17. Synergeia

The ESSENCE and MEANING of the fulfillment of the Day of Atonement in the life of the Church and in any individual person’s life, is the beginning of full and unbroken symmorphy with Father through Christ. From that moment on, we never turn away again from God energeoing away inside of us and we energeoing away inside of God; we never again know anything but full synergeia with God in and towards all things.

And this knowing is based upon faith in what God says, NOT upon any human feelings or judgments or any sight of the eyes.

Symmorphy is a word describing the condition of sharing the same form with the Lord Jesus Christ as the revelation of Father. Synergeia is a word describing the action and dynamics of life taking place inside of and out from this symmorphy.

We share the same form with God All-Carrying; we share the same energeia.

On the inside, this synergeia we call communion. Among one another, this synergeia we call fellowship. But going out from us as individuals and from us together, we call this synergeia “intercession,” or “setting creation free” becoming our possession of inheritance.

We could thus see the removal of the seals from off the scroll as seven ever deeper releases of the meaning of synergeia, God and us working all things together, until such action is made fully visible and God is known by all as He really is.

Nonetheless, I want to keep the opening of the Scroll as applied to the Church, not to creation. That is, the removal of the seals that bind is something that happens for the Church through the next short while, as the Day of Atonement comes clear in the lives and experience of millions of Spirit-filled believers in Jesus BEFORE they rush into the fulfillment of the First Day of Tabernacles, God among us, in all glory.

So, in actuality, I want to know this synergeia shared with Father inside the fulfillment of one verse, 1 John 3:16. By this we have known love, because He set forth His soul for us; and we also are committed to setting forth our souls for our brothers and sisters.

Now, I may be repetitive and vague in my discussion of this whole topic. There is a very good reason for that, and that is that I don’t have a clue what I am talking about. I write because I want to understand, not because I know. And so I set these things before our eyes over and over so that we might see and know and enter into being the full revelation of Father to His Church.

Before I forget about it, I want to bring a verse into this topic, into this place of synergeia.

That I might know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, having already been symmorphosed [sharing the same form] with His death (Philippians 3:10).

“The fellowship of His sufferings.”

Let me define intercession again. – Knowing Jesus as He is, His soul inside of our souls and our souls inside of His soul. It is this sharing of His heart expressed over His people that IS the full intertwining of our souls with His.

Jesus does not “give you” anything, including any ministry of intercession. Rather, Jesus enters into all that you are and receives all that you are into Himself, Mind with mind, Soul with soul, Emotions with emotions, Desires with desires, such that everything you and He might do, you ARE always doing it together, that is, synergeia. Yet inside that synergeia, it is always fellowship, one with one, two walking together as one.

And this action, of enlarging Yyour Hheart together out over all whom the Father has given to Yyou together, that causes you and Jesus to know one another as Oone.

Giving thanks begins this synergeia, and setting forth Yyour souls for the brethren takes this synergeia, this fellowship, to its depths.

Now, I must remind you that in all of this, we are talking about two descriptions of one thing. The two descriptions are the Day of Atonement fulfilled and the removal of the seals from off the scroll. And the one thing they are describing is Jesus and you together winning the hearts in full of each one whom the Father has given to Yyou.

What does the acceptance of the Atonement really mean?

Let me reference one of the primary things God healed inside of me through my time with John Eldredge – the shame of the junior high P.E. locker room. John Eldredge took me back into those terrible moments of having to strip naked in full view of the boys of your same age, the strutting, the mockery, the utter and debilitating shame, and he showed me, together with the Lord Jesus, that it was not my fault.

Listen, I was 45 years old. I was overwhelmed at the extent and the depths of the open unhealed lacerations working their poison unseen inside the cells of my body, underneath the workings of my mind, and against the energeia of my strength, just from that one place when I was eleven and twelve years old (I was always the youngest in my class).

What happened when Jesus and I together went back into that moment and He showed me that it was not my fault? And that’s all I knew at that time; this was at the beginning of unnumbered healings, just after my heart had thawed out just enough for God to heal me without killing me. Yet now I know that much more was taking place than just knowing that it was not my fault.

What was the original cause of those inflicted wounds that did not heal for over thirty years?

The cause was the marriage in me of accusation with unthankfulness. I, the human, provided the unthankfulness, and a demon provided the accusation.

Let me make a critical point here. Just as being filled with all the fulness of God does not give life to anyone – only knowing God gives life, so also the redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ, His atonement, doesn’t do one ounce of good for anyone either.

Jesus can die and rise from the dead all He wants as an event in space and time, and His atonement doesn’t mean hogwash to anyone.

