37. Fellowship in Symmorphy

© Daniel Yordy – 2019

Symmorphy is two or many sharing the same form; koinonia is fellowship together.

The fake “oneness” of this world eliminates the individual person and thus has no need for fellowship. The meaning of “one” inside of our Father honors the individual with the highest regard and places fellowship together as the very heart of our togetherness, the very Heart of God.

As we learned in Symmorphy V: Life, we never build anything upon friendship. Rather, we build around the heart of friendship to protect it as the greatest treasure we possess.

The essence of the Feast of Tabernacles for Israel was doing something fun together, sort of like a week-long campout. The whole purpose was to work together in making the booths, to eat together, to drink together, to dance together, to celebrate God together. And all of the provision for this big cookout came from the tithe already gathered into the storehouse.

The form shared together by many was that of a vast community of God, millions of people on holiday, camping out all around the city of God.

Now, I want to weave the essence of fellowship that is the heart of God together with that which contradicts, which could be called “anti-fellowship.”

Anti-fellowship is every form of human pretending.

Tabernacles is the Feast of no more pretending. Leaven, that is, dishonesty, was eaten in the Feast of Pentecost. One might even think that God wanted to amplify pretending in the gifts and anointings of Pentecost so that those who despair of such practice will flee, not back into the outer court, as many do, but into the Holiest, which we have done.

Adam’s sin was not “disobedience,” but unthankfulness. And his every human effort was putting on an outward show of pretending for the sole purpose of placing his own self-exaltation upon others in order to manipulate and control them, that is, in order to demonstrate his own “superiority.”

You and I still mimic Adam far more than we realize. I KNOW that, if God did not show up in our gathering together as He is, meek and lowly of heart, we would destroy one another by the simple practice of imposing our fake religiosity on one another.

The image of the super-Christ is found in our own forehead. If we imagine the super-Christ as “those other Christians out there,” however we might define them, then we are looking in the wrong direction. Outward show as the image of God is a quality found ONLY in the forehead, how one sees and how one perceives.

We can understand by our experience how Pentecost has been the horror of combining the anointing and power of the Holy Spirit with every form of pretending foreheads.

It was the summer of 1996 when the Lord spoke to me that I had a sectarian heart, and I understood what He meant. Then, in the early months of 1997, the Lord gave me the one verse that would slowly turn my heart away from the pretending of Pentecost and towards the real. I had never noticed this verse before, one of the many “be just like God” verses.

Receive one another just as Christ received you (Romans 15:7).

It’s an interesting thing, as I realize now, how the Lord plants deep inside of us in critical experiences one little line that then sits beneath all of our thinking and turns our thoughts in its direction. This line was one of those. You will see its working underneath all I have written.

Receive one another is the essence of Tabernacles, but it is the most difficult task God has given to us. We cannot do such a thing except we set Father Himself as the only treasure of our hearts.

As I am getting older, I am becoming more tired and the difficulty of autism is increasing. I am no longer able to disassociate in my mind from the intense pressure of “feeling.” One way this inability shows itself is in my poor response to your emails to me. It’s as if I “choke up” and I cannot respond. That inability has NOTHING to do with you, or my attitude towards you, which is only friendship, but it has everything to do with my own searing inability.

Your ability to continue receiving from what I write in these letters, in spite of my inability, is a sign of your own true and good heart inside of Jesus.

You see, when too many emails come in all at once, emails that are, in-part, just conversation, I short-circuit inside. I “freeze up” and am unable to speak (or answer back). Then, as time goes on, to venture back into the conversation is almost “terrifying” to me.

Listen, this makes no sense. I know that. And it has nothing to do with you, but rather my own mental straightjacket.

I want you to watch a video on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDPdRYF7hTQ

Consider this blind, autistic man. Asperger’s is called “high performing autism,” that means the ability to function socially a little better than this man, but still, with similar inward constraints. The important thing for you, however, is the difference between his expression when he is face to face with the judges versus his expression when he sits down to sing and to play.

I am similar. Many WILL find me totally unconvincing if they were to walk together with me. Yet when I sit down to write in the early morning, everything is different.

[I'm not suggesting that I, nor most who are Asperger's, appear outwardly as the young man in the video. Outwardly, we appear like anyone else. The constraints that make us similar are entirely inward. They do not appear except over time and in ways that are easy to fault.]

I cannot live by human expectations. I not only possess no “great faith,” but I consider it to be part of that image of the “above-you” Christ that I could never reach or satisfy.

