39.The Demonstration of Spirit
© Daniel Yordy – 2019
If I were to send you again Chapters 3 and 4 of Symmorphy V: Life, I would be conveying to you far more clearly and powerfully the things I am attempting to set forth in the last letter and this – the impartation of Word and the demonstration of Spirit.
I would recommend that you read Chapters 2-5 again in order to draw into your heart a fuller understanding of what this “dwelling in booths” is all about. It is about 2 Corinthians 3:3, the Word that is Jesus written with Spirit ink all through the pathways of our hearts.
My purpose here is not to “better” what I wrote there, but rather, to place these things into the structure of the fulfillment of Tabernacles, actual things about to happen inside the Church across this earth.
Here is the relationship of Spirit with Word. Spirit comes before Word to prepare hearts to receive it. Spirit comes with Word to cause it to be Life inside the heart instead of ideas in the mind. And Spirit follows after Word to confirm and to establish it.
I want to talk about the mighty impact on our lives, and on the lives of millions, of these three parts of the demonstration of the Spirit inside the fulfillment of Tabernacles, inside of Christ Community.
I have been careful to continuously place before us the glorious freedom of being weak humans filled with all of God. And I have done so because of our great need to eliminate every shadow of the above-you-Christ image we have still held in our minds, an image we have still projected onto others.
We CANNOT know Christ in power through us until we REST utterly in Father joining Himself with our present humanity in all ways and in every moment.
And the only way we rest utterly in our present humanity joined with Father in us now is by our continuous practice of being the Mercy Seat towards each one and towards all, setting forth our souls so that Father and the offender might meet together inside our hearts with no need of our own manipulation.
But inside of such a wondrous joining with Father, all that He is inside our human weakness and all that we are inside of Him, then, as we speak the words of Christ our life, we find in them a POWER that we have never known.
My message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of intellectual wisdom, but in the demonstration and proof of the Spirit and power, so that your faith might not be in the wisdom of men, but inside of the power of God (2 Corinthians 2:3-4).
The Word of Christ our only life comes with proof and power. Or, we could say it this way – Proof and power come before Word to prepare hearts to receive it. Proof and power come with Word to cause it to be Life inside the heart instead of ideas in the mind. And proof and power follow after Word to confirm and to establish it.
The teaching of word separate from the demonstration of the Spirit and power cannot be anything more than good ideas, ideas that can make no one complete.
What is this demonstration of Spirit and power, this tangible and knowable PROOF that the Jesus who enters into us as that Word and by that power is really real?
The Word to be planted is everything. This is the very Sperm of God by which we are conceived of God. Yet without Spirit, the words that could be Christ Jesus planted inside our hearts can do nothing more than enter the human mind as good ideas.
I want to talk about each of these three workings of Spirit attending every Word God speaks as it enters into any created being as God means that Word to be.
We begin with the demonstration of the Spirit and power that comes before the Word, working to prepare the heart of the hearer to receive that Word as Jesus Himself.
This first entrance of the demonstration of Spirit has two parts. The first part is the human vessel through whom that Word comes and the second part is the amplification of THIRST in the hearts of many, an amplification that comes as a result of the qualities of the one who brings that Word.
If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink (John 7:37). – Awake, O north wind, and come, O south! Blow upon my garden, that its spices may flow out (Song of Solomon 4:16).
There are two parts of the demonstration of the Spirit and power coming through a human vessel, the first is outward, the second is inward. We look at the outward first, even though it comes only out of the second because that is what people see.
Here are the verses of the outward first and the inward second.
And I, having come to you, brothers and sisters, did not come according to the superiority of intellectual words and wisdom, proclaiming to you the witness of God. Indeed, I determined to know nothing among you, except Jesus Christ and Him having been crucified. And I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling (1 Corinthians 2:1-3). – My children, for whom I travail in birth again, until Christ shall have been formed inside of you (Galatians 4:19).