Just as it is my KNOWING the Father who fills me full that is LIFE inside of me, so also it is the personal KNOWING of Jesus SENT into that moment, there, in that junior high locker room, that alone heals the wounds of death.

So – exactly how does Jesus Sent into that situation heal my pus-filled abscess?

Jesus did not die for God; He did not die for sin; Jesus died FOR US.

The action inside of me that was Jesus Sent into the recesses of my mind in the memory of that one source of unmitigated shame happened BECAUSE, in that moment at age 45, I let go of the unthankfulness found in the heart of the twelve-year-old me.

Now, it was a demon that spoke the accusation, accusing me as God’s image for being inadequate, and accusing God, as my Maker, for being derelict in my design, and accusing Jesus for living me through a circumstance of pressure I did not want. So, in saying with Jesus, “It was not my fault,” I was saying, “It’s not my fault as a human designed to be what God looks like; it’s not God’s fault for making me this way; and it’s not Jesus’ fault for living me into this awful place.

And in saying, “It’s not Oour fault, the accusations of the demon lost their hold and vanished away as the meaningless smoke that they were.

Yet it was my own unthankfulness that gave the words of accusation their place all the way through. The truth is, it’s not that we’re “forgiving” ourselves, but we’re forgiving God for making us like Himself and we’re forgiving Jesus for living us through something we disliked.

Now, that was accusation and shame that did not come from any action of sin. No one did anything “wrong” in that setting. It’s just an awful and stupid place to stick boys into during the most vulnerable time of their development.

Now, because I grew up in the sixties, Charles Manson was to me the cultural image of a wicked, wicked man. That’s why I use his name as a stand-in for all wicked actions committed by one human against another human in all of history. We must always keep Paul’s claims regarding the gospel as applied personally to named and known persons.

Thus when Paul claims that every single human (as we now know it means) gives thanks for being made like God in every awful situation, and gives thanks for being led by Jesus through every one of their moments, it is important to place named people there in our understanding.

I want to move, now, to a single action of sin. I don’t want to know any specific sins Charles Manson might have committed against other individual persons, so I will just use a generic Joe and Sue. And I use rape because an Asperger’s mind is disassociated from sensibility in those regards and thus I have no idea of anyone being offended by my use of such a term – AND – because it seems to me that no other single action violates the victim more or is more representative of all actions of injustice than the action of rape.

Let’s look closely at that moment when Joe raped Sue.

God fully intended Joe in that moment and God fully intended Sue in that moment. What God did not intend was the action of rape, for God does not know any such thing.

Let me define “intended.” Everything of both Joe and Sue was designed by God to be like Himself AND to be filled with Himself. And every moment of their lives, in themselves, was coming out of the good speaking of Jesus. Yet Joe did something outside of and separate from the God in whom he lived and the Jesus out from whom he was always coming.

That action of rape was not Joe and it was not Sue, yet it was Joe who did it. The action itself filled only several moments of time. Yet from that moment on, Joe was a “rapist,” and Sue was “one who was raped.” And the meaning of that one action scarred and slit open, bled and pussed out, hurt and battered both Joe and Sue for the rest of their lives, even through their physical death and their wandering in hades.

So, we have four things, really, (1) Joe, intended utterly by God; (2) Sue, intended utterly by God; (3) the action of sin, unknown by God; and (4) the scarring of definition in both abuser and abused for the rest of their continuing existence.

What, then, does the Atonement of Jesus Sent actually do inside of these specifics?

First, Jesus became that sin, as Paul said, that is, by taking into Himself that sin of rape, that sin, committed by Joe against Sue, and, bearing all responsibility for it, took it into His empty grave. The sin is atoned, it is gone, it is NOT there. It is NOT anywhere. The sin no longer exists. The entire creation in which that sin happened died upon the cross of Christ.

And He is the propitiation [the resolution] {the Mercy Seat} all around our sins; but not all around ours only, but also all around [the sins of] the entire cosmos (1 John 2:2).

Sin – GONE! Rape – NO LONGER EXISTS.

So what! The atonement wrought by Jesus has not done anything for either Joe or Sue.
The only thing that gives life is knowing Jesus Sent into that moment that the sin actually took place. Joe must know Jesus Sent into that moment and Sue must know Jesus Sent into that moment.

Look back at the list of four things. Number three does not exist. Joe and Sue continue as fully intended by God and sustained by Jesus in every moment forever.

So – what is the problem? The problem is number 4, the scarring of definition in both Joe and Sue, inside their souls and written all through their hearts.

And the cause of that scarring definition is not the sin, for the sin is gone inside a universe that no longer exists (old things ARE passed away, behold ALL things ARE made new – 2 Corinthians 5). The scarring definition is caused by the present ongoing action of unthankfulness married with accusation in the minds and hearts of both Joe and Sue.