Yet here is what I find. It’s not you imposing a mask on me. It’s still me, imposing my imagination of your mask upon myself, even when you had no such thought. It is from ourselves alone that Jesus is always saving us.

I have a little, little tiny bit of faith (not counting the faith of the Son of God, which is also entirely ours). I have made the simple human decision that in what God says at the heart of the gospel, God is telling me the truth. And my faith is just enough to write that in these letters. Sending them out to you, however, is a desperate act, an act that can sometimes be overwhelming to me.

The thing that gives me COURAGE is not when you try to tell me that God is about to do great things through me, but when you share with me how Jesus is making Himself real to you through what I write. I want to know you and Jesus together personally, that is, your heart.

God told me only one time in my life to do something. If He had told me to do anything else, it would have been a waste of His time because I go all short-circuit inside and freeze up in fear at the very thought of “performing obedience” for God.

God told me to give you hope. If I were any kind of a ministry or a man of faith, or any such, then I would be incapable of giving you hope because I know that you are as incapable of pleasing God as I am. You have hope BECAUSE you are reading a man who is incapable of ever pleasing God, but who has put himself utterly into what God says ONLY because I cannot survive anywhere else.

The issue of “worthy” versus “not worthy” is entirely outside of my thinking. So what if I lived in Christian community or studied the Bible or any other such. How could anything human make me “worthy” or “not worthy.” Such thinking is found in death; it does not exist inside of LIFE.

Actual connection with people in an ongoing manner is beginning to open up to me now. I have never been less able to do such a thing than I am now. If I actually do go out, it will only be because my Father showed me that I can stumble and fail every step of the way, just like Jesus, and it’s okay because He carries me.

What I cannot do is demonstrate some sort of “great faith.”

If Jesus does not save the LOST every moment, then NO ONE is or can be saved.

More than that, this Jesus as Savior every moment is forever. If we want to walk with Father, then we must be woefully inadequate forever.

But if we want to live inside of His Heart, then we must never ever impose any form of sufficiency on any brother or sister, When people impose sufficiency on me, it frightens me so much that I must run.

Through the three years after I left the move communities, I was so frozen inside, so filled with bleeding wounds of hurt and confusion, that I could hardly function. I have shared with you how, in late 2001, God connected me with John Eldredge through his books and through John Eldredge, God began the long pain-filled process of opening up every wound sustained over many years and bringing Jesus into my agony.

But at the same time that I began reading John Eldredge, I also watched a movie called A Knight’s Tale with Heath Ledger. To be honest with you, just as I view John Eldredge as one of my best friends in life, though I have never met him, I feel the same way about Heath Ledger.

In the climax of that movie, Heath Ledger spoke words that went all through me in deep sobs of hope and agony. He said, “I will not run.”

I can now tell you what that means to me – “I will NOT run from God.” “I will never exclude God from myself regardless of all my inability.”

Running from people and all those things that are impossible to me is no problem at all, for I will never live anywhere except inside my Father and ALL of my foolish mistakes, all of my thoughtless actions, all of my inability to see others, all of my great ability to stumble into stupefying public humiliation, my Father shares with me, and He and I together are turning all of it towards your blessing inside of goodness.

What “I will not run” means to me now is that I will NEVER EVER be beaten down by that FAKE “you should be a mature son of God” that so many impose on others, even while refusing to see that they are not and will never be such a travesty.

So many are running from God, refusing to allow him into the emptiness behind their masks. The face they present is a face of ability, something we are incapable of ever becoming. If they are “right,” then we have no hope for we will never measure up to that image they are “stretching forth.”

Here is the essence of Jesus. Receive one another in just the same way that I receive you. This is the beating heart of Tabernacles.

A brother sent me a quote that he read on some “end-times” website. – "The vehicle by which Jesus will establish His Kingdom is not the Church; but rather, the Nation of Israel."

I can assure you, that such a “kingdom” would be the greatest horror of tyranny mankind could ever know – Jews as the “chosen elite” with no Jesus inside of them. Such a concept opposes absolutely both the Old Covenant and the New.

Sadly, to most the Christian Church is a FAILED experiment. They are convinced that God has to take us to heaven because He cannot do anything with us on this earth.

And it is true – love one another has never yet happened as God among us.

