3. Walking in the Favor of God

I walk in the favor of God. I expect His favor in all things. At whatever point my mind draws back from the expectation of His favor, I change my mind. I will stay with the truth.

© Daniel Yordy 2009

There are quite a number of curious inconsistencies in “Christian” thought. One is the idea that if you desire to be like God, then you are being tempted by Satan in the same way that Eve was tempted. Yet the New Testament clearly commands us as believers to be just like God.

Be perfect as your Father is perfect, forgive as God forgives, love as Christ loves, be holy as God is holy, walk as Jesus walked, and so on. And, of course, if you read Jesus’ words, “Be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect” and you raise the question, “Does Jesus really mean what He says here?” Then most Christians will respond with, “Be careful, if you really want to be like the Father, then you will be caught in a trap of pride.”

Does the mentality of the evil one rule so strongly in orthodox-evangelical-charismatic Christian thinking? (The answer is, “Yes, it does.”)

If the Father lives in us, then how could it be possible that we would be anything but just like Him. He is Himself, living in and through us; we are like Him because He shows Himself through us.

Man was created to contain God, so that God Himself could be seen in the physical universe – through man.

Here is another extraordinary twist. If you look for God’s favor in everything that you do, His blessing, His going before you and making everything work towards a wonderful future, making the crooked places straight, shining a brighter and brighter light upon your path, causing His blessing and goodness to rest upon you in all of your ways, then you are being “self-seeking,” trying to use God for your own benefit!

There are multitudes of Christians who actually believe that, that it is wrong to expect God’s favor upon your every action.

We used to sing a song “I am like a tree, planted by the rivers of water… and everything I touch shall prosper.” We sang it, but never believed it, because it was contrary to our theology to expect God’s favor.

But look at one who expects God’s favor upon everything he puts his hand to. Because of that expectation of God’s favor, he sees God in everything. Seeing God in everything, he waits in confidence upon God’s goodness. When things don’t go right, he rejoices, confident that even that which does not seem right, God is working it behind the scenes for his benefit. This one walks in the continual presence and expectancy of God.

On the other hand, here is one who believes it is wrong to expect God’s favor. God is “judging” the flesh right now, and everything that doesn’t seem right is coming from the hand of God as judgment against sin. He sees judgment in all things that happen to him. He expects that God does not bless him because he hasn’t “died” to the flesh yet.  God cannot bless, because that would be blessing the flesh. This one walks in a continual consciousness of separation from God, always fearful of a God who can never be satisfied.

Of these two, which is being transformed into the image of Christ? The one who sees God’s favor in all things or the one who sees His displeasure?

I lived in the second way of thinking as an adult for more than twenty years. I lived that way because I thought it was the theologically correct way of understanding God and the gospel.  But as a man of integrity, I knew in my mind that I was twisting critical New Testament verses, making them say something other than what they really said, that I was deliberately ignoring other key verses, and that I was living without hope. Many times I wept and cried out to God in great agony of soul, “God what is wrong with me? God, can You not save even me?” I very much needed hope.

God never did answer my cry. God does not respond to unbelief. Yet, He purposefully takes each of us through some form of this mental/religious conflict, this grappling with the full extent of the bankruptcy of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Let me share with you the progression of God’s bringing me out of this realm of mental darkness and unbelief.

I had come to such a state of hopelessness, grounded in strong Bible theology and argument, that I was almost permanently numb and frozen inside. There was no point in continuing in that way, so with a final desperate choice, we left the community and the move. I attended a local college with the hope of getting a teacher’s certificate so that I could somehow support my family. I was physically very weak and emotionally completely shut down.

In a college course, I took a personality test. I discovered I had a somewhat rare, but normal human personality type. Then I read descriptions of other people like myself. I discovered something I had not known, that there was nothing wrong with me.  I was a “normal” human being and  it was very common for my personality type to be misconstrued in the exact way I had been for many years.

The next point of deliverance came for me a couple of years later, in a deeply anointed service in Lubbock, Texas. People were going forward in repentance and I joined them. The Lord spoke to me, at that point, to repent of ever having listened to a gospel of separation from God.  I spoke that repentance, and then, for the first time in my life, I was able to say to myself, “God loves me,” and to add no other word to it – that is, I no longer needed to add the word “but.”

