Covenant Series P13. Resurrection Life by Daniel Yordy

Life has two purposes. First, life eliminates death and second, life brings forth more life.

This is the Covenant, that we shall be just like Jesus. This is the fulfillment of the Covenant, when the Ark that carries that Covenant comes all the way HOME, that our bodies are swallowed up into the new creation by Resurrection Life.

  
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© Daniel Yordy - 2012 - Our Path Home

13. Resurrection Life

Before starting this letter, I want to give a specific definition for the phrase, “Carry your cross.” Carry your cross IS carrying others inside of God inside of you all the way into life. It is a work of the heart and of the hands, a tender touch, a cup of cold water to the thirsty. “Carry your cross” and rivers of living water are the same thing.
Everything God does in our lives passes through the process of birthing. Birthing is life unto life, life bringing forth life. That is how we see and understand everything. God sees only the end, yet He has ordained the full process of conception, gestation, and birthing into our experience.
BECAUSE He must win our hearts. It is unthinkable to God to have sons whose hearts He has not won for Himself.
But just because we find ourselves in the place of gestation, in the birth canal, just ready for the full light of day, does not mean that all that God sees of us in our finished state is not fully real right now. We call those things that “be not” as though they are. Yet more and more, the “be not” part vanishes into the “are” part.
Recording the message into audio has become, now, my final edit. When I speak what I have written, I see things more clearly, things I could not see apart from speaking. As I was speaking out loud “Carry Your Cross,” I saw something I had not seen before and quickly inserted a phrase into the text. Here is that phrase. I include the entire paragraph; the phrase is in bold.
Go looking for Jesus' dead body; will you find it? No, it does not exist, and neither does any “old me.” Any “old me” there may have been vanished as surely as that body vanished, swallowed up by life. It is life that causes death to cease, not the other way around!
Life has two purposes. First, life eliminates death and second, life brings forth more life.

 

 One Advantage I have over Daniel Yordy on his pages is I can talk about him behind his back!!!!

He was to have been on the road with Rich Novek this year, but for various reasons concerning the Asbergers condition he has, this has restricted his freedom to a certain extent. However for me this is similar to St Paul being "restricted" in certain ways....usually prison....which meant that we got to read more of the New testament than perhaps we would have done. Some of Daniel's most extraordinary discoveries have been related on his keyboard in the last few months. And this is the very testament to the principles which he is sharing here.....The resurrection Life of Christ Himself being made available while God is working mightily through frustration and restriction. Chris Welch

Now, certainly, I have said this same thing over and over all through what I write. But in this series, I am looking at the Covenant through the only seeing of God that exists in the universe – the walk of Jesus from the upper room to the right hand of the Father, and we inside of Him, and through the symbols of the Holiest of All in the Tabernacle of Moses, symbols that the New Testament always applies directly to believers in Christ.
This way of seeing casts everything into a light we have never before known.
When I approached the end of my series on the Kingdom of God, I found myself writing 3-4 articles at the same time. The same is happening now. I see maybe 6-7 more articles to finish this series, and God is speaking four of them to me all at the same time.
In my next article, “A Heart Throne,” even though I will be speaking of the Mercy Seat, yet, to do so, I must look back at the Cross, at the Veil, at Gethsemane, at the Altar of Incense. For it is there in that passage that the most incredible thing happens that the universe will ever know – God's heart and man's heart becoming one.
In this letter, however, I want to look at the resurrection of the physical body of Jesus – and the Ark of the Covenant, flesh of His flesh, one flesh with God.
Let's look at the dead body of Jesus, lying there on that slab of stone, two seconds before the most incredible event took place in all the history of the world.
Let's look, not even at the molecular level, but at the atomic level.
But first, there is no life in this body; it is dead. No spirit energizes it; no blood flows through it. This dead body, formerly of Jesus, is in that brief period in-between the energizing of spirit and the eating of worms. If the worms had begun to eat, then this incredible thing that happens would not have been the same.
 (Christ) God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it. For David says concerning Him: ‘I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart rejoiced, and my tongue was glad; Moreover my flesh also will rest in hope. For You will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life; You will make me full of joy in Your presence.’ Acts 2:24-28
The word “corruption” means the eating task of worms.
Let's consider the atoms in this dead, but not eaten body lying there on that stone slab, covered by a thin cloth.
Every atom resting on that slab came into Jesus' body from out of the air and the ground over the previous seven years, replacing the atoms that had made up Jesus' body prior to age 26 ½. These atoms had come into Jesus from all over the planet by the air, they had come out of the Mediterranean Sea by the water and wine that He drank. They had come out of the ground as He traversed the lands of Judea, Samaria, and Galilee, eating the fruit of the earth.