Let’s position Joe and Sue inside of three different scenarios. First, a Joe and Sue who died two hundred years ago and have wandered in hades since. Second, a Joe and Sue who are alive today, still unregenerate. Third, a Joe and Sue who have subsequently become born again and attend full Nicene churches who deny immersion in the Spirit or any inward healing.

To be quite honest with you, I don’t see any difference between these three scenarios in what is happening inside of both Joe and Sue and what must come to them as they yield to the victory of Jesus in some Today in their future. And if a born-again Joe and Sue die and are dead in the heavens inside of Christ, I still see little difference, for the same FAITH must operate inside of them towards the redemption of Christ, regardless of being dead or alive.

ALL of Joe and Sue’s difficulty begins with one thing – unthankfulness in their hearts. Into that unthankfulness, a demon of accusation feeds (or has fed) his words. Let us assume that dead in Christ in the heavens means that the demon is not presently speaking; nonetheless his words of accusation, woven all through Joe and Sue’s individual self-stories, continue – if redemption has not come to them through their faith, through willingly receiving Jesus into that one terrible moment of their lives.

Here’s the thing – let’s assume 15 billion total descendants of Adam and Eve, with an average of 40 years of life and assuming 6 million “moments” a year. We are talking about a total of 3,600,000,000,000,000,000 moments of marriage between unthankfulness and accusation, or 36¹⁷. (My math is for illustrative purposes only – I never liked math.)

Let’s consider again Paul’s over-the-top claim. – That inside of the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, every heavenly knee, every earthly knee, and every under-earthly knee and every tongue should speak the same thing, that of the Lord Jesus Christ, penetrating into the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:9-10).

And remember, that God’s requirement of Jesus is that every accusation ever uttered coming out from unthankful hearts, must be proven to be without warrant or basis, and thus forever silenced. – That every mouth might be closed, and the entire cosmos brought under judgment before God (Romans 3:20).

You see, in the manner in which most Christians define “every knee bowing,” it’s all external and fake. That is, at no point in their definition does the atonement and love of Christ penetrate into each one of those moments of unthankfulness and accusation in order to bring the full reality of Christ our life into every moment of every human’s life and knowledge. Thus, in that false scenario, no accusation is actually silenced, except for one fleeting moment, then the accusation supposedly returns to full scream forever!

That is not God’s required victory.

So, let’s pick on Sue, as our model of how the redemption of Christ actually works out from a God who never violates anyone.

Sue might be born again, but, of truth, the Lord Jesus has not yet won her heart.

You see, in reality, Sue is “married” all through her soul and all through the cells of her body, with the one moment of victimization. And so long as her complete commitment and connection to that moment of assault remains, she cannot, then, be married with Christ inside that one moment of her life. She can know the Lord in many ways, but there is in her a hidden trigger that will bring her down without warning and cause her to turn her back on the good speaking of Jesus in order to curse herself.

Unless Jesus can enter into that horrific moment inside her consciousness, she will curse herself from now until He does, actually. I don’t believe that physical death removes self-cursing, even for a Christian.

In order for Sue to know full union with Christ, and to see her entire life in every moment to be one seamless story of Christ, she must surrender that moment of violation entirely to Jesus. She must give the rape to Jesus, knowing that He intended her through every moment, though He never intended the assault.

In other words, Sue must disconnect here “feelers” from the rape and reconnect them with full symmorphy with Jesus, as in our example from Avatar in the previous letter. And the only way such a transfer can take place is by giving thanks.

Giving thanks, inside the full memory of that moment, is the only thing that breaks the accusation, so that Jesus Himself might replace that accusation in all of Sue’s knowing.
Although the sin of rape is gone into the atonement of Jesus, it retains full power in Sue’s own story of herself. Giving thanks inside of that moment is the only thing that releases that rape into the fulness of the Atonement and connects Sue with her reality of coming out of Father through the good-speaking of Christ in every moment of her life.

Unthankfulness is the inner human choice that bound Adam’s soul to all evil.

Giving thanks is the inner human choice that binds our souls to Jesus, soul with Soul, to the final casting off of all consciousness of sinning or being sinned against.

Here is the requirement, the ONLY thing that could ever help Sue as well as Joe.

Jesus must win Sue’s heart. That’s it!

Winning Sue’s heart is always Jesus’ first task towards any and every human. Thus we see that “every knee will bow” happens only after “Jesus will win every heart.”

The Son of Man is come to seek and to save what is lost.

The final “God all in all” is known only after every heart is won.

And we know that Sue’s heart is fully won when she can look straight at herself inside every moment of that rape, and see only Christ, regardless, and without any remembrance of pain.