The three outward qualities of the bearer of Word are weakness, fear, and much trembling. This is what people see. Weakness means the bearer of Word has no sufficiency in him or herself. There is not one iota or shadow of human pretending.
The central word, though, is fear. This FEAR goes in two directions. The first direction fear goes is towards the Word – This is the very Sperm of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Creator and Sustainer of all things, the Beloved that is the very Heart of Father that I am about to plant into the hearts of these incredible people. And the second direction fear goes is towards the hearers of that Word – These are the very Bride of Jesus, His woman, precious beyond measure, pure and holy, far, far beyond me in value and in glory.
This is a fine line. Word is not Christ except it come personally through the speaker. Yet though the Word carries the human personalness of the speaker, it comes also with NO strings attached. The speaker has no need to be needed by the hearers. The Word, Christ Jesus Himself, is everything.
We are talking about total holiness, purely devoted to Father’s Heart alone.
A man or a woman who is planting the Sperm of God into God’s woman is a man or a woman who is trembling before that Word. - On this one will I look: on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word (Isaiah 66:2).
What was the first thing Jesus did when He made an invisible God visible through His human Person? – He humbled Himself. – The crossing of the Jordan at the lowest place on earth.
But all this outward appearance comes out from an all-consuming passion inside – My children, for whom I travail in birth again, until Christ shall have been formed inside of you.
One who carries a Word of Christ our Life inside of the fulfillment of Tabernacles has one single purpose for existing. They are intensely single-minded. They exist for one reason, and that is to see Christ Jesus formed inside the heart of each individual who belongs to Him.
When hearers of the Word see such a one, they are seeing a person who IS devoting every particle of their life, every moment of their time, every breath that they breathe, and every beat of their heart to the revelation of Jesus Christ through the gathering together of His Church. They know Jesus, and His passion for His Bride consumes them.
If I could ask God for anything, it would be to possess such a heart.
It is this intensity of devotion that awakens DESIRE in the hearts of those who hear. I have seen such intensity and I have known the awakening of desire coming upon hundreds of people at the same time.
What is it that causes people to drop everything, to take off work, to drive thousands of miles, to endure the poorest of accommodations, to sit on hard backless benches for hours and hours, with the absolute determination inside to hear and to receive as God Himself every Word coming out from the Holiest? What is it that inspires them to sell everything they own and to move far from home in order to be inside of the mighty thing God is doing upon the earth?
I have been part of such intensity. I would be part of it again; I would that my children would know such a thing.
I have no interest in insipid Christianity; I place no value on the speaking of good ideas or on occasional and shallow experiences.
What is a Word that, when it comes to you, it absolutely transforms your life, turns you inside out, and sets you into a glory you had not even known existed? Without such Word coming in such Power, it’s just the same old same old.
The central and most important role of the demonstration of the Spirit and power, then, is that which causes the Word to be the Lord Jesus, Himself in Person, formed as LIFE inside of the one who hears. This is a power that continues day by day. One’s life is transformed, yes, by the great drawing of intensity and thirst, but that does not continue inside the daily grind. It would be way too much for us as God made us.
Here, the demonstration of the Spirit comes as the role of the shepherd. Here is how Paul described such a role.
We were gentle in the midst of you, as a nursing mother would cherish her own children. So, yearning over you, we were well-pleased to have imparted to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own souls, because you had become beloved to us. For you remember, brothers and sisters, our labor and hardship, working night and day, in order not to burden any of you, we proclaimed into you the gospel of God. You are witnesses, along with God, how devotedly and justly and blamelessly we were toward you who are believing; just as you are aware how we were encouraging you and comforting and testifying into each one of you, as a father does his children, that you would walk worthily of God who calls and summons you into His own kingdom and glory (1 Thessalonians 2:7-12).
Everything I have described is found packed into this intense description of that shepherding heart coming out from the single-minded devotion to the revelation of Jesus Christ through His Church.
That is the heart of the shepherd, but what is the Spirit?