 But in this series, I am looking at the Covenant through the only seeing of God that exists in the universe – the walk of Jesus from the upper room to the right hand of the Father............

Inside that body lying dead upon the stone were atoms representing all the far reaches of the earth, of the air, of the land, and of the sea. Every one of those atoms was part of the old creation. Everyone of those atoms was disconnected, severed, from the Spirit of Jesus that had once made them “alive” according to the present age.
It is important that no worms had yet munched down on Jesus' flesh – BECAUSE God wanted every single atom of this sacrifice for sin in its place. Except the Blood. Only the blood stayed in the earth.
In the grand scheme of things, what exactly is this dead body?
A physical analysis would likely show that it is no different in it's chemical makeup than any other dead body immediately after the cessation of breath. Yet we know that, to God, this dead body is entirely different.
Now, technically, Jesus did not “die,” that is, He Himself did not cease. All through the 36 hours that His former body lay there, Jesus was walking through Hades, not as a shade of grey, but as the Living Son of God, speaking what God speaks just as He had done all through His ministry on earth.
What died was Jesus' physical, human, mortal body, the likeness of sinful flesh.
That body was God's sacrifice for all sin. It was the scapegoat carrying in itself the sin of all.
And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.     1 John 2:2
The word “propitiation” is “mercy seat,” so technically, this verse belongs in another letter soon to come. But before there can be a propitiation, there must be a sacrifice, and this verse shows that this one sacrifice is for ALL sin in the entire cosmos, in the entire arrangement of everything.
The law of sin and death. – In the day that you eat thereof, surely in dying you shall die. – The soul that sins shall die. – For the wages of sin is death.
A sacrifice is a simple concept. A man would bring his bull into the outer court as an offering for his sin. The priests would help him hold the bull while the man placed his hands on the bull's head. In so doing, he was transferring all of his sin into the body of that bull. Then the man whose sin had passed into the bull, took a knife from the priest and slit the bull's throat. The priest held a basin to catch the blood as it poured out.
At that point, the man offering the sacrifice was finished with his part, but the priests had more to do. First, they skinned the bull and removed the fat and guts. The fat, skin, guts (offal), and blood were burned on the altar of sacrifice. The meat went into a pot. The priests ate the meat – it was their food. However, they were required to eat whatever piece they speared first. They were not allowed to pick and choose.
 Except you eat My flesh. – This is my body which is broken for you.
I want to get the picture God paints, central to the Covenant, clearly before our eyes. We must see it.


 For the law . . . can never with these same sacrifices . . . make those who approach perfect . . . For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins . . . For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.
Therefore, when He came into the world, He said: “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You had no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come — In the volume of the book it is written of Me — To do Your will, O God.’”
. . . By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
. . . But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God,  from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.
 . . . “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,” then He adds, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more” . . . Hebrews 10:1-18

One sacrifice for sins forever!

Then, verse 19 says this: Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus . . .
Let us be bold – perfected forever – NO consciousness of sins – right into the Holiest!
Weeping over the crucified one dishonors Jesus with all the mockery of the evil one. Sitting boldly upon the throne of God inside of Jesus in the Holiest of ALL with NO consciousness of sins in our mind or heart honors the One who gave Himself for us.
This “no consciousness of sins” is by faith and NOT by sight. We CANNOT look at outward appearance or performance to determine the truth. That's why we enter the very throne room of Almighty God, sitting ourselves fully upon that throne, with boldness.
Yes, it is true that there must be a death before there can be life. Death does not bring life; death causes that which must cease to cease. Death caused sin to cease; LIFE caused death to cease. Death killed sin; life killed death. By death, sin was no more; by Life, death was no more.
But there is only one death. There can be only one death. If there is any death besides that one death, then everything is perverted and unclean.
If a leopard can change its spots, then I can remove my sin by my own “dying.” Either Jesus' death IS my death in all ways and at all times, or my sin is never ceased. Yet the cessation of sin in the fullness of times lasted for only 36 hours of time. At the very moment that the 36 hours were finished, death also died.
Death is no more.