Why? Two reasons. The primary reason is found in Ephesians 1:7-12, that is, the full and complete season or opportune time. But the other reason is that we have been unwilling to walk together with no expectation of performance. We have never accepted the Jesus of Psalm 22, a complete human failure, that we ARE just like Him, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

Friendship is the fellowship of two utter and complete human FAILURES, just like Jesus, who never impose fakery on each other, just like Jesus also refused to do, even against the face of ALL fakery being imposed upon him – “If you were the Son of God – then you would perform, worm. You would dance our dance; you would spin our jig. – You are so fake, Jesus.”

“You are so fake, Jesus.”

Here is the central action inside of Tabernacles.

Receive one another, that is, interactively and aggressively seize hold of one another with strong personal interest, in exactly the same way that Christ received you, that is, aggressively seized you to Himself into the glory of God (Romans 14:7).

How did Jesus receive you?

Jesus received you into Himself inside of His total failure to act like “the Christ of God.” And the person that you are, the person Jesus received, is a total and absolute failure, not just at being “right,” but even a failure at being human. The fake boasting in yourself that was your only stance towards God was entirely your inability even to be a human.

When Jesus received you (and me) into Himself, He received someone who was filthy, rebellious, stupid, lost, arrogant, filled with contempt, fake, someone who excelled at manipulating others through religious self-exaltation. As a loser Himself, He received a complete and utter LOSER, that is, you.

We cannot build anything upon friendship, for we will destroy it if we try.

We receive one another in one way only, as two complete human failures, incapable of pleasing God or anyone else.

When you, a total failure, receive me, another total failure, then I am safe in your presence. And when I, a total failure, receive you, another total failure, then you are safe in my presence.

The thought of “God chose me because I sought Him my whole life” cannot exist anywhere in such a relationship. The tree of life is one thing only – “God chose me.”

Yes, if we walk together, I will “correct” one thing coming out from you. When I hear you say words contrary to Christ your life, I will show you to speak Christ in your weakness and not yourself as the super-Christ. I will teach you to speak Christ alone.

Inside of the Beloved One, we possess redemption and full deliverance [from our old selves] through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, that is, the elimination of all consciousness of any falling short (Ephesians 1:7).

Only as we receive one another as we are, failures, just like Jesus, will we be the very Hheart of our Father that receives with wide-open arms all the losers, rejects, and has-beens running with all joy into His Feast.

Only the lost know salvation; only the forgiven wash His feet with tears.

And here alone is the bond of our Fellowship, here inside of Symmorphy, that is, here inside the heart of God, that is, Tabernacles, many gathering together into joy.

My “great and intrinsic value” (the meaning of “glory”) is Father’s, my sharing of His Hheart, because I NEVER drive Father away from me. I have no need to “stretch forth my own image,” for what greater value could there be than Father. And when I never drive Father away from me, I discover that my humanity as I AM – IS the very place He has chosen to be His Home forever.

In my utter failure and my searing inability, I am Father revealed. And by the confession of my mouth, I receive you in exactly the same way. I do that, not because I am capable of any such thing, but because I have made the simple human decision to believe that God is telling me the truth.

True fellowship comes out from five kinds of ongoing experiences.

The first is working together. The second is eating together. The third is worshipping together. The fourth is standing in the battle for the sake of each other. And the fifth is sharing the stories of life together, including doing fun things together. None of these can be isolated by itself. All must be in regular ongoing practice for fellowship to be deep and real.

In my years of experience in Christianity, I know of only one context in which such fellowship can be found – and that is Christian Community.

In the remainder of this letter, however, I want to focus on the fourth medium of fellowship, and that is standing in the battle for the sake of each other.

When you continue reading what I write even though I fail in answering your emails, you are doing far more than just receiving from the Lord through what I share. You are standing in the battle for me, for my sake. You are imparting your very soul to me. But even more than that, those of you who send me financial provision faithfully every month, or even sporadically, it’s not the money I am receiving from you, though that is a great blessing. Rather, I am receiving your courage into my heart to be my courage as well.

The most important moments in all my years inside of Christian Community were those moments when someone else imparted courage and comfort to me. Sometimes it was only a smile of tender regard, but that smile remains full in my heart as part of any present courage I might have today.

Here is another version of the heart of fellowship inside of symmorphy. – The Father of compassion and the God of all comfort and encouragement; the one comforting and encouraging us in all our pressures of travail, inside and out, resulting in our being able to comfort those inside every pressure through the comfort and encouragement with which we ourselves are comforted by God. Because, as the sufferings or passions of Christ abound into us, in just the same way, our comfort and encouragement also abound through Christ. More than that, if we are pressed with travail, it is for the sake of your comfort and salvation. If we are called to encouragement, it is for your comfort energeoing inside the steadfastness of the same passions that we also suffer (2 Corinthians 1:2-6).