It is the Spirit who gives Life; the flesh profits nothing. The Words that I speak to you are Spirit and they are Life (John 6:63).
And what is our part with Father that enables this Spirit to be what He is inside the lives of those who have run into Tabernacles with all expectation of joy? Our part with Father is CONFIDENCE, absolute confidence that the Spirit does what the Spirit IS.
Putting our own hand upon the work breaks that confidence; putting our own hand upon the work is something we simply do not do. Why? Not because we are trying not to be “bad,” but because, quite simply, we are filled with such confidence that we have no need for the “profit” of the flesh.
The One continuously and lavishly supplying the Spirit to you, and continuously and actively energeoing the effects of power [miracles] inside of and among you, comes out from your hearing with faith (Galatians 3:5 – modified).
This is the supply of Spirit, but what is the purpose of Spirit? – It is fully made visible that you ARE a letter of Christ, with us under your service, having already been written with the Spirit of the living God inside tablets of hearts of flesh (2 Corinthians 3:3 – condensed).
The Spirit is the ink of those words that are Christ Jesus in Person written all through our hearts as the very Covenant of God.
My children, for whom I travail in birth again, until Christ shall have been formed inside of you. – This working of the Spirit inside the heart of each one is the whole purpose of everything. Never do we lose sight of this greatest weight of value in all creation.
What, then, are the workings and demonstration of the Spirit that follow after the Word to confirm and to establish it? This demonstration of the Spirit contains some of the BIG things to outward sight that cause many to lose sight of the only important thing the Spirit is doing, and that is causing Word to be Jesus alive in our hearts.
There are quite a number of different things that make up the demonstration of the Spirit coming after the Word to confirm and to establish it. Let’s go through several in no particular order.
First, there is the full release of anointings coming upon those who hear. The first level of anointing released in those who hear is the prophetic in the seeing of visions and the speaking of prophecies, that is, the calling forth of Christ in the hearts of one another. The anointing of the prophetic serves one thing – to confirm and to establish the Word having been planted inside the hearts of those who have heard. The prophetic is to strengthen the Word already alive inside each one.
Second, there are what the gospel writers call “signs following.” These are miracles of healing and deliverance from the need to hold onto demons, everything that might be found inside this line – actively energeoing the effects of power [miracles] inside of and among you.
These signs FOLLOW the full planting of the Word; they do NOT come before it. When miracles come by themselves, and not following after the Word of Christ our only life, then they become little more than part of that heavenly tree of outward appearance that will serve, not the Word, but to distract from the Word, drawing the hearers away from the only Tree of Life.
The planting of Word that Christ might be formed inside is EVERYTHING. All else happens only to support that one purpose.
A third part of the demonstration of the Spirit and power that follows after Word is fruit. Fruit has two parts, the fruit of the Spirit inside of and out from each individual believer, and the fruit that is the Church herself, Christ Community.
This is not a discussion of fruit, so I will say only two things about it. First, even though fruit is the most important quality of Spirit following after the Word, it cannot displace in our understanding and in our experience either the release of all anointings and the effects of power or miracles among the gathering of each local assembly. The Spirit does nothing needlessly, every part of His work inside the assembly is of paramount importance. None can be disregarded except by the too-familiar practice of quenching the Spirit.
Yet, second, the gospel is not “go and tell,” but “come and see.” And what do the many come rushing into the fulfillment of Tabernacles to see and to possess for themselves? They come to see Christ as His Church, God among us, you and me loving one another with the love that is Father Himself. This is the gospel, the only real proof of Christ.
The primary fruit of the Spirit is Christ Community.
Now, everything I have discussed thus far has been very much part of my own experience. Yet those experiences of the power of God among us were found in the first part of a Tabernacles anointing, that is, the Feast of Trumpets. The problem with the Feast of Trumpets is that the understanding of the word being preached has not yet passed through the Day of Atonement. That means that the limitation of the sacrifice of Christ remains in the word preached. It is not yet a Word of Christ our only life.