 In that moment, 

every single atom

 in Jesus' body 

was translated 

from the old creation

 to the new.

So, let's return to this dead body lying on the stone slab two seconds before the universe changes.
Inside that body IS all the sin of the universe. By that dead body, all sin has died, all cessation is complete, all ending is finished. Inside that body is the entire original creation.
Now, before continuing on, I want to make something very clear. My title is “Resurrection Life.” I have no idea, no revelation, no understanding. I do not know what Resurrection Life IS. All I can do is bounce around in the dark, in my blindness and ignorance, with the conviction that, while I have no idea what I might say, Christ who is my life, does know Resurrection Life and as I speak what He speaks, I will know what He is.
All I know is that out of the bosom and heart of God, through the words Jesus spoke in John 17, came something beyond our ability to comprehend upon that dead body lying there, intact and uneaten, every atom remaining in its place. Except the Blood. In that moment a brand new creation came into being.
But it came in a most astonishing way.
Life swallowed up death.
In that moment, every single atom in Jesus' body was translated from the old creation to the new. Search the old creation, scan the entire earth, the dirt, the sea, the air, and you will not find one atom from Jesus' former dead body there. Every one of those atoms came originally out of the dirt, the sea, and the air, but not one of them is to be found there now. Every other dead body is theoretically findable. You and I undoubtedly have in our present bodies atoms that were once part of the makeup of some previous human body that died and was eaten and became dirt and air and sea once again – and then, became our dying body.
I now see something so astonishingly absolute that I hardly know what to say.
In one flash of light the entire old creation became the entire new creation.
God caused His lover to cease and kept her utterly in the same moment.
I have been crucified, nevertheless I live.
Every original atom in Jesus' dead body is to be found, now, in His resurrected body at the right hand of the Father. Every original atom, constrained and limited, is now unconstrained and unlimited brand new inside His resurrected body.
Except the Blood. Something else happened to the Blood, something entirely different, something astonishing beyond all measure.
Please forgive me, the absolute that I saw is beyond my human words to express, or my human mind to keep.
Let's continue with what we do know.
During the entire 36 hours Jesus was gone from His body, He spent the entire time in Hades. We know that He did not appear before the Father during those hours because He said just after to Mary Magdalene that she could not touch Him because He had not yet appeared before the Father. It seems that the action as High Priest of sprinkling His own Blood upon the Mercy Seat of heaven, the throne of God where we now sit, took place in between Jesus' visiting with Mary in the garden and His appearing for the first time to the disciples, when He allowed them to touch His new creation body.
Even though it's a different topic, let me suggest that Jesus' entire ministry in Hades was to speak Life into all those who would hear Him, particularly those in Abraham's bosom as well as others, including many who had preceded Noah. In other words, until that moment, these humans had continued as shades of grey, without either of their two bodies. When Jesus spoke into them, and they heard and believed Him, they were “born again,” that is, they were given brand new spirit-bodies so that they could live and communicate inside the heavens of God. They are still waiting on us, according the the writer of Hebrews and Paul, to receive their brand new physical bodies.
At 6 in the morning, in the early hours of April 17, AD 29, Jesus returned to that physical body lying there on that stone slab. At the moment of His return, the universe changed. (I use Reese Chronology dates.)
God gave us a picture of that moment 1000 years earlier, on October 15, 972 BC. Let's bring in the account of what happened on that exact mid-day of man's six thousand years of folly – 2 Chronicles 6.
So all the work that Solomon had done for the house of the Lord was finished; and Solomon brought in the things which his father David had dedicated . . . And he put them in the treasuries of the house of God.
Now Solomon assembled the elders of Israel . . . that they might bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord up from the City of David, which is Zion. Therefore all the men of Israel assembled with the king at the feast, which was in the seventh month . . .  and the Levites took up the ark. Then they brought up the ark, the tabernacle of meeting, and all the holy furnishings that were in the tabernacle . . .  Also King Solomon, and all the congregation of Israel who were assembled with him before the ark, were sacrificing sheep and oxen that could not be counted or numbered for multitude. Then the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place, into the inner sanctuary of the temple, to the Most Holy Place, under the wings of the cherubim. For the cherubim spread their wings over the place of the ark, and the cherubim overshadowed the ark and its poles . . . Nothing was in the ark except the two tablets which Moses put there at Horeb, when the Lord made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they had come out of Egypt.
