23. A Shared Heart Covenant
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For You have magnified Your word above all Your name (Psalm 138:2). I have found… a man after My own heart, who will do all My Desire (Acts 13:22) – Christ lives inside your heart through faith (Ephesians 3:17). – Sharing Hheart with God.
Clearly, I am a letter of Christ written with Spirit ink upon the tablets of my heart of flesh (2 Corinthians 3:3). – A shared Hheart Covenant.
IF – Jesus lives in your heart, then, clearly, you share Hheart with God and your heart is God’s Covenant with creation. Your heart is the Entrance of God.
The Holiest Place. Your entire life has been about one thing – to prepare your heart to contain and to reveal God All-Carrying. And it is your faith right now that calls it to be so.
Now, our purpose in this teaching is to define everything by the Pattern of the Tabernacle, regardless of any other ways that this truth has been presented. It is my hope, then, that we will never regard our hearts as anything other than the Holiest place in the universe, the Holy of Holies.
The indwelling of Jesus makes our hearts holy; His Words written there cause us to be just like Him.
The Details of Christ. Consider this statement. The ark of the covenant that was covered all around every part with gold, in which was the golden pot having the manna, and Aaron’s staff which budded, and the tablets of the covenant. Moreover, above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the propitiation, concerning which we cannot now speak in detail (Hebrews 9:3-5).
That little line “concerning which we cannot now speak in detail,” gives full liberty to us, upon whom the completion of the age is now come, to search out all those wondrous details God intended us to know inside this picture.
These “details” of Christ-written unfold forever.
Covenant Core. Here is the core of the Covenant written on our hearts. – Symmorphosed with His image – Transformed into the same image – We shall be like Him. Here is the purpose of the Covenant written on our hearts. – And all shall know Me. – That the world might know.
To share Hheart with God is to share Jesus with God; Jesus is the Bond of the Covenant. And by “Bond,” we mean both connecting agent and guarantor.
He is also the Words of the Covenant – The Words that I speak to you are Spirit and they are Life. Yet in all this, we continue to speak of our own hearts.
Be Just Like God. We are commanded to be just like God more than fifteen times throughout the New Testament. Be perfect and complete, just as God is perfect and complete. – Forgive just as God forgives. – Overcome just as Jesus overcame. – And so on.
Yet in some ways these are “outer” things. Let’s go to the heart of sharing Hheart with God.
Therefore be just like God, as beloved children, and walk inside of love in just the same way that Christ also loved us… – the love of God has already been poured out and shed abroad inside of our hearts through Spirit Holy (Ephesians 5:1-2 & Romans 5:5).
Father and I. Here is what sharing Hheart with God really means.
Father and I together are long suffering and kind; Father and I together are not envious; Father and I together are not boastful or puffed up, Father and I together do not act improperly or seek Oour own. Father and I together are not easily provoked; Wwe keep no account of wrongs, that is, Wwe do not know evil. Father and I together do not rejoice at injustice, but Wwe rejoice together with the truth. Father and I together cover all for all; Father and I together hope all for all; Father and I together believe all for all; Father and I together carry all for all. Father and I together never fail.
Authority to Love. Father and I together cover all for all; Father and I together hope all for all; Father and I together believe all for all; Father and I together carry all for all. – This is what it means to be like God.
Do you see why we do not “try to love” of ourselves. God-Love is entirely beyond us. We know it only through believing in Jesus with all our hearts. Yet, because Jesus is written in Person upon our hearts, these words ARE a description of us. Know them.
We possess all authority in heaven and earth – to Love, that is, to reveal Father.
As You Are Real. Never make the mistake of trying to “feel” this Love. Never make the mistake of running around trying to “prove” that you Love. In both instances you are leaving Father out in the cold.
Believe that God is telling you the truth – the Love of God IS poured out and shed abroad inside of your heart. And then spend a season, first, resting in, and then learning what it means for Father Himself to share your life with you and to reveal Himself through you as He wishes.
God-Love through you is real, but only as you are real as a human vessel of weakness in the acceptance of your form.
Your Own Heart for Real. The heart is that which cares; the heart is that which desires; the heart is that which pumps the blood of life into every member of the body. The heart is that deep and inner center of what and who a person is. The heart is the essence of a person. The heart is the “me” deep inside of all that could be outward.
The heart is where Jesus makes His home; the heart is where He writes His word.
To know your own heart for real is to know the Father; to know the Father is to know your own heart. Learn to live out from your true heart.
