32. Melchizedek Order

Is Christ an ability to do – who also happens to have a heart of compassion? Or is Christ a heart of compassion regardless of what either the Father or angels might be doing?

The Order of Melchizedek IS the beating Heart of a Man.

Before saying anything else about Melchizedek, I must go back to a line from Psalm 26 which I sang in the last letter/audio roughly and out of key: “Lord, how I love the habitation of Your House, how I love the place where Your glory dwells.” I was singing of one thing alone. I was singing of the Church, the Bride of Christ, the people of God, dwelling together as family. “Lord, how I love Your Church.”

God's House and the Place where His glory dwells is not some imaginative far-off place we wrongly call “heaven,” but a family of people, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, old folks and children, living the joy of life together here in this heaven/earth. In them ALONE is the place where His glory dwells.

The righteous shall remain in the land. –  The meek shall inherit the earth.

I have avoided the topic of the Melchizedek Order, even though I have heard much teaching on it. It always seemed disconnected to me; truth, yes, but I have not known how to place it. Now I do.

At the same time, Paul's definition of love has opened to me. I have been saying that the only definition of God found in the Bible is a Man laying down His life for His friends. Although the truth I was sharing remains truth, I was not quite correct in that thought. Here is the clearest written definition there is of God.

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Nicene Christianity has rejected the New Covenant and replaced it with “going to heaven after we die” by an argument I have never understood. They claim that “to be like God” is to be lifted up in pride. To be kind as the Father is kind, to love as God loves, to serve as Jesus serves, is to fall into a trap of self-exaltation. Thus, they flee from all thought of ever being like God as evil, believing that if they actually became like God, they would be as evil as the serpent.

It is impossible to be filled with God and live together with Him in the same body in a Covenant Bond of fully shared equality with God, and by extension with each other, all of us together, without also being like God. That's why God made us like Himself. God could not bind Himself to us in a marriage union unless we were of His same kind.

To be like God is to humble one's self beneath of others, bearing all things, carrying all into life. Where do these people find the exaltation of boastful pride in being like God? Of truth, when we speak of being like God, they are thinking of being like the serpent. Is the serpent God? To their minds, yes; in other words, the definition they hold of God is the definition of an angel, the mightiest of all the angels.

Jesus is the One who shows us God. Show me exalted self-pride in Jesus! Yet, in seeing Jesus, we are seeing the only visible representation of God ever granted to heaven or earth, a Man, God revealed.

We are of His same kind.

The Melchizedek Order is not something strange. It is the order of relationships that exists in the Body of Christ under the New Covenant. The first Day of Tabernacles is the Body of Christ revealed in full upon this earth, yet before the resurrection of our physical bodies.

I have avoided “Melchizedek.” You see, all teaching I have heard on “the Melchizedek Order” promoted the “power” part of “the power of an endless life.” This “power” was then described as supernatural ability, something far beyond my present life. To get to this “power” one must go through great spiritual contortions, but what they were, nobody really knew. Yes, there were catch phrases – die to your flesh, submit to the elders, seek the anointing, obey the voice of God speaking to you – yet the “power” part remained far away.

The result of this approach to what God says is always the “rapture” in some form. Okay, God is just testing you. After you have proven that you “love Him,” then, later on, He will reward you with this “power” to do and to be. When God doesn't seem to do what God is supposed to do, the doctrine turns to “It's your fault, you are disobedient,” and the rapture gets farther away.

In contrast, I teach a very specific action anyone can take – speak Christ your only life in confidence and joy. But this exercise does not “do” anything outward; it does not cause things to happen. The only thing speaking Christ will do for you is change your mind. Before you speak Christ, what God says seems murky and distant, with “me” being a huge problem. After speaking Christ, what God says seems simple and obvious – unrelated to human performance.

When we speak Christ we make a wonderful discovery: God is telling us the truth.

The PROBLEM with the silly idea that God could actually be telling us the truth is that we then are forced to change our definitions of God and of all the things of which He speaks, especially power.

But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. Romans 8:11

That you may know . . . what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places . . . Ephesians 1:18-20

You see, Christians have a definite picture in mind when they think of “power.” That picture has three parts. First is an overwhelming feeling of spiritual glory. Second is the ability to walk “above” human weakness in a state of angelic perfection. And third is the ability to zap – to cause things to happen. Behind all three of those parts is the assumption that the power is now “mine.” That is, there remains no knowledge of the immediacy of the Person of God filling us full.

Here is my contention. Christianity has posited that the serpent spoke the truth in the garden. When the serpent aspired to “being like God,” man agreed fully. Thus the definitions of “God” and “power” held by most are much more closely in line with a glorious angel, a cherub, then with this invisible One who fills all things and carries all things, sharing both sorrows and joys, victories and failures with each one.

