45. The Present Task

© Daniel Yordy – 2019

And I saw thrones and they sat upon them and judgment was committed to them (Revelation 20:4a).

In this concluding chapter of The River of Life, I want to review again this most important fulcrum, or singularity, or source of all that is life – you and me sharing heart with our Father as His Mercy Seat towards all.

As we are part of Father’s Heart, so all else belongs to us. Yet if nothing else were ever to come to us, still, here alone would we dwell.

And of truth, even though we enjoy the fruit of all good things forever, yet we retain inside our innermost being this quality of Father’s heart that is always life laid-down and love poured-out for others.

Forever, all creation will know the goodness of God only because of these thrones and of our judgment as we are seated there upon Mercy.

The early Hebrew word for God is “El,” which means “judge.” “In the beginning, Elohim” means “In the beginning the Judges created the heavens and the earth.”

Revelation 20:4a means one thing only, that we share Hheart with God.

And so I find that there is one spiritual quality that I will set before you as the thing to practice with discipline until you are as skilled in its exercise as the greatest of piano players is skilled. And that one discipline is practicing the Mercy Seat.

Dennis was practicing the Mercy Seat when he made and sent that video to me. By saying, “I receive you, Daniel,” he was passing judgment on me. Bill and I together were practicing the Mercy Seat when we called our friction, “God among us.” We were passing judgment together; we were calling all things good.

Judgment is never to death; the judgment of God is always to goodness and life.
Yet “cost” is always at the core of judgment, the Blood sprinkled there upon our hearts.
Something that costs nothing has no value. Something that costs everything has all value.

Yet we are not the ones who bear the load, but our Father. As He shares Christ with us, so He shares with us the glory and the meaning of His own judgment. We are reflectors of Another, yet God honors us in such a way that He never removes our own prerogative to believe and to act inside of our knowledge of Him. God has limited Himself to revealing Himself though us as we are and as we choose to know Him. This honoring of God includes our role as the arbiters of His judgment.

It is Jesus alone who causes our judgment and Father’s judgment to be the same, that is, symmorphy.

We are caught between two opposing forces. On the one hand is the mighty things opening to us inside of the knowledge of God, particularly everything briefly touched on in the last chapter, “Rivers Flowing Out.” And on the other hand is the rapid descent of this world into all outward appearance of evil.

Caught between these two, I find myself wanting to hunker down and to focus on the one thing God has given us to do, and that is to BE His Mercy Seat, a quality of being that enlarges forever, but only as we practice such a thing.

Nothing else will help the Church or the world.

You and I must call all things into goodness and into the knowledge of God.

I have included in the Appendix of this text a copy of the “Practicing the Mercy Seat” assignment so that you will have it with this book. I want to review here, however, the added understanding we gained in Chapter 30 “Setting Forth Our Souls.”

We start by framing this sitting upon thrones and this judgment entirely in the little things. God is the God of little things, not big things. God is hum-drum and every day, with occasional bursts of adventure and creativity punctuating deep and quiet fellowship; that is, He made us just like Himself.

My interaction with Bill last week was a little, little thing; nonetheless I call it the beginning of Tabernacles in the experience of my life and in the life of the Church on this earth. I have the right to do that; I have the right to take all of my little things into the Holiest place in the universe and call them the revelation of Father.

I have the right to be a son of God.

And so, in the midst of all my agony – which is of little consequence – I always call my Father as being part of me, of sharing all things with me as one Pperson together. I have not accused God of separating Himself from me for over six years now. And that quality, I can assure you, is of little consequence in the “grand scheme of things.”

Nonetheless, I also possess the audacity to claim that the absence of accusation against Father in my present life IS the cause of the outward appearance of evil rapidly falling. And I make that claim based on what God says – the accuser of our brethren is cast down – and they overcame him.

You see, before I was able to stop calling God by the devil, I had to pass through years of screaming wails of accusation that I was blaspheming against God by not calling Him by the devil. Yet in this place, I see how awful and how common such a practice is among our fellow Christians, good and anointed though they might be.

Nonetheless, that is the easier part of setting forth our souls, that is, never driving Father away from us in the pain of unbelief. The other part is drawing the offender in all of his or her offensiveness into the love of God shed abroad in our hearts to join that offender with Father, here, above the Blood.

But here’s the thing. Nothing is more valuable to me than to know and to be able to say in every moment that my Father shares all things with me as one Pperson together, to know that He utterly carries me, that every step I take He embeds utterly inside of His love, and that there cannot be any other possibility. From that ROCK alone, it is an easy thing for me to disregard the normal contempt I share with you for all other humans besides myself.

I disregard contempt because, since it is not my Father, it is also not me.

So long as I thought I was in trouble with God, I could never let go of contempt.