Then, about a year after that, the Lord put into my hand one of John Eldredge’s precious books. I had seen it on someone’s shelf, read the first couple of sentences, and was seized with a desperate thirst to drink deeply from this well. Over the next few months and years, I read John Eldredge’s books, over and over. The first two times through all of them, I wept on nearly every page. 

For years, well-meaning people had tried to “fix my problem.” Nothing any of them said to me ever rang true. I could never recognize anything in their words and solutions that had any meaning inside of me. Some of them gave up on me as a hopeless case. John Eldredge’s descriptions and explanations went all through me like the very bells of God. And every answer I found, ringing true in tears of pain and joy, was always the 100% opposite of everything I had ever been told about myself.

For the first time in my life, I was able to consider the truth of the gospel, that God had, in fact, given me a new heart that moment on the back steps of my house when, at the age of 7, I had invited Jesus to live in my heart. God gave me a new heart, and that heart was good.
It was only when I could look at my own heart and call it good, filled with the Lord Jesus Christ, that I could see the clear statements of the gospel. Yes, the Bible was inside of me; I had studied the whole Bible under the anointing and revelation of the Holy Spirit for many years. Even so, I could look straight at a verse like “Christ, who is our life” and not believe it at all.

Through the years with John Eldredge, God took me all apart, separated every part of me into a “liquid soup,” just like a caterpillar in a chrysalis, so that He could then put me back together again in His way.

The next event in my transformation came when we started attending Lakewood Church. Pastor Joel Osteen said something that was the beginning of God putting me back together again. He said, “Speak who God says you are.” Intrigued with that thought, I took it all the way through the New Testament with this definition: since in my eternal state, I am just like Jesus, that is who I am right now. Out of that study came my book, The Jesus Secret, which I hope you will not just set on a shelf, if you have a copy, but that you will follow in the exercise that it lays out. My book is not important, speaking out loud who God says you are in a confession of faith is.

And so I have been doing that, speaking who God says I am. God says that I am already dead. God says that every part of me is brand new and completely of God. God says that Christ is my life. God says that Christ is all there is in me.

All of my life, I had seen myself as an insurmountable problem. Now, by speaking who God says I am, the pathways of my mind have changed. In the middle of the night, when accusation is most heavily upon me, I hold to this word, “Christ is all there is in me,” until the dark voice passes, and I am in His gladness again.

The final step in God’s favor towards me came in a school chapel service. In the worship, I closed my eyes and lost myself in the glory of Jesus inside of me.  Suddenly, “I” vanished. Jesus was all there was in my mind, in my heart, in my understanding. I was utterly in Him and He was all there was in me, and I knew it was so.

For the first time in my life, I knew my Savior. I will never leave Him again.

Then, the exercise of changing my mind, of changing the pathways of my thoughts, really began in earnest.

Let me give a recent example. The other morning, I was feeling angry about some things my Christian brethren had said. At the same time, the old familiar voice whispered to me that I was in a “state of rebellion” and that I “needed to submit” to these brethren, that unless I did so, I could not be under God’s “covering.” I refused; I was not about to let my anger go, because it was right and just.

Then, I thought, “No, Jesus is living His life in me. This feeling of anger is Jesus, sharing His frustration over lies that bring destruction and darkness. The moment I thought that, Jesus spoke to me. He said, “Will you love these dear brethren, in spite of our anger, with My love.” I said, “Yes, of course, Lord.” Immediately, all trace of the anger vanished, swallowed up by God’s love through me.

This is a terrible thing!  God’s love does not displace His anger, it swallows it up. That means that His anger is carried inside of His love. Yes, all expression of God’s anger is surrounded by and works for the purposes of His love. But it is still terrible.

Yet it is also a wondrous thing. Now, I could continue to love my brethren, beyond the anger, with God’s love. Yet, I had not diminished my self in any way. Self was swallowed up in one with God. I knew that Jesus was living His life in me.

I walk in the favor of God. I expect His favor in all things. At whatever point my mind draws back from the expectation of His favor, I change my mind. I will stay with the truth.

To live without the expectation of His goodness in every area of our life is to live a sad, sorry, and wasted life.

I live and walk in the favor of God. I believe in Jesus.