And it came to pass when the priests came out of the Most Holy Place . . . and the Levites who were the singers . . . stood at the east end of the altar, clothed in white linen, having cymbals, stringed instruments and harps, and with them one hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets—  indeed it came to pass, when the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord, and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and praised the Lord, saying: “For He is good, for His mercy endures forever,” that the house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not continue ministering because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God.
This event is pointing directly toward the full purpose of God in the earth just before us when God fills His fully prepared temple, the elect body of Christ, with His glory, and our bodies are changed in a moment, swallowed up by life.
But that great culmination of all things comes through the same event that happened at 6 AM on April 17, AD 29, when Jesus returned to His physical body. Everything we are now begins here.
The glory of the Lord filled the house of God. – A body You have prepared for Me. –  That mortality may be swallowed up by life.
Life eliminates death by swallowing up into itself that which was originally condemned to die, both body and person. It is no good to talk about “death” without talking about life MORE, life defeating death.
The entire old creation ended and the entire new creation began at the very instant Jesus returned to His body, when LIFE swallowed up death.
For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.
“Those who are being sanctified” shows us that, although all things took place inside that seed in that moment of time, yet the seed of Jesus Himself must be planted in our earth. We must be conceived of life, we must gestate in life (being sanctified – marinated in life, if you want), and we must be brought forth as life. Life to life to life.
We understand all that God is and does by this three-step process in us. Those who do not want to know God in  “three levels” of knowing Him do not want to know God.
Notice that life swallowing up death, the new creation translating the former atoms of the old creation into that which is brand new, is one hundred percent personal – JESUS, returning to His body.
When Jesus opened His eyes, everything was brand new. And we ARE inside of Him.
Please, I continue having no idea what this means or what to say.
Let's return to what we know. The Ark of the Covenant is the resurrected flesh of Jesus. I am flesh of His flesh; I am one flesh with Him. (Ephesians 5) I am Jesus' present flesh.
Jesus' mortal body does not exist; it cannot be found. Any “old me” does not exist; it cannot be found. If God does not remember it, how can I?
Jesus' present body is incorruptible and immortal; it knows neither sin nor death. And neither do I. If God knows only life and love, if God fills me full with all of Himself, then how can I know anything else? I cannot.
Those who would use the sight of their eyes to define themselves or to define me are living in a world that does not exist. We wait for them to pass from death into life; we hold the door open.
Paul said that our whole life is a GROAN. He said that the essence, the focus, the drive of the Christian life, of this present time in the womb of the church is fixated on our physical body being swallowed up by the life coming out of God in exactly the same experience that happened to Jesus, in exactly the same experience that happened at Solomon's temple on October 15, 972 BC.
Man as God revealed.
Declared to be the Son of God with power by the Resurrection from the dead – by the elimination of death.
We shall be like Him.
This is the Covenant, that we shall be just like Jesus. This is the fulfillment of the Covenant, when the Ark that carries that Covenant comes all the way HOME, that our bodies are swallowed up into the new creation by Resurrection Life.
That God fills His fully prepared temple.
That the glory of the Lord covers the earth as the waters cover the sea.
I do not know God in this way yet. Yes, this part of God is inside of me, but I cannot speak to you of it familiarly because I do not yet know it.
Here is the thought that came to me as I sat pondering my own ignorance of life poured out.
Grace is Pre-Resurrection.
The Grace that is to come, that is come now, the Grace of the Holiest of All comes now to us as the promise of the soon-to-come Resurrection, the swallowing up of our physical bodies by LIFE.
Let's bring in two sides of Jesus as our Pattern. The first is the beginning of His ministry, just before He is led across the face of the tree of knowledge in the wilderness. The second is after His resurrection, when He, His physical body, is forever incorruptible.