There are, however, two kinds of “power.” The first kind can best be described as “force.” The second is the power of life. Life power is an entirely different kind of power than immediate force. Life power comes only out of Heart. Life power is that which upwells from beneath, springing forth in unexpected joys.

While reading through the account of Melchizedek in the book of Hebrews for this letter, I saw the obvious, something I could not see all the years I listened to “deeper truth” preachers. “Melchizedek” is not some elite group of powerfully anointed people who command and who zap.

The writer of Hebrews could call Jesus our High Priest only because of what David said in Psalm 110: You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. For that reason, “Melchizedek” is living in John 14:20, inside the One in whom is the Father and who is in the Father.

Peter spoke of this same order. You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2: 5

Every member of the body of Christ, from the greatest to the least, is right now a member of the Melchizedek order. We are priests in that same order. “Through Jesus Christ” is always personal and literal.

Power: – life versus force. Face set on power to change outward appearance vs. face set on Heart to lift up. – 

Not by might nor by power but by My Spirit – the Spirit of Life.

This letter is the concluding letter for the series. Although we will also look at what the experience of the Feast of Tabernacles might actually be for us, it is the truth in this letter to which I have been driving with everything I have shared up until now.

Is Christ an ability to do – who also happens to have a heart of compassion? Or is Christ a heart of compassion regardless of what either the Father or angels might be doing?

Almost all ministries I have ever known who sought the anointing, had their faces set on the ability to do. All of them walked “above” me. None of them ever changed my life. Those who did change my life never sought to “do” anything. All they did was regard me as an equal and treat me with full honor and respect.

WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE WHO WILL OPEN THE DOORS OF TABERNACLES TO MANY?

There are two reasons why most are sidetracked on the identity of the two witnesses. First, they don't know God's purpose, and second, they don't know the New Covenant. God sets up the issue right at the beginning – the speaking of His Word that is then challenged by the accuser. The witnesses are the full proof that God's word is true in all ways in the place into which it was spoken. More than that, the New Covenant must be fulfilled.

Yet who would God trust for such a task? I certainly know of no one I would trust. Everyone is pushing every sidetrack under the sun. Who would speak utterly out from the gospel according to Paul and confirmed by John? Who would show that "we are just like Him for we see Him as He is"? Who, seeing power, would not regard it? Who would treat the "Jews" as they are, pretenders, yet with tender regard for the individual person? Who would walk beneath the littlest and the least? Who would acknowledge the entire body of Christ? Who would say, "Whatever you see me to be, that's what you are just as much"? Who would speak for the Heart and Desire of God?

These questions bring me to tears; I think they bring God to tears as well.

You see, those rushing into the Feast of Tabernacles, according to Jesus, are the maimed, the blind, the crippled, and the poor. They are the broken-hearted, the failures, the has-beens, the people no one else notices, the weak and base ones of the earth to bring to nothing those who are wise and powerful.

Wise and powerful people do not need power people as examples. But weak people do need examples, those who are also weak, yet who walk utterly casting themselves upon the Lord Jesus, yet tender and kind, always beneath, always highly regarding each one.

Who would walk as examples, saying aloud and with their lives to all the sons of God, "We are what you are. You are just like us, just like Jesus. Speak what God says you are"? It is my premise in The Kingdom Rising that the Kingdom of God arises out from the least and the littlest, the timid and the meek.

The more I see God, the more I see God in everything. There are no holes in our lives, nothing out of place. I am also discovering something else, however, something that would cause me utter despair for my brethren if I was not already so grounded in "Christ as us," in God carrying all through darkness and into life.

The real reality of Christ, the Feast of Tabernacles, is not the "next thing in God" in the way so many would think. It is not "something more from God." It is, rather, a shattering of everything people have imagined God and reality is, leaving one thing only out of their entire spectrum of Christianity - Jesus lives in my heart. Then, it is that one thing becoming everything, something they have had and been all along, but paid little attention to it since the constructs of Nicene Christianity dominated their every perception of "God."

Nicene Christianity: The belief that the serpent spoke the truth in the garden and that an angel is the image and likeness of God. At first thought, one might think, "How can that be the 'definition' of Nicene Christianity?" I am speaking of the fine threads of the deepest roots, yet I am speaking of all the threads of one root, the only root of all that falls short of God's glory. It is truly serpent seed. Yet God's glory is found in the very severing of His Word from the serpent's seed. God is an odd Fellow, but that's what He likes to do.

