27. Thinking like Jesus

As I walk, as I see others around me, as I am aware of myself, I think that God the Father, another Person, fills me full. I think that I am bound in a full Covenant union with this other Person, who happens to be God. I think that whatever God is, I possess as my own and that whatever I am, God possesses as His own. I think that wherever God reaches, I reach, whatever God does, I do, whatever God is, I am. I think that my limitations are God's, my inabilities are God's, my being is God's.

Father, I know that You always hear Me. Jesus, the Christ.

Father, I know that You always hear me. _____________ (Put your own name in the blank.)

Let me define “turning around before the Mercy Seat.” Specifically, one who is turned around walks always in the full knowledge – entirely by faith – that, since the Atonement is complete, so is the Covenant. And – since the Covenant is complete, we are, in all ways, just like Jesus, of His same kind. In all ways, that is, except one: that one thing is that our thinking must now change to thinking as Jesus thinks. We can do that because the Atonement and therefore the Covenant are finished.

Thus we are transformed by the renewing of our mind.

However, we must continue a bit further with our definition of “turning around.” One who is turned around before the Mercy Seat is one who walks always in the full knowledge – entirely by faith – that they are seated upon that Mercy Seat on the one hand and that the same Mercy Seat is their own heart on the other. Thus this one walks continually drawing others into the Mercy Seat of their heart, there above the Blood, and releases them from all obligation into the arising faith of the Son of God.

By the Atonement, we have full license from God to think exactly as Jesus thinks AND exactly as Jesus thought. We must remember these are two different things, both applicable to us.

Jesus thought, when He walked this earth, as a manifest Son, walking in sinful flesh, yet without sin.

Jesus thinks now as the victorious ascended Christ, Lord of heaven and earth, utterly separate from all sin.

There is a well known question: What would Jesus do? Interesting, but what did Jesus do?

Not much.

I just perused the gospels to discover exactly what Jesus did. Almost no work is recorded of Jesus. In fact, Jesus “worked,” as work is defined by the Sabbath law, two times only. The first was when he drove the money changers out of the temple and overturned their tables at the beginning of His ministry; the second was when He did it again near the end of His ministry, this time making a whip of cords. In fact that is the only real “work” recorded of Jesus, making the whip of cords, something we will address in an upcoming letter.

Beyond that, Jesus broke bread several times and washed His disciples feet. Otherwise the actions of Jesus are limited to walking, speaking, hearing, sitting, climbing into boats, and, best of all, touching. Jesus made it clear in John's gospel that, regardless of what the other disciples recorded, He did not heal anyone. It was the Father who did the work.

When people think “what would Jesus do,” they think entirely by human performance. God was careful to record almost no human performance of Jesus except making a whip to drive people out of God's house.

We do not “do” what Jesus did. We walk as Jesus walked – and to walk as Jesus walked, we must first think as Jesus thought. God did not send Jesus to do; He sent Him to walk, to speak, and most importantly, to touch.

Only a couple of times does the gospel text tell us directly what Jesus thought. For the most part, we must infer His thinking by what is said.

Jesus had no outward evidence that God and He walked as one, not until the water turned into wine, something that surprised Him on the one hand because He was human, and something that did not surprise Him at all because He knew the Father with Him regardless of feelings or demonstrations.

Jesus' thinking came out entirely from what He KNEW, and what He knew, He knew entirely by faith.

Thinking like Jesus begins with KNOWING the geography of God the Father in relation to ourselves. Geography means drawing or mapping the earth; in other words, knowing the geography of God in relation to ourselves is to know the meaning, reality, and extent of God's Person fitting perfectly in space and time with our person. We are two Ppersons, yet two always together as one, just as Jesus prayed.

Here is the Scriptural reference for our knowing the map of God's Person in relation to our person.

That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:17-19

That “width, length, depth, and height” is the geography, the mapping, of God and us together, each one of us as an individual, all of us together as one Body.

Remember that a Covenant places two together as one. All that belongs to one now belongs to the other in a fully mutual union. God's infinity is now ours; our limitation is now His. God's power is now ours; our weakness is now His. God's Love is now ours; our heart is now His. This mapping of the Covenant, the union between God and us, goes in all directions, in width, in length, in depth, and in height. Nothing of God and nothing of us remains outside of this mutual geography.

What does that mean for me? First, it does not mean that “I am God.” God is God, and I am me. Yet we are utterly together at all times and in every way as one. Although “I” am not God, yet I am the visible one to both heaven and earth whereas God remains forever invisible. Thus I am the image, the reflection, the visible representation of this God who walks in me. Christ is as me, but God fills me full. There is a difference.