I have uncovered another major truth found all through the New Testament, something glorious and good that has been hidden from us by the Calvinist translators. That truth is the pressures of travail that we share with our Father through His Spirit travailing in us – for the sake of His Church, for all who belong to Jesus. We must expand on this quality in future letters.

Yet I am compelled to set forth another negative inside this letter on the topic of the most positive positive in the human experience – our fellowship together inside the Beloved, that is, inside Father’s Hheart.

People magazine is about to run a hit piece against the “move of God,” that fellowship of communities of which I was a part for many years and inside of which many dear friends and family continue together inside of the Lord Jesus. Their intention is to make everyone imagine that the only safe cult to be a part of is this world, the darkest of all religious cults ruled over by that terrible priesthood of debauchery, human political government.

The beast can rule triumphant ONLY when all other connections are severed, when there is nothing else with which to belong.

I can assure you of this, you will find more human abuse inside the religious cult called “People magazine,” than you would ever find in the communities of the move of God fellowship.
If you want to explore the most terrible institutions of human abuse in this world, look no further than your “friendly” neighborhood public school. It did not take me long after leaving the communities to understand that humans in the world are far worse.

And yes, Maureen and I know personally the individual providing People magazine with their “inside” information. More than that, I will never deny or speak against any individual person who experienced confusing or hurtful things in their move-of-God community experience. I share their pain completely. Yet what they experienced was far less than the abuse dished out regularly in normal human associations.

Twelve spies went into Israel’s promised land. All of them spoke the truth when they came back out. I can, and I have reported to you all the giants of human religiosity inside of the land of Christ and all of the walled and defiant cities. I have made their outline clear; I have promised you NO yellow brick road. I have made sure that you KNOW that, whatever the brethren God places you together with, YOU will be the greatest enemy against that fellowship.

If you want to discover abusers in the Christian Church, look no further than our own foreheads. Only one thing is the enemy of Christ – our desire to impose our own religious chicanery on other people.

Let it be cut away.

I say that I write, not for you or for God, but only for myself. Here is the deepest reason underlying my motivation to write. – I cannot have a wasted life. I cannot live in such a thing. I must bring out from every moment of my time on this planet the good fruit of Christ for you to see and to taste, and I must bring out from every moment of my time on this planet the outline and the warning against the giants in the land, that is the fakery of the super-Christ we once wore because we were ashamed of the way God made us.

As I have completed Set My People Free, which is available now in book form from Amazon, I look inside and I am able to say with all simple finality. “I have delivered to you all that God has placed in my heart to share.” Though I continue to expect life, still, if I were to die physically, I would, for the first time, be able to go in peace.

But I have given you more than a taste of the fruit and an outline of the giants. I have put the words of Caleb into your mouth; I have taught you to make them your own.

Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.

Read all of Numbers 13 and 14. The writer of Hebrews placed this story as the primary illustration of the jeopardy of the gospel.

Here are the words already spoken of the report you will read about in People magazine, the true testimony of the other “spies.” –  “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants. – Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?”

Like I said, the human abuse taking place in Egypt, that is, in the institution called “People’s magazine” and all other human institutions is far greater than abuse in the Church. But there is something about Christ Jesus, about belonging to the family that is the Church, that makes confused and pretending humans want to run back into the “protection” offered by a false, false world. It’s like Chicken Little and Henny Penny running right into the “protection” of the fox.

Here’s the thing. The losers, has-beens, and failures who will be running into the kingdom will be those who are never considered as subjects for People magazine or any other self-exalting pretension masquerading in this world.

For He made the One who never once knew any disconnection from God, to take upon and into Himself that disconnect for us, for our sakes, so that we might become the just innocence of God inside of Him.

It is sometimes by contrast that we see the essence of our own hearts. And yet, much of this letter has explored our fellowship together inside of battle, inside the fight to win one another as the greatest treasure of our lives.

Here is the Hheart that we share with our Father, the Hheart that is the Lord Jesus Christ.
By this we have known love, because He set forth his soul, His story of self, for us, for our sakes, and we also are committed to setting forth our souls for the sake of our brothers and sisters.

This is the only bond of our Fellowship, the highest value inside of God, our fellowship together inside of Symmorphy, that is, inside of Jesus and inside of Christ Community.