. Indeed, in the midst of a very unsafe world, the safest moments I have ever known were when one of my little ones held my hand as we walked through a public place, and said, “Daddy.” By saying, “Daddy,” my children commanded me. God our Father is no different, for He made us like Himself.

It is not God who makes Himself at Home in me; it is I who makes God at Home every moment, by my acknowledgment that allows Him to share the entirety of my life with me. And the end result of my allowing God my Father to be at Home in me, sharing my life with me is that I KNOW, with all quiet certainty, that I BELONG already inside of God. Now, after all this time of living in such certainty that is salvation, I am able to embrace the other part of acceptance.

Allowing God’s Favor. The other part of belonging, then, is for me to accept with joy that every circumstance coming my way is God my Father coming upon me with favor and goodness. And “circumstance” includes every other person interacting in my life “doing things to” me.  Allowing other persons to belong to me including all that they “do to” me, as the favor and goodness of God, is to allow God to belong to me in all that He is.

And that is exactly what Jesus said in Matthew 25 – to paraphrase. – As you accept other people in your life, in ALL that they do and say, as the favor and goodness of God coming your way, so you ARE accepting Me.

Stand Still and See. Yet I find this acceptance to be an even bigger deal, one I can accomplish ONLY because I know that I belong inside of Father and Father belongs inside of me. I find myself as one of the children of Israel with the Egyptian army on one side and famine and thirst on the other side, and I want to cry and scream. Yet all I hear, all that I will speak to myself is, “Stand still and SEE the salvation of God.” – SEE all things as God coming my way in favor and goodness. I like to control things, you see; that is, I like to TRY to control. And the amazing thing is that after 64 years of utter failure at every attempt, I’m still at it again. Yet I place this also as Father with me in all belonging, and I receive all things as goodness.

The Salvation of Our Souls. Let me define, very specifically, the Salvation of our souls. Wholeness, human wholeness of soul, is allowing Father with me, sharing my life with me in all that I am, in all the words and conversation of my own internal description of myself. AND – wholeness of soul is allowing other people to BELONG to me in all that they say or do, as the favor of God to me, inside all the words of my internal self-story.

I belong to you BECAUSE you first belong to and with me. And the transfer from Father to others happens because I say, in every circumstance, Father, this is You, sharing my life with me, and we together – FOR THE SAKE OF OTHERS. Expression and belonging, personal and social, are always two together as one.

And We Also. Let’s expand, now, on the meaning of our ruling verse. – By this we know love, because He set forth His soul for us, for our sakes, and we also are committed to setting forth our souls for the sake of our brothers and sisters.

Jesus died upon the cross for one purpose only, to win my acceptance of Him into me, that I would allow Him to show me Father with me for the sake of others. Then we turn and provide the same absolute acceptance for others that they might KNOW that they BELONG with us. That means that I accept all your expression with joy and honor, when your expression is inspiring and when your expression is crummy – as the goodness and favor of God to me.

My Human Nature. You belong with me because I honor you, personally and individually, in all your expression towards me, regardless, as the Lord Jesus Himself, as the favor of God coming to me through every Word He speaks, as the unfolding of my days. And I do that because I first know, with all certainty, that God BELONGS inside of me and I BELONG inside of God.

It is my HUMAN NATURE to express myself (reveal God) inside of belonging (filled with God). It is my human nature to live in a community where I belong with other humans who just love all my expression – BECAUSE they also belong to me and I love all their expression. You belong to me because I am like God, and I belong to you because you also are like God.

Receive One Another. The Bible has a name for this incredible experience not found among humans or even Christians thus far upon this earth. The Bible calls it – The Church which is His Body, the completion of Christ. We call it, “Jerusalem,” our beloved city of peace.

This is who we are; this is what we do. Of truth, this whole explanation is just the application of one verse – Receive one another, with all personal interest, in just the same way that Jesus receives you (Romans 15:7). This includes, very much, times of solitude and a “place of one’s own” that others enter only by invitation.

In the next lesson, then, I want to venture into the true meaning of our human souls, of what it means to be “a living soul” as a HUMAN. We will discover that Fellowship with Father is what we are.