You say, “Well, Yordy, you sure don't look like God.” But what does God look like? What does the Bible say?

He that has seen Me has seen the Father. – We shall be like Him (our hope) for we shall see Him as He is.

Faith (not performance) is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Our faith is the evidence of God; we believe, therefore we speak.

Here is how I think as Jesus thinks. – I am saying this by faith, that I also might clearly see; that is, I am speaking how Jesus thinks as if it is also how I think. I believe (what I cannot see), therefore I speak. – 

As I walk, as I see others around me, as I am aware of myself, I think that God the Father, another Person, fills me full. I think that I am bound in a full Covenant union with this other Person, who happens to be God. I think that whatever God is, I possess as my own and that whatever I am, God possesses as His own. I think that wherever God reaches, I reach, whatever God does, I do, whatever God is, I am. I think that my limitations are God's, my inabilities are God's, my being is God's.

No thought of obedience/disobedience ever enters my mind. I simply do what is at hand, follow where my heart leads me, step through doors that open and turn away from doors that close. I never ever imagine the evil thought that I could possibly be “missing” God, a thought that comes out from the tree of knowledge. Rather, in everything I do, I assume, absolutely and without qualifications, that God is utterly with me.

I walk thinking that the geography of God's Person corresponds perfectly with the geography of my person, God limited down to me in finiteness, in temporal-ness, in weakness. I walk thinking that the geography of my person corresponds perfectly with the geography of God's Person, no limits in space, no cessation by time, no restraint of power.

I walk knowing that the bond of this Covenant Union of God in me is absolute LOVE, the highest respect and the fullest regard. I know only Love; not-love never casts its shadow upon my thoughts.

Regardless of what I do, say, think, or feel, I rest utterly in the Bond of Love.

I know that God the Father, all of God in Person is BOUND absolutely to me by Covenant, by His Word and by His Oath. I know that God cannot lie.

I never think otherwise.

Consider David. What made him different? Why did God call him a man after God's own heart and not anyone else in the Old Testament?

David was a rascal, a finagler, a liar, a murderer, and an adulterer. David never considered the law of Moses except when he was forced to do so. David did only what he wanted to do; David never pretended or performed. What you saw when you met David was exactly what he was.

Neither David's lack of performance nor his excess in stupid and wicked mistakes have anything to do with David's being “a man after God's own heart.” In actuality, it was entirely the other way around. David was an utterly real human, utterly himself, BECAUSE that's how people are who possess what God calls His own heart.

What was different about David?

I saw the answer to that question only after I wrote “The Day of Atonement.” I saw that David and Jesus thought about God in just the same way.

That is an absolutely mind-blowing thing to say.

One of the accusations hurled by Nicene Christianity against the Lord Jesus Christ is that, since He was “God,” His witness DOES NOT count. Since Jesus was “God,” He could walk as Jesus walked, but we CAN'T. Of course, their definition of “God” is the definition of a heavenly cherub, not the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ who showed Himself to us as a Man.

David was not “born-again,” yet David thought and walked by that thinking, just as Jesus thought and walked. David lived his entire life “turned around” in the Holy of Holies.

The Bible gives us a clearer insight into the heart and soul, the thinking and feeling, the actions and mistakes, of this man David more than any other person in the Bible. And yet the words that poured out of David's greatest agony, his deepest grief and sorrow (Psalm 22, written as David chose to abandon the throne rather than bring civil war to Jerusalem), we now know are not David's words and thoughts only, but those of the Lord Jesus Christ hanging upon the cross. David did not know that, however; David was just being himself, a real man caught in real wrestling with God always at hand, always inside.

What was different about David?

I'm writing two letters at once, this one on the thinking of Jesus and the next letter on God's Heart in a man. Thus in this letter, I want to look only at David's thinking, coming out of a heart like God's.

How did David think about God?

David was the youngest of the seven sons of a wealthy farmer of good standing and lineage, but no place or power. As the youngest son, he was the “has-been,” the “Johnny-come-lately.” David was sent out, even as a boy, to do the tasks none of his older brothers wanted to do. Let us surmise that David was already out by himself herding the sheep during the time a child becomes fully self-aware, between the ages of 6 and 9.

I was already independent at age 9, off by myself in the woods. I taught myself to swim alone in the river at age 9. I never thought about “danger.” I was okay, so that was that! At the same time, I was not stupid and did nothing that would actually place myself in danger; that is, not until I was older and had a car. After I had a car, I saw the hand of God keeping me more than once, as I, in total amazement, watched the impossible happening.