When all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also was baptized; and while He prayed, the heaven was opened. And the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven which said, “You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.” Luke 3:21-22
 . . . concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. Romans 1:3-4
We could say that the first declaration – You are My beloved Son – is “Declared to be the Son of God with proving.” The second is “Declared to be the Son of God with power.”
God requires evidence of Himself in the earth, in the flesh, BEFORE He comes Himself in Person.
That evidence, that witness, that proving, is the Grace of the Holiest of All.
We must speak out of the Grace of the Holiest of All, just as Jesus did, before we will ever speak out of full, declared, manifest resurrection LIFE. We must walk as the Beloved Son, fully pleasing to the Father, BEFORE our bodies are swallowed up by resurrection Life.
This walk is 100% by grace through faith. There is no sight involved, no human determination.
It is a proving of heart.
You see, we must KNOW that God speaks over us the same words He speaks over Jesus, “You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.” He speaks those words over us because Christ is our life, we have no other life.
The Grace of the Holiest of All IS Resurrection Life prior to it's swallowing up our physical bodies.
We know it before we Know it.
And so it is as I was taught many years ago and have long understood. There are two sides of the manifestation of the sons of God, pre-resurrection and post-resurrection. To those on the outside looking at, the two are very different. To those on the inside looking out, the two are identical. The Grace of that Resurrection is sufficient for us to see all things as complete.
Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure . . .  to those who are of the faith of Abraham . . . who, contrary to hope, in hope believed . . . And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body,  already dead . . . Romans 4:16-19
Faith sees as God sees and no other way.
Grace walks as God walks and no other way.
Faith sees as God sees, Grace walks as God walks, IN a body already dead – BEFORE that body is swallowed up by life.
This faith, this grace, the faith and grace of the Holiest of All is God Himself in Person in us – our life.
Thus we know Him, and in knowing Him, we know the resurrection and walk by it, though our bodies remain dead through the time of God proving Himself true in the most dramatic way that He is, contrary to all human imagination. The greatest honor God will exhibit through eternity is those who BELIEVE what He says BEFORE they see it with their eyes.
Now Solomon assembled the elders of Israel . . . that they might bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord up from the City of David . . . and the Levites took up the ark . . . Also King Solomon, and all the congregation of Israel who were assembled with him before the ark, were sacrificing sheep and oxen that could not be counted or numbered for multitude. Then the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place, into the inner sanctuary of the temple, to the Most Holy Place . . . – for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God.
This passage, from the moment the Levites took up the Ark from David's tent in his city, to its passage into the Most Holy Place, to the glory of the Lord filling the entire house, IS the ministry of Jesus from the baptism of John to His resurrection. AND it is the same thing again, a second time, a second witness, through us.
“A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.” John 14:19-23
BUT YOU WILL SEE ME!
Notice Judas's question. He understood clearly that Jesus meant that we will SEE what the world does not see. That is, we see what natural eyes do not see; we know what the natural mind cannot know.
Now, this reality, that those who know Jesus will see His parousia (His coming) in them, a seeing known by no one else, is hidden here and there through the New Testament as a mystery. It is this reality that many have turned into the “rapture of the church.” It is the opposite of an external “rapture”; it is the revelation of Jesus Christ right here on this earth through His church.
Just as they didn't like Him the first time, so they will not like Him now.
BECAUSE of dying bodies.
They rejected God then because He appeared in mortal flesh; they reject God now because He appears in mortal flesh. Adam's hatred of human weakness fills the earth, it fills the church, it fills all mankind.
It is man that hates the flesh, not God. It is man who teaches himself to despise his weakness, not God.
 Now, this reality, that those who know Jesus will see His parousia (His coming) in them, a seeing known by no one else, is hidden here and there through the New Testament as a mystery. It is this reality that many have turned into the “rapture of the church.” It is the opposite of an external “rapture”; it is the revelation of Jesus Christ right here on this earth through His church.