But look again at Jesus in Psalm 22. The top part of him, the mental part, was screaming against Father. Yet deep in His gut, He never considered that awfulness as having any importance or meaning whatever. In His gut, Jesus placed Father utterly with Him not in spite of but including everything else.

“Inside of My agony, You, Father, are reconciling the cosmos to Yourself.”

This same mind is ours as well.

You and I were there with David, literally and substantially, inside of Jesus’ soul in His agony and in His placing of that agony utterly into “Father with Me.” We have already lived this, before Father ever placed us into our mother’s womb. The words of God by which we exist always pass through Jesus first.

I see that I am closing out this text with the same verse that is the most important to me personally, the verse that must close out many of my books.

If anyone loves Me, My word he will keep [guard and watch over], and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and will make Our home of intimate closeness with him (John 14:23).

If Father making His Home inside of me with Jesus is an option, then it is the only thing I want or have ever wanted. Yet as we have utterly turned around, we discover that it never was an issue of Father with us, but whether we would allow Father with us, as Jesus did.

The turning of the ages rests entirely upon the little things of our lives because we believe in Jesus.

It is such a wondrously comforting thing to me to have watched the vials of Revelation 16 catapult right into Christ our only life. Of truth, this picture, the great contrast between “the land of Goshen” and “no rain shall fall,” is a critical way for us to envision our present task.

Paul said the same thing in this way. – Before God whom he believed, this One who is continuously giving life to the dead and calling into existence things not existing (Romans 4:17) versus – But the foolish things of the world God has chosen, that He might shame the wise; and the weak things of the world God has chosen, that He might shame the strong, and the low-born of the world and those being despised God has chosen, and that which is not, so that He might bring to nothing that which is existing, so that no flesh might boast in the presence of God (1 Corinthians 1:27-29).

To call into existence things not existing – to bring to nothing things that are existing.

What I am saying is that we WILL see a visible demonstration of this reality – life upon the Church and emptiness upon the kingdom of the beast. And this great contrast to be shown to all will come out of the Hheart you and I share with Father.

Consider Ezekiel’s vision. – Again He said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! Thus says the Lord God to these bones: “Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin and put breath in you; and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the Lord” ’ ” (Ezekiel 37:4-6).

Now, this is the very passage that a Christian Judaic once told me belongs only to natural Is- and not to Christ in His Church. And it is this very passage that I discovered in both Paul and John, applying this word to the Church of Jesus Christ and to nothing else. As Paul said – “CAST OUT the slave woman and her son; for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit along with the son of the free woman” (Galatians 4).

This is the ministry of the second witness of Christ, to call life upon the Church, that is, tangible provision and protection, the wide-open windows of heaven, all goodness outpoured. And to withdraw God from those who imagine that they do not want Him at all, that is, to give them a taste of what “no-God” really is so that they might turn.

Yet our exercise of this great ministry is found entirely inside of the little things of our everyday lives. Practice being the judgment of God in the little things. Practice calling the little things of your life and of the lives of those whom you know and love into goodness. Practice turning every difficult thing into blessing by the seeing of your eyes.

When we are skilled in calling the little everyday difficulties we experience by the judgment of God, judgment to life, we will find it a simple thing to turn and call the big things of this present age in the same way when it is time to do so.

As you call the little difficulties of your life by the goodness of the Father, you will regularly be surprised by joy. It is the judgment of God through you that makes the joy of the Lord to be the strength of your life.

Here is what Jesus said about judgment.
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Indeed, the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all might value and honor the Son, even as they value and honor the Father. –  I am not able of Myself to do anything; even as I hear, so I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own desire, but the desire of the One having sent Me (John 5:22 & 3-). – I am not judging anyone. And if I were to judge, however, My judgment is true, because I am not alone, but I and the Father having sent Me (John 8:15b-16).

You can see the interesting contradiction. First Jesus says that the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son. Then He says that He, the Son, judges no one – BUT – if He were to judge, His judgment would come out from Father WITH Him.

Then we have two more points in this path of “no-judgment judgment.”

And if anyone hears My words and does not keep, guard, and watch over them, I do not judge him, for I came not that I might judge the cosmos, but that I might save the cosmos. The one ignoring Me and not seizing hold of My words has one judging him. The word which I spoke, that will judge him inside the last day. For I have not spoken out of Myself, but the Father Himself having sent Me, gave Me the end result [the objective], what I should say and what I should speak. And I perceive that His end result brought to completion is age-abiding life. What therefore I speak, as the Father has said to Me, so I speak (John 12:47-50).

But where is this word that judges all things? – The word, that is, Christ, the Word God speaks, is near you here and now, inside of your mouth and inside of your heart”; that is, the word of faith, persuasion, and confidence which we proclaim. That, if you speak the same word in your mouth, that is the Lord Jesus, and hold confident faith and persuasion inside your heart that God raised Him out from the dead, you will be saved. For the heart persuades into just innocence; and the mouth speaks the same word, speaking Christ into salvation (Romans 10:8-10).

