12. Meek and Lowly of Heart

People do not understand God. He makes His entrance into this world through an unmarried teenage girl who claims that her pregnancy is by the Holy Spirit with no human father. He is born in a barn, on the road, without help of any kind. He comes as a human infant, the weakest of all infants in the natural world.

 

People do not understand God.

He makes His entrance into this world through an unmarried teenage girl who claims that her pregnancy is by the Holy Spirit with no human father. He is born in a barn, on the road, without help of any kind. He comes as a human infant, the weakest of all infants in the natural world. A wildebeest infant must run within an hour of birth or die. A human infant cannot take a step for a year.

It’s easy to kill babies. Herod proved it as part of the setting God chose to show His entrance into the earth. This is not to our thinking.

We’re talking about the Word God speaks, the One who issued forth from the Father, “Let there be light.” We’re talking about the One who upholds all things by the Word of His power.

There is the Word of His power, lying in a smelly stable with a dirt floor, completely unable to sustain itself, needing the constant watch care of a human father and mother for at least two years until He would just be able to grab a bit of food off the counter for His hungry belly.

Is this God’s entrance into the world? Is this the revelation of Christ? Is this the King of Glory? This is not to our thinking.

I received the following questions in an email response to my book, The Jesus Secret. I will share an answer a bit later.

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Did anyone actually live out (Paul’s) gospel during the first century? If so, can you give examples of what their life was like? Didn’t they all die? Why do you believe it is now the time for this transformation you speak of? Weren’t there others during the centuries that understood what you are trying to say? If so, why didn’t they manifest what you suggest should be manifested? What is so special about this time? Are there prophetic indicators in the Scriptures stating that THIS is the time? You know you aren’t the first person who has written things like what you write. There are several even in this century who voiced such things. Most are no longer on this side of the grave.

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These are valid human questions, but they are the questions of people who do not understand God. God is meek and lowly of heart. But now I want to share some thoughts from another reader of these letters, and my response to her.

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I am also at present working through The Jesus Secret. I still find it a bit difficult to say all the “I AM’S” without feeling I might be “blaspheming”, but in my heart I know it is the truth that will set us free to walk as He walked. Him in and through us, as us.

I know that I know that Christ lives in me, is my only life, that it is ONE LIFE and not two separate lives. I know that as He is so we are, God’s beloved sons and daughters in whom He is well-pleased. Yet, I feel despair today, as if there is something I ought to do or know and do not or know not.

I know that we have to lose everything to gain Him and only Him. I have walked a long and sometimes hard and very lonely road . . . I have buried the Lord’s promises in my heart for a very, very long time.

I believe the time is now for the Son of God to be manifested through this life! But, it is not something that I can do; He has to do it in me.

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I bless you in your difficult situation. I face the feeling of despair at times as well, inside of great hope in God. I continually practice what I teach, seeing myself in Christ and Christ in me in spite of the “feelings.” I have gradually learned to think nothing of the feelings, but to “see” all things as Christ regardless.

I see something about God I had not seen clearly before. This part of God’s nature explains the existence of evil and the seeming “delay” in the fulfillment of the gospel. God is meek and lowly of heart. He highly regards all other persons and will never violate their integrity. He comes in only as invited and only as the elder brother, never as a controller. Thus, for Him to reveal Himself through us takes a level of faith and expectation on our part. He does not push Himself through.

That doesn’t take away from all the other things He is, holy, just, and the final judge of all things. It just explains a special part of Himself that can be known only by those close to Him.

Evil exists because God never pushes Himself on anyone, but always treats all others, no matter how fallen they are, with the utmost dignity and respect.

And so, we are not waiting on God to do something, and God is not waiting on us to do something. In the end, all things are fulfilled when the relationship is completely mutual and, in a certain, but strong sense, equal.

Yes, when I wrote The Jesus Secret, things seemed “heretical,” but I knew my original assumption was true, that I was speaking of our finished state, just like Jesus, and that God calls those things that be not as though they are. So I wrote them anyway. One that I found extraordinary was “He conforms Himself to me” as part of the definition of “and I will abide in you.” That really felt heretical when I wrote it, but now it is the most precious truth I know.

One thing I gained from the move of God, the fellowship I was part of for many years, was knowing the power of the anointing. There was a mighty anointing upon the move and upon its ministry. Sam Fife was the most deeply anointed man I have ever known. I knew him personally, briefly. He was a silly little man whom no one would notice in regular life, but he fiercely believed in Jesus.