Everything I have experienced out from which I have shared thus far, cannot compare with the demonstration of the Spirit and power inside of the full Feast of Tabernacles, God among us. My hope is set fully upon that grace coming upon us now, as Peter prophecied.
I want to change focus just a bit, now, though continuing in our exploration of the demonstration of the Spirit and power inside of Tabernacles.
As I am now working with the confessions of faith inside The Jesus Secret II, I feel as if a new day is dawning for me personally.
The change in my knowing from those first halting and desperate confessions of faith in Christ made personal in me twelve years ago, until the present writing of Christ our life in certainty and in power, is complete.
I know with certainty and completion that I have passed all the way through the Atonement, and that I live now only inside of my Father. I know with certainty and completion that my Father shares His heart with me, in all my human experience, that we might be together His Mercy Seat extended out over all. I know with certainty and completion that my stumbling humanity in no way prevents the beating Passion of Jesus in me for the sake of His Church.
For this reason, as I write the confessions of faith flowing through my fingers now as they type and then appearing on the computer screen, and as I speak these things out loud, I see, not dimly, but clearly, the reality of my own transformation.
We might even say that this is a fourth work of the Spirit in demonstration and power.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. We all, then, having been unveiled in face, are reflecting the glory of the Lord [to one another] as a mirror and are being transformed into the same image from glory into glory, just exactly as from the Spirit of the Lord (2 Corinthians 3:17-18).
You see that line – “having been unveiled in face?” And, of course, the word Paul used was, without any question, “reflecting,” not “beholding.” Such transformation was simply too much for the Calvinist translators to believe.
“Having been unveiled in face,” means the same thing as “I know with certainty and completion.”
I do not want to be a different person. I want to be complete as I am, as God created me to be. Yet that completion as I am is the very revelation of Jesus Christ, the image of our Father.
And Jesus in us goes both ways. Jesus lives as us as we are, AND we live as Him as He is.
Know that I am inside of the Father and you inside of Me and I inside of you.
Speak Christ. Speak Christ in all certainty and completion. (From The Jesus Secret II, 2 Corinthians.)
- Jesus is always “Yes” and “Let it be so – it is so” inside of me. I am always inside of “Yes” and inside of “Let it be so – it is so” inside of Jesus.
- God always leads me in the triumphal celebration of full victory inside of Christ Jesus. I am the fragrance of Christ. The aroma of the knowledge of God is made visible through me everywhere I go.
- My brethren are written inside my heart. I am a letter of Christ; I am written with the Spirit of God as Christ upon the tablets of Covenant that are my heart of flesh. My sufficiency is always out from God, never out from myself. I am sufficient as a servant of the New Covenant.
- The ministry of the Spirit upon me is glorious. I speak boldly with great hope. My face is unveiled; glory shines from it.
- The Spirit of the Lord is in me and upon me, spirit, soul, body, and heart, and I am free with Him. I reflect as a mirror the glory of the Lord. The Spirit of the Lord transforms me into the same image, from His glory reflecting from me, and my glory reflecting from Him.
- I make the truth visible; I establish myself towards all as the face and presence of God. I do not proclaim myself, but Christ Jesus; I shine forth the illumination of the gospel of the glory of Christ, the image of God. God shines inside my heart towards the illumination of the knowledge of God as the face and presence of Jesus.
- I am the face of Jesus Christ. I possess this treasure, all the fullness of God in me, inside of an earthen vessel; the power is of God and not of me.
- The love of Christ holds me together with you. It is no longer me living, but Christ.
- I am inside of Christ; I am a new creation. All that is old is gone from me; when I look, I see only the New already become. All things in me and in my way are of God. I am fully connected with God every moment through Christ Jesus. God is inside of me reconciling the world to Himself.
- I carry the Word of full reconnection with God. I am an ambassador of God; God invites and encourages others into Himself through me. I am fully become the just innocence of God inside of Jesus. I am an ambassador as God Himself.