The difference here is that we are turned around together with our Father and the word which we hold in confident faith and persuasion is that word that judges all others into life.

Now, I have laid out all this progression of judgment here in order to show the path of our normal and everyday action as God’s own judge each in our own arena of life. And the key element in all this pathway of judgment is this: - My judgment is true, because I am not alone, but I and the Father having sent Me.

The Father is always with Jesus, not as a passive passenger, but as the ACTIVE Energeia of Jesus’ life. In this relationship between Father and Jesus, “I am not alone,” the Father is the ACTIVE agent continuously acting with all pro-determination, and Jesus is the recipient, resting in the faith and love of the Father.

But then Jesus turns with Father inside of Him and becomes the ACTIVE Energeia of our lives. In this relationship between Jesus and us, we are never alone, but Jesus is the ACTIVE agent continuously acting with all pro-determination, and you and I are the recipients, resting in the faith and love of Christ.

Father and Jesus are not with us passively, but with all bold determination and active participation every moment – as kindness and goodness and as all expectation of faith. This is what God really means by the believing of our hearts.

Our judgment, then, is not “who goes to heaven and who goes to hell”; that is the judgment of the evil one. And our judgment is not “who is blessed and who is cursed,” for that is not God’s purpose in working together with us. God’s purpose in synergeia is to turn all things meant for evil into the outcome of pure and intrinsic goodness.

Nonetheless, there is a season of judgment towards what many would call “cursing,” that is found only in the decision of the individual person as to how they respond to the words that we speak. As we go forward through this season of the birthing of the Age of Tabernacles out from the midst of this present age, we will find that our words of judgment to life will be a judgment to death in those who refuse. What that means is that, as we go forward, more and more, we will notice an increase in the goodness surrounding those who receive our words with joy and an increase in the ruin and loss surrounding those who reject our words with hostile unbelief.

Now, I used the word, “notice an increase,” instead of “see an increase.” Because, even when people draw back into immediate ruin and loss, we continue to SEE their end as blessing and life. The ruin and loss is for a season and carries great purpose.

I came not that I might judge the cosmos, but that I might save the cosmos.

Judgment is always to life.

Right now, I have Romans in The Jesus Secret II opened on my double-wide computer screen even as I am typing this into Microsoft Word. And I see this confession of faith, which is the whole point I am driving at here.

“Jesus continuously and actively connects me together with God.”

You and I are NEVER alone, but Father through Jesus is WITH us; therefore our judgment is just.
But let’s bring all this home to our hearts in the present moment.

Father at home in my heart.

Father at home in my heart.

There is nothing more precious to me in all the universe.

Father at home in my heart.

When we draw each individual person and each circumstance and each interaction with others, regardless of whether those persons and circumstances and interactions are good or difficult, I am drawing each into Father at home in my heart.

And I know that Father is there waiting to greet each one with all joy because I never see Father in any other way than sharing ALL THINGS with me as one Pperson together. I never see Father in any other way than WITH me, regardless of any human agony or any human excess.

Of all the things I have written, the most precious to me is Chapters 2-5 in Symmorphy V: Life. I can read and listen to those four chapters over and over. In fact, I listened to  2.1 A Dwelling Place (for Father) just now on my way back from any early morning run to the airport.

Two questions appeared before us in that lesson – What is my fellowship with Father? And – Where is the place of My rest?

This is what Father is all about, finding the place of His rest. That place of Father’s rest is our fellowship together. Here is what I wanted to bring in from 2.1 A Dwelling Place. – “The completed dwelling place of God through which He is seen and known by all creation, then, is our fellowship together as the Church. Our fellowship together is the only means by which God will be known AS HE IS by any created being or entity.”

When Bill and I placed Father upon our difficulty together, calling even our human failings by His LOVE, Father was finding the place of His rest.

And Bill and I were able to give Father rest because we have been practicing being the Mercy Seat in our own personal lives and circumstances.

When I give thanks for the sake of all difficulty, to turn all things towards goodness, I am exercising the present task of preparing myself to give thanks together with you for the sake of our shared difficulty that Father might show Himself to all as He is.

Here again is the everlasting picture of Father showing Himself as He is.

And be kind with one another, tender-hearted, forgiving, that is, giving favor to each other, in exactly the same way that God inside of Christ gives favor freely to you. Therefore be just like God, as beloved children, and walk inside of love in just the same way that Christ also loves us and gives Himself to us for our sakes, an offering and a sacrifice to God, into a sweet-smelling aroma (Ephesians 4:32-5:2 – modified).

And so my continued injunction to you in the closing out of this incredible topic is – practice being the Mercy Seat, practice sharing Hheart with God.