So I operate in the knowledge of great enabling power. Part of that is memory, yes, but I take my memory of the power and holy presence of God upon His people, and I place it before me in the expectation of my future. Not a repeat of what was in the past, but the same thing in fullness coming upon us.

Because I am Asperger’s, I am simply not a leader outwardly. Yet, I am seeing a relationship with the Lord Jesus that may soon annul all that limitation, not outwardly – God does not violate who I am – but rather through the way He has given me to excel in who I am.

Jacob wrestled with God as an equal and won. It doesn’t mean that Jacob was “greater” than God. It means that Jacob met God at the level of His heart.

All creation, including the highest heaven, is subject to limitation and to not knowing God, not really. All creation. Michael and Gabriel do not know God in the way we know Him.

God has chosen you and me to be the ones through whom He comes to show Himself as He really is and thus change all creation. How can we be the ones? I have no idea, nor do I waste one second trying to figure that one out. I don’t want to be anywhere else than inside all the fullness of His heart, so that’s the end of the decision for me.

We are learning God at the level of His heart, who He really is. But God will not show Himself through us by force or by command or by any form or shadow of compulsion. That’s why His revelation seems to have been delayed. He comes through us only in an intimate union of equality in all that He speaks.

Strong successful ministries in the body of Christ can’t really know Him in this way. They simply provide a context for we who are weak, who are assaulted on all sides, who get nothing right, who see failure in every direction.

You and I have been chosen for this wondrous thing. We can only cast ourselves upon Him wholly in response.

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We are coming to know Him as He really is personally and intimately in our own hearts. To know Him is to know ourselves and vice versa, to know ourselves in simplicity and honesty is to know Him.

Before I come back to the main point of this letter, I want to share another portion of a recent letter to a friend. These words come out of my heart-search for the reality of this thing we are believing for, proven in us.

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A big part of why I am asking this question (Are you satisfied with your present experience with God and with His people?) – which for me the answer is, “No, I am not satisfied with my present experience with God or with His people.” Of course, that has always been my answer, just more so now.

 But the truth is, I feel quite lonely. Let me give a bit of history

God was in the move (the fellowship of communities of which I was a part), else you or I would not have been there. For me, for many years, the move drew me forward into a deeper experience with God and with His people. When I left the community and spent time at home in Oregon, I just sat there. There was nothing for my spirit or for the cry of my heart to know the living God. So, more times than once, I got off my duff and went back into community. I could bear the difficulty of community ONLY because in it, I moved closer to the cry of my heart and out of it I did not.

Even when Maureen and I left Blueberry (a Christian community in British Columbia) to live in Oregon for two years, I could not move forward in God by myself. However, it was while we lived at Blair Valley (another Christian community) that I came to the realization that the move was no longer a “forward into God” environment for me. Blair Valley itself was a good time for us; in fact, the quiet and peacefulness there may have been what I needed to look at the whole picture. For years the move had been a going forward into a deeper experience with God and with His people, but we had to sift through all the heart-wrenching of the dawning realization that what had been true in the past was no longer so.

That is the reality, I think, of wineskins. That’s why Jesus said that new wine needs new wine skins. In other words, for a season in our lives a certain structure is needed to draw us forward in our cry to know the living God in all reality. But then there comes a time when our own walk with God is equal to that structure and soon, the thing that was once life to us now becomes a hindrance and death.

So we have to step aside from the old wineskin to receive the next level of wine from God.

…In my last few years in the move, I came quite close to losing it. But one thing held me to a sound mind. One memory gripped like an anchor in my soul that held me steady in the blowing winds of confusion.

I remembered my time walking together with Abel at Bowens Mill (a Christian community in Georgia), with Don at Blueberry and in Oregon, and with Rick. Those times were as different in my life as day is from night. By looking at the difference and figuring out why I was blessed and anointed during those times versus all the other long years of confusion in-between is what brought me to the present place of emotional stability.

Those three brethren treated me as a spiritual equal. They walked in full respect with me, regarding my input as a critical part of their life and ministry. In that light I blossomed. But though it was a long enough time with each to make a marked difference, yet it was only a part of my years in community.

I am a number two man. Without a number one partner, I am out in left field. This has been true throughout my life, both in natural work and in spiritual ministry. There have been five in my life with whom I thrived. First was Jim, who taught me construction, then the three I mentioned, then also, Amos, with whom I installed cabinets professionally in Oregon. What a team we made! Yet apart from him, I am fairly worthless at building cabinets at a professional level. . .