Salvation is wholeness, and wholeness is healing.

In my own experience, from the moment John Eldredge’s words began to pierce the first puss-filled abscess in my soul, in late 2001, healing came to me slowly, one hurt at a time. By 2014, I could look straight at every moment of my life and see and know only joy and the goodness of Christ carrying me inside that moment. In fact, many moments of my history that I could not have borne to look at in 2001, I now laugh with wonderment towards their memory. Now, I can’t see anything but Christ in those moments, and I cannot understand what my “problem” was.

By 2014, I could look at everything in my life and know joy, everything except one. And that one thing continued to give overwhelming pain, even after all my being set free inside of union with Christ. It was only while writing Chapters 3 & 4 of Musings on Union that I was able to place Jesus into that one final moment, and in doing so divorced myself from the man and the violation and married myself to Jesus through every moment of that darkness and all the awfulness that surrounded it. Now, there is no more pain. Now, it is so obvious to me how all of it was Christ living ME through all. I can no longer figure out why I was so bothered.

Now, the topic of this letter is “Synergeia,” God and us working together to win Sue’s heart, that is, the hearts of all of our brethren. In an upcoming letter, I hope to show how Death inside the minds of our brethren is our greatest enemy. But in the remainder of this letter, I want to talk about how setting forth our souls and synergeoing with God are two parts of the same thing.

Because I fear God, I know that I cannot be giving you ideas for your mental thinking. If God is not becoming known to you, personally and intimately, you and God engaging together face to Face and soul inside of Soul, then my ministry towards you would be only a ministry of death.

Part of how I attempt to get you and Father together is by sharing personally of me, that is, setting forth my soul for you. This is part of why I consider Paul to be the most important example to us of a relationship with God. Paul talked about himself all the time and put himself together with Jesus in nearly every line.

When Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ,” he was, in fact, referring to himself. Paul was setting forth his soul for us. By his example, then, we also are able to say, regarding ourselves personally, “I am crucified with Christ.”

But all my effort to connect you with God and God with you is futile unless it is fully a joint effort, Father and I synergeoing together. Therefore, my full expectation is in God, that God is working with me, in the writing and sharing and in the sending forth of Jesus as Word into your heart. And as different ones of you who have been reading these letters for some years share back with me, I see that Father indeed is synergeoing with me inside this word you have embraced to become Father and you synergeoing together.

We are one body together and we drink of one Spirit together, therefore we set forth our souls for one another in the sharing and fellowship of Christ personal as us.

Of truth, it was about a fourteen-year path for me in the healing of my soul, from the moment when I could first hear, “God loves me,” until I was able to hear the full meaning of Symmorphy, fully healed.

What I mean to say is that healing is utterly personal. Winning the heart of each one is utterly personal. Jesus, the Lamb slain for me, is utterly personal. You and Father synergeoing together in all things are utterly personal. Jesus healing every moment of your life through your giving of thanks is utterly personal.

Symmorphy is real. Synergeoing is life. Father with us is utterly personal to Him and to us.
Setting forth our souls for our brethren is simply who we are. – Believe it.

Our giving of thanks, even when it hurts, even when we don’t want to, makes it possible and even easier for all others who might follow.

Now, I thought I had finished this letter, except in the night I came to the full personal understanding of the Eucharist, the “communion service,” the “mass,” that is, the Sending of Christ into us as we eat and drink of Him.

I had to write all three of these chapters to finally see the personal engaging with God inside of the meaning of the bread and the cup.

As we have seen, Jesus’ statement of eating His flesh and drinking His blood is based upon the meaning that we become what we eat. It is NOT the bread and wine that become the body and life of Jesus, but the body and the spirit of the one eating.

And the thing that divorces us from all memory that is not Christ BY marrying us to Christ in every moment of our existence, both present and past, is giving thanks.

In the night I was feeling miserable because my body seems, at times, to threaten my very ability to write. It’s not that I have any medically diagnosed problem, but that a slow decline inhibits my ability to sleep and thus to have a clear mind in the mornings.

Here is an expanded version of my prayer in the night.

Father, I give thanks that You are with me in all things. Father, as I partake of Jesus’ body, so my body is now one flesh with Him, the flesh of Christ; my body is His Body. And as I partake of Jesus’ blood, so my spirit is now one spirit with Him, the Spirit of Christ; my spirit is His Spirit. And as I give You thanks inside of every present difficulty, so I place myself utterly into Your Being, my Father, just as Jesus also did every moment of His life.

I am part of Christ Jesus and Jesus is part of me.

I have taught this from the start, of course, but somehow, last night, it became more real and intimately closer than I’ve ever known before. It’s because I know that it is true.