(I write about myself BECAUSE we must know that God is with us in the same way that He was with Jesus.)

So, here is David, at the beginning of his self-awareness, around 7 or 8 years old, off by himself with the sheep. David did not “grow” into his way of thinking about God; David thought about God in exactly the same way his entire life.

David thought that God was WITH him and he was WITH God.

Never once, in his entire life, did David think anything else.

David PRESUMED absolutely upon God.

When David hurled a rock at the bear, at eight years old, he simply assumed that, of course, God was in his hand, God in Person, utterly with him. A few years later, as he stood unprotected between two vicious armies facing a giant of a man, David's thinking was no different than when he was eight. David simply assumed that, of course, God was in his hand, God in Person, utterly with him.

Look at the very worst point of David's life. He looked at a woman bathing naked on her rooftop and LUSTED after her (the tenth commandment). Then he lied to his captain and her husband (the ninth commandment). Then he ordered the husband murdered (the sixth commandment) while he committed adultery (the seventh commandment). He thought he was getting away with murder, even after Bathsheba bore their child, until Nathan pointed his bony finger in David's face, accusing David of the worst kind of theft (the eighth commandment).

The law of Moses required that David be stoned to death. Yet this same Nathan, knowing full well that David should have been stoned to death for his wicked acts and his violation of God's law, later said that God had made a Covenant with David, a special Covenant, separate from Moses' Covenant.

How's that? What's the deal?

Look at the story in 2 Samuel 11 and 12. It is clear, in 2 Samuel 11, that God is displeased with David. Read, especially, 2 Samuel 12:13-23. I will not place the verses here, rather I will recount what happened next.

Nathan told David that God had “put away” David's sin, but that the consequence of David's wickedness would be that the child born of adultery would die. Thus the child became sick. Then it says that David went “in” and lay on the ground. We can assume that he went into the big tent in his back yard and lay on the ground before the Mercy Seat. 

There is no thought in David's mind concerning his own sin, no thought of God's displeasure, no thought of “getting right with God.” David KNEW, in the midst of being caught in wickedness, that God was with him and he was with God. His entire purpose, there on his face on the ground for seven days without food or water, was to persuade God to let his son live, to finagle his way out from the consequences of his sin. When he heard that God had taken his son anyway, he arose from the ground, ate and drank, wrote a poem, one of the greatest psalms of praise, and worshipped in joy before God.

It never entered David's mind once that God might be separated from him.

David lived his whole life turned around before God in the Holy of Holies. David sat upon the throne.

Now, if that isn't piracy, I don't know what is. Bolder than Genghis Khan, more daring than Blackbeard the pirate, almost as audacious as Jesus.

David expected God with him and him with God with never any shadow of thought otherwise.

We can no longer accuse Jesus of being “privileged” because of His sinlessness. David walked with God in the same way even when caught in the worst of sins.

The Covenant says that the geography of God's Person and the geography of our person are perfectly matched in all ways, regardless. We walk in the Covenant when we know that God speaks the truth.

Now I want to look at God's anatomy in comparison to our anatomy. I've done this before, but this is a reality that Christianity has not quite grappled with, that you and I are included utterly in the union, in the communion, and in the expression of the Godhead. Yet these things God says.

Spirit: He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit with Him. 1 Corinthians 6

Heart: The love of God is shed abroad in your hearts by the Spirit given to you. Romans 5 – Your heart is a letter written of Christ. 2 Corinthians 2 – Christ dwells in your hearts.Ephesians 3

Will: God works in you to will and to do of His good pleasure. Philippians 2

Mind: We have the mind of Christ. 1 Corinthians 2 – Let this same mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. Philippians 2

Emotions: The fruit of the Spirit is joy and peace . . . Galatians 5

Body: Your body is the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 6.

Flesh: You are flesh of His flesh and bone of His bones, one flesh with Christ. Ephesians 5

Being: That you might be filled with all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3 – The Father and I will make our Home in you. John 14 – Christ is in you. Colossians 1 – I live, yet not I, but Christ. Galatians 2

Labor: God works all in all. 1 Corinthians 12

Word: The Holy Spirit gives you the words to speak. Luke

Conception: Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born (conceived) of God. 1 John 5

Life:  God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life. 1 John 5

One of the most important things I teach is that God is a Person; God is always and utterly personal. We never think of the “things of God” or of some sort of “Christ power,” but only of God the Father in Person in us.