You see, I am reaching for the reality of the throne room of God present in our lives in all measure right now on this earth. That is my desire, and the only thing I have longed for all these years.

When I sat under Sam Fife preaching, I saw that throne, and I heard God speak from it. The same thing was true, though to a bit lesser level, with Jane Miller (ministries in the move). It’s not Sam Fife, it’s not “covering,” it’s not any issue in the confusion of Christianity. It is the river of the throne of God revealed in all fullness through us, pure, holy, without limitation of any kind.

Just this last while, I went through an autistic debacle as bad, nearly, as any in my long years of such unexpected and humiliating experiences. You know, P____, I know humiliation as few know it. I am an intelligent and capable man, yet even at age 54 I mess up so badly in the social environment.

I came home in utter shame and discouragement. I picked up my proof copy of this new printing ofThe Jesus Secret and read through it to mark it. Before I had finished reading the whole thing, I was filled with life and power and hope and joy. The Lord Jesus Himself filled me full. Still, the next day, as I drove, I wept before Him, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to be this way.” He spoke to me, “Your sorrow is My sorrow, and you are feeling Me in you. I didn’t mean for you to go through these things, either. Yet you and I together will cause it to be of such great glory and goodness.”

Yet even my limitation I know is Jesus in me. He conforms Himself to me. “He conforms Himself to me.” When I wrote that in The Jesus Secret, it sounded heretical, but I wrote it anyway. Now, it is the most precious truth I know. 

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Now, I want to build on something in my life experience that God draws from to teach me more about Himself. I would like to talk about Amos in Oregon.

As I said, I have been a number two man. When I work together with one a little older and stronger inside than I, one who knows instinctively how to maneuver through this world that is so confusing to me, but one who also relates to me with utmost respect, then I can excel in my abilities in this world. The fact that I have known five such powerful relationships in differing arenas of “work” in my adult life is an extraordinary gift. With Jimmy I framed houses and learned construction, with Abel I worked with needy men, with Don I led large construction crews and moved in anointed ministry, with Amos I installed beautiful custom cabinets, and with Rick I learned the deepest meanings of friendship.

With these men, each just a few years older than I, each who regarded me with the fullest respect, treating me as their equal, ignoring my autistic quirks, relying on my strengths and abilities that in some ways were greater than theirs, I excelled. Without them I am fairly useless in the long run.

I want to talk about installing cabinets with Amos. What a team we were. He was the installer; I was assigned to assist him. Yet right off the bat he recognized my abilities, and we moved right into being a team. We worked together for a year before I was laid off due to a slowdown in jobs.

Amos was the superior, but he did not “need” to be in any way. On the job we simply flowed together back and forth. He deferred to me, stepping up to follow my direction about, say, 40% of the time; I deferred to him, stepping up to follow his direction about the same amount. Yet I instinctively knew when a larger decision was his to make, and I always leaned into his decision without question – about say, 20% of the time. We worked well together. We knew what the other was doing and thinking and always responded accordingly. Yet we did not operate in fixed tasks, but flowed back and forth without hardly needing to talk about who would do what. And the work we did was so beautiful – costly kitchen cabinets installed impeccably.  We were good at what we did.

But then Amos took a week’s vacation, and I was left to continue by myself. What a hard week that was. I was doing the same things we had done together for months, but by myself things just did not work well. It took far longer with unusual mistakes that I didn’t make at all with Amos. I was so glad when that week was over.

And so my life has been. The memory of incredible excellence in varied fields – when I walked together with another, all five of whom were quite similar in nature, versus endless mistakes and befuddledness when I try to do the same things by myself.

Is there something God is trying to teach us through all this? That something is wonderful beyond our ability to comprehend.

From the start, the Lord Jesus has always pointed me towards His being that same lead. But the problem is these men were real and Jesus is not. Jesus is just someone I believe some things about. Jimmy and Amos and Don were real men with whom I had a real, visible, and continuing connection.

How does Jesus become as real as they? This is the question for all of us.

 

How Does Jesus Become Real?

Jesus is alive, and He lives in our hearts. Yet that is mostly just something we “believe.” How does Jesus become as real as what we see and touch and handle?