Out of Our Depth. This lesson is meant to be on the inner reality of sharing Hheart with God and the next on the practical and ongoing application, that is, setting forth our souls for others. It’s not possible to separate these two topics, however, and so we will include some of the practical here and in the next lesson some of the inner reality.
And I assure you that, although God has taught me some truly wondrous things, over the last few years, concerning both the inner reality and the outer expression of sharing Hheart with Him, I continue entirely out of my depth.
For our Father to share His Heart with us is beyond all, yet Ephesians 3:17 means that is what He has done.
Defining Mercy. Let’s define mercy, not out from the dictionary this time, but from our knowledge of God.
Mercy is the terrible judgment against sin. But sin cannot be judged apart from justice. Therefore God-Mercy takes the sin itself into Himself, that justice might be rendered both to the thief and to the one who suffered loss. Mercy itself pays the just compensation for what was stolen, that is, double.
To share Hheart with God is not to place ourselves under an obligation we cannot bear; rather, it is to allow Father to share with us a small measure of what He already carries.
Focus on the Church. Christ in our hearts is sharing Hheart with God. Jesus already carries all for all. As we share in His sufferings, in that which He carries, so we also share in the Mercy that He gives.
Yet we do not cast our eyes at this present time on the masses of humanity. There is no help for them except through the Church. For that reason, our eyes are set on all who belong to Jesus, especially those who have trusted God enough to enter and to remain in the Holy Place.
The gospel writers teach us to focus on the Church.
Nourish and Cherish. To share Hheart with God is to care about the Church as Jesus Himself cares about the Church.
Husbands, love your wives in just the same way that Christ also loved the church and traded Himself for her, for her sake, …having already cleansed her by the washing of water [in the words of His good speaking], …for one who loves his wife loves himself… in just the same way also that Christ nourishes and cherishes the Church. …“…into one flesh the two will be.” This is a great mystery, but I speak of Christ and the Church. (Ephesians 5:25-32 – reduced).
That last statement means that God’s people are as your own wife; they are as members of your own body.
The Second Secret. The first secret of Jesus is Christ made known in you, by His good words; this is your connection with God. But this second secret of Jesus, this “great mystery,” is Christ made known through you to His Church, speaking good words into them; this is God’s connection with you.
And in all of this, we are speaking of nothing more than the love of God poured out and shed abroad in our hearts. Yet that statement of our reality never ends in the depths of its meaning.
To know God-Love is to know your own heart. To know your own heart is to know God-Love.
Four Actions. Let’s look at the four actions that Paul said God-Love, now our own hearts, does. God-Love (1) covers, (2) hopes, (3) believes, and (4) carries.
In the next lesson we will look closely at our task of practicing the Mercy Seat, being that Mercy of God extended to each one of our brothers and sisters in Christ. Yet that practice is, in fact, these four actions.
To cover is God’s response to all offense. “I have taken care of it; you are no longer exposed.” Pick an individual who has offended you and think what this definition means through you towards that person.
Hope and Faith For. To hope is to place upon a person that expectation that they are just like the Lord Jesus, that He is and will be known as their only life. Hope secures the end right from the start and keeps it always in full view. When you hope for another person, you see them as the Lord Jesus, regardless of anything outward.
Faith, then, is the active energeoing of God and you together, synergeoing, that is – faith which energeoes through love (Galatians 5:6). Faith is the action that touches, that gives, that speaks. Faith is little acts of kindness and gentle words of encouragement. Faith is what you do.
Carrying All. To carry, then, means to bear with all for this one, all the way through the darkness until they are standing in all the light and joy of life.
The redemption of all means that Father and we together will do these four things towards each individual person through the next few ages of time.
But that cannot happen until Father and we together love the Church and bring each one who belongs to Jesus into this same knowledge of God. And we cannot be Father and we together towards His Church until Father is the entirety and extent of our own hearts.
Enter God All-Carrying. We are utterly safe, here inside the Holiest, inside our Father’s Heart. We are rooted and grounded inside of Love. And out from this safe, safe, place, in the arms of Keep and Make Holy, we learn what it means to extend Father-Love out from our shared Hheart towards each member of Christ.
Your entire life has been about one thing only – that you might share Hheart with God, that your own heart might contain the very God All-Carrying and be His entrance into His Church.
As you believe this to be true, as you see how, in all wonder, it is true, as you give thanks for the sake of all, so you share Hheart with God.