Do you see how completely and specifically this God of whom we speak is IN us, dwelling in, as, and through every part of our being and person. The anatomy of God fits our anatomy from top to bottom, from outside to inside. We are custom made to fit God.

Now let's look at specific instances of how Jesus thought, knowing that we also think the same way.

Jesus thought slightly differently before and after the anointing to minister came upon Him. Before that happened, Jesus walked knowing that the Father filled Him full. He expected that the Father enveloped Him, moved with Him, flowed out from Him. Jesus did not walk in any way “as God.” He walked only as a man filled with the Person of God the Father in complete synergy.

But Jesus did not perform miracles. The miracles would be for getting people's attention after God had given Him what He should speak.

Then, once Jesus was anointed by the Spirit for ministry, He simply continued knowing His oneness in all things with the Father. The miracles were incidental to Him. The disciples were astonished, “The winds and the waves obey Him.” No, not really. You see, Jesus did not bear any responsibility to “make” anything happen. His initial knowing of the Father all through Himself simply continued on. Speaking to the winds and the waves, “Peace be still,” was simply an expression of that communion, the same communion we share.

Jesus spoke His knowing of the Father with Him at Lazarus' tomb. Father, I know that You always hear Me.

Jesus' relationship with the Father was based on KNOWING just as ours is. That knowing was entirely by faith, but faith is NOT the drumming up of some internal “power.” Faith is nothing other than a simple decision to accept that the Father speaks the truth and thus the Father is utterly with me.

I do not KNOW that God is with me by any outward evidence or inner sensation. I know that the Father is with me all through me, filling me full, enveloping me, moving with me, flowing out from me, filling my heart with love, filling me with ALL of Himself in Person by ONE reason only.

Because He says. – And thus I account Him to be true.

And in accounting Him to be true, I see every circumstance coming my way as God and I together sharing all things. AND I see each circumstance coming my way as God and I together reconciling the world to the Father.

This is how Jesus thought. It's simple really. Father, I know – You.

Again, this is nothing more than a decision. Knowing God or not knowing God is not found in great battle or fighting the devil or many hallelujahs or deep spirituality. Knowing God or not knowing God is nothing more than the quiet, simple, human decision to accept without question the proposition that God is true.

But sometimes believers make a different decision. This also is the same quiet, simple, human decision. Sometimes believers decide that their mistakes or failures or sins cause God to “go far away” from them. God, of course, does no such thing, for both by the nature of His being and by the Blood, such a reality cannot exist.

What these believers are actually doing is making the quiet, simple, human decision that God is full of bull, that He is lying.

Now, after my decision that God is speaking the truth, became clear and focused to me while writing The Jesus Secret, there is no question that I endured years of hearing demons scream against me. But none of those screams ever gained my attention, not once.

You see, its a given. God tells the truth; demons lie.

– That's easy, isn't it?

When Jesus said, “The prince of this world comes and finds nothing in Me,” He was not speaking of great “battle.” Jesus did not “drive away” the devil. Neither did Jesus mean that He as a man was not subject to temptation, He certainly was. When the prince of this world came to Jesus, poking, searching, screaming, Jesus just continued as He always did.

God is with me, in me, surrounding me, filling me full with Himself in Person, regardless of anything I might see, feel, think, or do. All screams of “not-God” or “God is surely displeased with you” are simply baseless and meaningless, worth less attention from me than the dust under my feet.

You see, David did not flagrantly sin because he had some “in” with God. David was fully conscious of his sins and God's displeasure. But what David never ever did was imagine that his sin could somehow cause any disruption whatsoever between himself and God.

David knew God. Jesus knew God. End of story – there is and can be nothing else.

Knowing God, then, means knowing ourselves, that we are God's dwelling place, made to fit God in every conceivable way, and that we are God's image, designed to reveal God in all that God is.

Knowing God and knowing ourselves is also knowing that the perfect synergy of this Covenant relationship by which God, in all that He is, is bound utterly into us, in all that we are, a perfect synergy that is between STRONG on God's part and WEAK on our part. And remember, this is a BLOOD Covenant, and when we say “blood” we mean the Sacrifice of Jesus. And if that ain't absolute, permanent, and complete, then nothing is.

Jesus never once “tried to make His weakness 'strong.'” He simply walked quietly in the full knowledge of His own weakness, knowing that He, as He found Himself to be, was God's perfect design by weakness and that God the Father in Person filling Him full, knowing this God, was all the strength He would ever need.

Believing that God speaks the truth is a simple human decision. – Believing that God lies is a simple human decision. The devil has nothing to do with either one.