Before exploring that question, let’s look at two things. First, Paul says something remarkable in 1 Corinthians 14. He says, “The spirit of the prophet is subject to the prophet.” Of course we understand that “prophet” simply means any one of us speaking about our personal knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I have heard, and seen repeated, the statement that we are first a spirit and we have a soul and we live in a body. That never made any sense to me, it’s just an intellectual statement that sounds “spiritual,” but people have no idea what they mean when they say it. God doesn’t say such a thing. God says that we are a living soul, and He indicates that we have two bodies, a physical body and a spirit, or spiritual body. The idea that we have a “soul life” that is “bad” is simply not found in the New Testament. It’s something else people make up.

This statement of Paul comes out of that understanding of our makeup. If my spirit is completely and at all times subject to ME, then I am something other than my spirit. Paul also says, “I keep my body subject” to ME. So I am something that has both a spirit and a body and both are subject to what I am.

Yet Paul also says that I am one spirit with the Lord. We know that He meant that never, never, does the Holy Spirit take “control” of me. When we see someone who has “lost control” in the “anointing,” we know it’s not God. I have seen this happen, and I have watched wise and anointed ministries calmly guide such a one into peace without the service ever leaving the mighty anointing of God.

Now, second, let’s bring in again the premise of “the manifestation of the sons of God.” Here is that premise. God is invisible. No one has ever seen or known Him, including the highest levels of heaven. All creation, including the highest levels of heaven, is thus subject to the vanity of having no idea who or what this God is in whom we all live and move and have our being.

Further, that premise says this. God wants to be seen and known and touched; He wants to end the vanity of all creation; and He has chosen a group of simple-hearted bumbling humans, you and me, through whom He reveals Himself in all power and glory.

Now we come to the most incredible thing I suspect we will ever discover about God.

God is meek and lowly of heart.

God will never ever force Himself on anyone at any time or in any way. God respects you and me far too much to do such a thing. 

I want to look at the incredible life experience God has given me, the great highs when I walked with these five men, and the great lows when I walked alone. My greatest experience, my greatest glory, was the Graham River Tabernacle construction, leading 65 men over four days to raise a community hall from start to finish. All of it came out of my belly. Don was one who worked under me as a crew leader, yet I was able to do what I did only because at all times, I leaned on his strength. We walked quietly together while all others were resting, and we looked at the whole thing heart to heart. He was my strength, yet I told him what to do all through his part of the enterprise, and he did what I said.

We will never know God, creation will never know God, until we know Him as an equal. God is meek and lowly of heart.

Yet, when we came back to Graham River a few years later to do the same thing, to add to the community hall, Don was not there. No one replaced him for me. It was so hard; I despaired of doing it. Yet, just before I thought it could not happen, even after dozens of men and thousands of dollars worth of materials had gathered under difficult conditions, an anointed servant of God, Milton Vereide, spoke a word of faith and hope into me, eye to eye across the room.

We did it, but it was hard going. Right in the middle of the second “four” days, I was faced with shutting down half of the job and going up onto the roof myself to get at least the roof done. The roof HAD to be done. By a miracle of God, a man came across the river just then who had the experience and the guts to get onto that high roof and lead those men to make it happen.

Without Him, I can do nothing.

Can I walk with the Lord Jesus Christ in full reality in the same way I walked with Jimmy or Abel or Don or Amos or Rick?

Can I know the Father as my equal? As an elder brother, as the lead, yes, in some things, but One who just as quickly, without any pretension of superiority, follows my lead as well?

Can I know the Father in intimacy of Person, heart to Heart, shoulder to Shoulder? My life – as me – yet with me as Himself as well?

God cannot be known any other way. He highly regards and respects me; He will never violate my person or the integrity of my heart. He comes as my equal, as the elder brother, as the lead in a fellowship of two walking side by Side, heart by Heart, in all things. Yet, so very often, He defers to me. He yields to my lead and supports me in it because He respects and highly regards me.

But the only way that will work is if I, also, know Him. I must also respect and highly regard the integrity of His heart and person. I must highly regard what He says, all that He says. I must believe Him.

That’s why there has been this delay of 2000 years from the speaking to the reality. Everyone puts God at arm’s length, as the Superior who commands servants to obey. No one regards the integrity of His heart or person.

Look at the questions I included at the beginning of this letter. It seems they are directed at me and my “suppositions” about myself. They are not. They are spoken out of the confusion of the human mind; and they are spoken against the integrity of God’s person. It is God who says these things. Because we do not respect Him, we say to our neighbor, “You don’t believe that, do you?”

Yes, God tells us when all things must be fulfilled. Today is the day of salvation.