Everyone will find everything they imagined to be "Christian" and "true" shattered as they enter into Tabernacles. Someone must show them the door, but not just the door, also the total separation of all the root threads. God will anoint that someone to get people's attention, otherwise they will never consider such a thing.

Most, pulling out the tares by the roots, will devastate the roots of the wheat. Who can remove the tares, down to the finest hairs of the roots, while leaving the finest hairs of the wheat roots intact and undisturbed?

Who will care about people? – This is the question I have been asking through this whole series, the only thing that means anything coming out from our time in this present age – a Heart that carries all.

Because you had become dear to us. Paul speaking of the Church.

For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all, first being translated “king of righteousness,” and then also king of Salem, meaning “king of peace,” without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, remains a priest continually. Now consider how great this man was . . . Hebrews 7:1-4

The argument of the writer of Hebrews is that Jesus is a better High Priest than those of the Aaronic order BECAUSE Jesus remains a priest continually. 

Our High Priest, then, this one who ever lives, always continuing as our Mediator, this One in whom we live and who lives in all that we are, is the surety, the guarantor, of a better Covenant than the one it replaces.

Now this is the main point of the things we are saying: We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man.Hebrews 8:1-2

But the verse that really gets the deeper truth preachers excited is this one. But let me give the whole context.

 For it is evident that our Lord arose from Judah, of which tribe Moses spoke nothing concerning priesthood. And it is yet far more evident if, in the likeness of Melchizedek, there arises another priest who has come, not according to the law of a fleshly commandment, but according to the power of an endless life. For He testifies: “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” For on the one hand there is an annulling of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness, for the law made nothing perfect; on the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God. Hebrews 7:14-19

Did you catch that? The Old Covenant was annulled; that means it applies to no human being from the moment of the veil being ripped in two. No human will ever relate to God through the Old Covenant ever again. Why? Because “hearing what God says (the commandment) and being sure to do it” is of the flesh.

That's what it says: Doing yourself what God says is FLESHY. Why? Because self-righteousness is the real attempt to make self “like God” in the same way the serpent suggested.

That's not what gets people excited. What gets people excited is the little line inside this incredible statement of God's: according to the power of an endless life. And as I said, it's the “power” part that catches their eye. But as I read this passage without prejudice, it dawned on me that an endless life conveys an entirely different sort of power than that sought by most.

And that's why any thought of “the next life” is so contrary to God and to the gospel.

That gospel is that you and I live forever. That realization changes how we see everything.

Forever is a long time. Let's start with God's appointed time for the proof that death is defeated – living on this planet for 1000 years. I have 1000 years ahead of me, a life lived fully out from the abundance and favor of God.

What is the first gift that such a thought brings? – Patience. I have all the time in the world to build my dreams, step by little step. There is no hurry. All that I desire will come in its time.

When I was in my early twenties I held three deep desires close inside my heart.  One desire was to lead a crew of men in building a house of my design, a second was to go to college, a real college anointed by God. My deepest desire, however, was to marry a wife chosen of God and have a family of my very own.

You may think these are “normal” things. You have no idea of how impossible these things were for me as an Aspergers man. I did not think I would ever see those desires fulfilled, yet God fulfilled them for me in exactly the way Paul said He does.

Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us. Ephesians 3:20

The power of an endless life means something else as well. It means that everything I have ever received from God, everything holy I have ever experienced or known is mine forever. Nothing is ever taken from me. I may not be experiencing it right now, but that doesn't mean a thing. All is mine, and all will come back around to me again in its time.

I think back on the many most wonderful experiences I have had in life, the things that touched my heart, that made it sing. The things I love. All of those things are mine forever, not as memories, but as regular and ongoing experiences.

In Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.Psalm 16:11

But all my joys, though they contain living things, plants and animals, as well as mountains and valleys and streams of running water, also are filled with people: students in my classroom, men working together with me, a church family eating together and sharing the beauty of the Lord together, dancing together in exuberant joy.

Right now I am in the season of joying in the blessedness of my own children. An endless life, however, does not mean these present joys take the place of former joys; it means these present joys are added to the many rivers of joy that are mine forever.

Life is real power, springing up and enduring, touching and sharing, tender and kind.

Changing people's outer appearance does not bring life, and it is temporary. God does it only to get people's attention – to show them that He is real and that He cares.

Life is what changes all things forever. And it is inside this reality we presently enjoy, an endless life and all that it conveys to us, that we place the Mercy Seat, that is, God Himself.

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

God is love. This short definition IS the definition of God. Anything else we might think relates to God is nothing more than an outer attribute or characteristic. This is God in Person, God's Heart.

Does this, then, speak also of us as we are?