There is one reason only why we have not been just like Jesus. It's because we've never bothered ourselves with seeing Him as He is. And the reason we've never bothered ourselves with seeing Him as He is comes from one simple decision we have held with all other Christians as rock-bottom truth.

The devil spoke the truth; being like God is evil. Therefore, every time God speaks of being like God in the New Covenant or our being filled with God or being made just like Jesus must be a lie, because we all know that the devil spoke the truth!

I've never seen it more clearly before, but this is exactly why we Christians have never before been interested in living, thinking, and walking just as Jesus walked, except by turning such an idea into the practice of the law, of the tree of knowledge, of hearing something outside of ourselves and being sure to do it.

Back to thinking like Jesus.

At the Samaritan well in John 4, Jesus said “My food is to do the will of My Father.” He was not speaking of performance, but of knowing. Jesus never once thought that He might “miss God,” or do something contrary to God's will. Jesus was the will of God revealed. Everything Jesus wanted, God wanted. Everything God wanted, Jesus wanted. The relationship was 100% mutual. Certainly, the Father took the lead a little more often than Jesus did, but that made no difference. If Jesus happened to do what He wanted to do, that was also the Father, flowing completely together with His Covenant blood brother, submitting one to the other.

What Jesus thought as He said those words to His disciples was that “I am the will of God, and that is strength and sustenance enough for Me.” It didn't mean His body did not need food.

My Father has been working until now, and I have been working. John 5:17

The Father working, Me working, same thing!

Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God. Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will. John 5:18-21

Again, we are not looking at what Jesus said, but how He thought. First, Jesus often appealed to David's example when He was accused of disregarding Moses – because the law, word on the outside, is NOT God's relationship with man.

Then, we see that simply saying “God is my Father,” makes us equal with God. But our equality with God is a Covenant equality, thus we never think of ourselves as anything of ourselves, but always the Father doing and seeing and showing, thus we also do and see and reveal God. Because we KNOW that we can and are doing nothing of ourselves, we KNOW that all things we do, we do because we are looking out from the Father's eyes. How do we know that? Because we are looking out of our eyes, which happen also to be the eyes of Christ, flesh of His flesh.

We walk knowing that the Father loves us. Did Jesus not say that in John 17. “You love them JUST AS You love Me”? Listen, that is absolute; no other possibility can exist.

And because we KNOW that the Father loves us, we know that He is always showing us, in every step of our life, in every circumstance we face, in everything we think, say, or do, the Father is showing us by our own steps all that He Himself is doing.

We know. We don't need any other proof than our simple, quiet, and very human decision to believe that God is telling us the truth.

Then, the converse is also true. If the Father is raising the dead, then I am raising the dead. If the Father is giving life to whomever He wants to give life, then I am giving life to whomever I want to give life. Whatever, wherever, and why ever the Father is doing, I also am doing the same thing.

This is how we think, just like Jesus thought. This is the simple, quiet, very human faith of the Son of God, shocking when we first see it, yes, but simple and obvious the moment we accept Him as ourselves.

For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son, that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. John 5:22-23

Those who honor me honor the Father. Those who dishonor me dishonor the Father. Those who honor the Father, honor me. Those who dishonor the Father, dishonor me.

– Covenant. This is how we think. (The me is you.)

We KNOW – that whoever is born of God does not sin; but he who has been born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him.

We KNOW – that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.

We KNOW – that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may KNOW Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. 1 John 5:18-20

We know – because God says and for no other reason.

For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man. John 5:26-27

I, Daniel Yordy, have life in myself BECAUSE the Father has life in Himself, and, of course, because He fills me full. I also have all authority to execute judgment because I am a man, created by God to subdue all things. Jesus gave me that authority right after His resurrection: If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained. John 20

Let this same mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. – He humbled Himself.Philippians 2

I am meek and lowly of heart.

We understand that the thoughts of the mind and the words of the mouth come out of the heart. Thus God wins our hearts first before He changes our minds. We know that God has already won our hearts, already planted His Heart in ours. We have accepted the Atonement; we have turned around.

Thus we know that all of our thinking comes out from our meek and lowly heart, the heart of God.

Thinking is just a reflection of heart, and thus heart is far more important. Yet thinking also is important. How can we love God if we secretly are convinced that He lies?

But our thinking is always to place ourselves underneath of others, as the Father does, lifting them up, carrying them, bearing their wrongfulness, imputing rightness to them, placing them always into Christ Jesus always ascending on high.

The authority of God is the will of service.

The mind of God always thinks of others.

The heart of God is filled with compassion, bearing all the difficulties of all.