God will never take command. We are not waiting for Him to show up on earth and take command of the situation. We cannot perform anything. God is not waiting on us to “get it right,” somehow, after 2000 years of a church “getting it wrong.”

No. It is the Father and me, Heart to heart, Shoulder to shoulder, doing this thing together, doing all things together. He yielding to me, I yielding to Him, oftentimes without even talking about who will do what. Yet we know one another instinctively, and we highly regard and respect one another, just as Amos and I worked together.

God reveals Himself through me with all respect and integrity of heart.

I want to share my answer to the brother who sent me those questions.

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When I read your questions concerning the “timing” of the revelation of all that God speaks, I see that all those questions are quite familiar to me. But I just don’t think that way anymore. Yes, I believe for many reasons that we are at the dawning of the age to come, that the transition between the two ages is taking place in us now. But that isn’t really the point. The point is, did God say these things? Did He say, “Be filled with all the fullness of God,” or “till we all come to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”?

We could list endless things like these that God says, including the demonstration of power. Now, I will answer one question. Yes, many have believed for these things and have not seen them, but have died in faith, but we have no idea what people have seen, and what people are seeing today. Yes, there are many times and ways in which God reveals Himself.

But the “seeing” is not the point – though, yes, God must prove Himself true.

Here’s how I approach all that. God has spoken all these things. He has not placed “time” parameters on any of it. Rather, He spoke these things into this age for us humans to hear. I am a human, I am a believer in Jesus, I have the right to become a son of God. Everything God says, He says of Christ, and Christ is my life, I have no other life.

God must prove Himself true. I will believe all that He speaks – for me right now. I have that right, and I highly regard all that God says. So what if I die — I will die in faith. And as I live, I will believe for nothing less than all the fullness of all that God speaks fulfilled in me right here.

But, you see, I lay out my premise in the first pages of The Jesus Secret. God is determined to conform me into the image of Christ – that is who I am before Him right now. All I’m doing is speaking the truth about Christ who is the only life I have. More than that, this is a commandment of the New Testament – acknowledge the good things of Christ in you – reckon, speak, that you are indeed dead, and that you are indeed alive unto God.

I’m not the one who has to prove anything. God is the One who has made all these big claims. He has to prove Himself true. For me it is a simple decision, a decision, I realize now, that I made many years ago. I will place myself with Him. I will place myself in all of my seeing with Him in the coming of all of His glory. That is a personal decision.

It’s also called faith. Faith is bold; faith strides right into the Holiest of All and says, “This is the only place I live.”

I agree with you completely. People can look at my life and say, “Hey, Yordy, you say a lot of stuff, where’s the proof in your life. I don’t see anything in you that would prove any of this. You are a mess.” I would answer, “Yes, I am a mess. But I am God’s mess, and I am not the one who made all these claims. God is. Am I to be called into question for simply regarding what He says?” 

You see, I’m just going for broke. The world is a mess and getting worse. What else is there to live for? The world is so empty. God says these things. I believe what God says. End of story. To question, “Is it now, is it not now; is it me, is it not me?” – these are the questions of a divided heart.

But when I say, “Go for broke,” understand that doesn’t change the fact that I am a very limited fellow. I do not have the ability even to gather a small group around myself to minister to, let alone “do” anything more. I am weak, but God says that Christ lives in my heart, and I highly regard what God says.

I am fully aware of all the questions and all the issues. I love The Lord of the Rings partly because it was Frodo, and not even Frodo, but Sam, who got the ring to the fire. Complete weakness overlooked by all. Even when they got there, they couldn’t do it. It took Gollum, the lowest of the low, to finish the thing. Yes, the outward demonstration comes and must come, but it does not come first.

Mary comes first. And until Mary’s simple heart is ours, “I belong to You. Do in me all that You say,” then we will remain in the realm of questions and issues and never really understand when some weak, simple-hearted people bring all the kingdoms of darkness crashing into ruin.

God’s answer was a human infant in a cow trough. No one looked for such an answer then, and no one is looking for such an answer now.

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Mary comes first. And until Mary’s simple heart is ours, “I belong to You. Do in me all that You say,” then we will remain in the realm of questions and issues and never really understand when some weak, simple-hearted people bring all the kingdoms of darkness crashing into ruin.

God’s answer was a human infant in a cow trough. No one looked for such an answer then, and no one is looking for such an answer now.

God is meek and lowly of heart. He walks together with us, in us, as us, as Himself, in humility of heart, in power and life, to fulfill all that He speaks – together with us.

 Know Him. And know Him as real.