And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, asChrist also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma (atonement). Eph. 4:32-5:2

BE just like God. – Be kind to one another, tenderhearted. – Because you had become dear to us.

I give up. God's definition of Himself contains 9 negatives and only 7 positives. I tried to turn the “nots” into positive statements but gave up quickly. Contrast is essential to our knowledge of God.

Here are the positives: (1) suffers long, (2) is kind, (3) rejoices in truth, (4) bears, (5) believes, (6) hopes, and (7) endures. Then the negatives: (1) not envy, (2) not parading itself, (3) not puffed up, (4) not behaving rudely, (5) not seeking its own, (6) not provoked, (7) thinks no evil, (8) rejoices not in iniquity, and (9) never fails.

This is the Mercy Seat, the Heart of God, what God IS inside of us, filling us full with ALL of Himself in Person, abounding and shed abroad in our hearts. This is who we are, just exactly like God.

This letter asks WHO will show the Church of Christ who and what God is and who and what she is, that is, lead her into the fulfillment of the Feast of Tabernacles in the life of the Church. In that context, I want to look at the seven Greek words that denote the positives in God's definition of Himself.

Makrothumeo, chresteuemeai, sugchairo aletheia, stego, pisteuo, elpezo, hupomeno.  (Fromwww.biblehub.com)

Makrothumeo : I suffer long, I have patience, I am forbearing, I persevere. Properly, long-tempered (to defer anger), refusing to retaliate with anger coming from human reasoning. [The literal sense of the term is "extending a long time/way."]

Chresteuemai: I am kind (full of service to others), I am gentle. From chresto:  Useful, gentle, pleasant, kind.

Sugchairo aletheia: I rejoice with, I congratulate. From sýn, "identify with" and xaírō, "rejoicing in God's grace" – properly, sharing God's grace with another person, so that both rejoice together (mutually participate in God's favor, grace). Then aletheia – Truth, but not merely truth as spoken; truth of idea, reality, sincerity, truth in the moral sphere, divine truth revealed to man, straightforwardness.

Stego: To cover closely (so as to keep water out), generally to bear up under.  I cover, I conceal, I ward off, I bear with, I endure patiently. Properly, to place under a roof, to cover-over (with a roof); (figuratively) to endure because shielded, i.e. bearing up (forbearing) because under the Lord's protection (covering).

Pisteuo: I believe, I have faith in, I trust in, I am entrusted with. From pístis, "faith," derived from peíthō, "persuade, be persuaded") – believe (affirm, have confidence); used of persuading oneself and with the sacred significance of being persuaded by the Lord

Elpezo: I hope, I hope for, I expect, I trust. From elpís, "hope" – to hope, actively waiting for God's fulfillment concerning the faith He has inbirthed through the power of His love.

Hupomeno: To stay behind, to await, endure. I remain behind, I stand my ground, I show endurance, I endure, I bear up against, I persevere. Literally, remaining under (the load), bearing up (enduring)

The “I” is God; the “I” is us. Read it once as if God is speaking and again as you speaking.

Every part of love is directed towards the object of love, that is, panta: all things, all creation, all heaven/earth.

God carries all things, all the way into life. He can do so because He never ceases.

The power of an endless life.

The High Priest, the Mercy Seat, the One who fills our hearts.

Love suffers long and is kind; love rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.

Let me bring in a couple of things I said in earlier letters. First, here is the story of our existence.

– “God is always springing up, arising in me. I am in every way the highest glory of God revealed into all creation. In every step I take, in every word I say, in every circumstance in which I find myself, God in me is flowing out from me through that step, through that word, into every person, into every circumstance, reconciling the world to Himself, causing all creation to know Him through my present appearance.”

– However, that Word, that Blood, that Life, can spring up from an invisible God to enter into us, that is, into our knowledge by one means alone. That one means, Love as Action, is Sacrifice, and Sacrifice is Heart.

– No created being can know God, can know Love, can know this Invisible POWER filling them full apart from Sacrifice. For you see, God, in His second form, God as Servant, Love in Action, is a Lamb as it had been slain. Love in Action is love poured out; it is life laid down.

– There is no Christ life, there is no walking together, there is no Body of Christ, there is no revelation of God, there is no manifestation of the sons of God, there is no setting creation free, there is no victory except it come entirely and only out of this Ark of the Covenant with the Mercy Seat upon it, the Heart of the Lord Jesus Christ beating in our chests.

– The Heart of the Lord Jesus Christ extends now over His bride upon this earth in this her hour of greatest need.

– The Body of Christ can exist only as each one of us draws all others in all their continual offence into the Mercy Seat, into our own hearts, there above the blood, and there release each one arising into the God who always carries them. This is the order of Melchizedek, the Heart of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The power of an endless life MEANS that we can lay down our lives forever without ourselves ever ceasing.

Love never fails; love never ceases. We give ourselves away forever and never lose a thing, but only see unending increase abounding towards us.

A brother asked me: Could you give me examples of how we are laying down our lives?

My first response would be “I don't know,” but I can share the parameters of this way of living.

First, life laid down and love poured out is a way of LIVING, not a way of dying, it is the path of life, not a path of death. There is no death in God.

Jesus died that He might rise from the dead. Jesus died once for all; Jesus dies no more.

Second life laid down and love poured out comes ONLY out from faith, from the expectation of God, from faith working by love. I walk expecting that God is moving through my every step to reconcile the world to Himself. That expectation of God is the channel of life.

Third, I walk in utter trust that God directs my steps utterly for His purposes. I don't have to “do” anything. Yet, what I do, speak a kind word, give a cup of cold water, is always He through me.

This is the foundation, the framework of life laid down. Inside this context, then, are the people pressing against my way. You see, if Paul is defining God in 1 Corinthians 13, then we are presented with a paradox. Love is all about other people. Everyone of the attributes of Love, both the positives and the nots, are all things that operate in the context of other people.

Love cannot be Love by itself. God cannot be God without people to be God in and through, towards and out from. Remember that God is eternal; everything of God is always right now. “Before the foundation of the world” can be figurative only, as Jesus said.

As we put one foot in front of the other on our path by which we are led to life, we encounter people. Our faith and expectation of God continually tells the story that God is always moving through us to bless and to heal, to give life and joy, to reconcile all things back to Himself. This is the general way in which we walk. This expectation of faith is life laid down and love poured out. It is the means by which God is free to be God through us.

This is how we walk together as members of one another in the body of Christ, the order of Melchizedek.

However, there are times when the press of persons, either an individual or several or many, comes against our way with hostility or malice. We hurt. Here is the place where God really is God through us. In our pain and confusion, our grief and agony, we do not leave our expectation of faith, that God is moving through this very thing, together with us, turning what is meant for evil into unending goodness.

But sometimes it just seems too much. There, in that moment, we go forward inside one purpose only.

For Father's sake. “Father, for Your sake alone, I lay my life down.”

We reveal Father.

Out from Father, then, we bless those who curse us, we overcome evil with good. We keep our mouth closed against evil words, against self-defense, against explaining “why we are right.” And we walk in silence, KNOWING that Father is moving through our agony mightily, that Father is doing what Father does as we expect Him alone. This expectation of Father is the essence of life laid down and love poured out.

As Jesus walked the Path of the Atonement, He did nothing of Himself except one thing. The only thing Jesus “did” was fall on his face under a cross He could not carry. Otherwise Jesus just put one foot in front of the other, KNOWING that Father alone directed each step. Everything that happened was done to Jesus by others. Yet in the midst of each step, Jesus spoke goodness. “Father, forgive them.” “You will be with Me in Paradise.”

What if Jesus had engaged the Pharisees with argument, hanging there from the cross, with self-defense, with “proving” that He was right and they were wrong? What if Jesus had taunted them right back?

We would be dead, and the universe. And God would be left alone as a tear in the darkness.

Doing kind things for others flows out from life laid down and love poured out, but it does not take the place of life and love. Love comes first, kind things flow out from love. Life laid down comes first, any actions we might do or not do flow only out from the expectation of God.

Too often the way by which we are led to life, this way of being silent before our accusers, of blessing others when they curse us, of overcoming evil with good, is portrayed or seen as weakness. They have no idea. We are the mightiest warriors in the universe and our utter surrender to Father, for His sake alone, is the most powerful weapon ever unleashed.

It is the Mercy Seat of God in operation, the order of Melchizedek.

Let me define the Mercy Seat again. – The capacity to put your arm around a hurting, confused, and lost individual in full compassion, BECAUSE you have been there, and then show them your heart, and the absence of all their fault, there inside your own heart, the throne of God, and then to affirm to them that they also are loved, that they also are respected and honored just as they find themselves to be.

We have forever, you know, an endless laying down of our lives to win an endless overflow of joy.

There is nothing in all the universe, nothing ever done coming out from evil intent, that God through us will not transform into unending goodness.

All things.

The firstfruits opens the door. The firstfruits shows everyone what is already true for all.

This is our calling; this is our task. This is why God birthed us out from Himself and placed us on this earth at this time, to lead His Bride into marriage union with Jesus, to show her the God who already fills her full.