But we, who know Him as the God who fills us full, we, who love Him because we share heart with Him, we see and we know an absolute reality that proves itself on this earth, in this age, in these dying bodies – LIFE!
Resurrection Life.
Death is swallowed up in Victory; living waters flow out of our bellies.
God requires Life to carry a dead body by faith. That is the Grace of the Most Holy.
For 3 ½ years, Jesus walked seeing only God, carrying a mortal body. For 3 ½ years we walk seeing only God, carrying a mortal body. We are just like Jesus. That seeing is entirely by faith in what God speaks. Seeing ONLY what He speaks and nothing else. God proves His word!
Oh – if I could but persuade you the importance of speaking only what God speaks concerning Christ your life. Speaking out loud what He speaks, confessing Christ, calling those things that “be not” as they ARE, opens our eyes, changes our mind, causes us to SEE Christ and nothing else, out from His eyes and nowhere else.
Please, I want you with me with Him in the revelation of His glory.
Speak Christ alone and do not stop speaking Him until your mind cannot know anything else but Christ.

KOG 10 - Does God Take Your Breath Away

 This is Part 10 of the series of the Kingdom of God which is now available in Book Form as the Kingdom Rising . Daniel's other book The Jesus Secret is on Amazon also.

The original can be read here, and also includes the audio version and the PDF version to print.


Jesus answered and said to him, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him." John 14:23
We could reduce the entire Bible down to two verses and lose nothing. In doing that, we would not pick the most important verses of the Bible, that is, the purpose verses, but the most precious. Indeed, we will never see the purpose of God fulfilled in our lives or on this earth until we know the full meaning of these two verses.
But alas, the God who fills us full likes to talk. No one can shut Him up. The Pharisees tried, and the Always Talking of God rose out of the grave, having talked His way right through Hades, taking many who heard Him speak with Him.
The way to hurt God's heart the most is to tell Him to be quiet. He loves Jesus too much ever to do that.
You can see that the serpent's first words, "Did God really say that?" was the most painful thing God has ever heard, made far more painful by Christians who say the same thing. A part of intimacy with God is sharing His deep hurt.
I receive the largest number of responses when I write about the difficulties and the tears God has brought me through. So many ministers of the gospel say so many things about God and about the gospel, and for some that's all they want to hear. But when I share of a Jesus who walks with me through failure and pain and difficulty, somehow this Jesus reverberates most deeply with the hearts of those who are most precious to me.
And as they share with me the difficulties they have walked through and the hope that comes to them through what I share, I want so very much to speak the most important thing deep into their hearts - and mine as well. This letter is my attempt to do that.
I have said before that John 14:23 is my favorite verse in the Bible; I have used it to close out several of my series of letters. My title, Our Path Home, refers directly to the Father's Path and to the Father's Home. The Father is coming home! But these words of Jesus point directly to two things Paul said, among others, and it is Paul's words we will pick for our two verses closer than all others.
These two verses are my life, my stay, my foundation, my capstone, my center, and my periphery. I say them to myself over and over, day after day, and have done so for most of five years now. I speak them in the night watches when God feels far away from me. I remind myself of them when I am hit with failure and difficulty and abuse. If all other verses in the Bible were removed from me, still these two verses would most certainly take me Home.
That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith . . . Ephesians 3:17
Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Romans 5:5
Paul never separates Jesus from Christ. This is my Savior, the One upon whose breast I lean my head. I'm no good on my own; by myself I am lost and frightened in a terrifying world with no way out. That's what hope means, the One upon whose breast I lean my head. Hope never disappoints; what an understatement!
The Person of Jesus, my Savior - dwells: dwells is a good word; it means much more than "lives"; it means home. Paul places the entirety of God's expression, the Father as Love, Christ the Son and the Holy Spirit, right there in our most important place - our hearts. Not our spirits, not our souls - our hearts. Our heart is the central organ of our body, it is the central organ of our soul, it is the central organ of our spirit; my heart is me.
Through faith. There are many kinds and levels of faith. This faith is the very simplest kind of faith, the most important, and, ultimately, the most powerful.
This faith has nothing to do with "believing" something. It has nothing to do with power. This faith is simply a decision, a personal, human decision, a permanent, irrevocable decision.
This faith is a decision that what God says is true; everything else is not.
I made that decision in my spirit at age 21; I made it again with my mind around my mid-40's. You see, having left the move, that in which I had "believed" for most of my adult life, I saw that many around me who also left were latching onto a number of differing things to "believe." It seemed to me they were doing exactly what they did in the move, going with what sounded good. I am much too insecure in myself to flop around like a fish out of water. I must have certainty; I must know Him who is Truth.
And so I made a firm and final decision. What God says is true. And what God says is known first through the gospel given to Paul, and then flows out from there. I stand forever inside that decision; I cannot be moved.
But let's make this practical. What does it mean personally and daily that Christ lives in my heart BY FAITH?
I look at myself. I may see doubt and discouragement, I may see accusation. I may feel no love of God. I may feel bitterness and the desperate need to "defend myself." I may sense that the heavens are brass and that God is utterly displeased with me. I may feel anger at others and frustration with myself. Christ may feel far, far away from me.
Big deal! So what! How on earth can any of that possibly be saying anything true. All of that, in every nuance and shadow of human sight and feeling, means exactly ZERO, zilch, nada, absolutely nothing at all. It means nothing up, it means nothing down, it means nothing in, it means nothing out.
It means nothing, and I give it no thought.
I look at myself in the middle of all those "feelings" and "seeings" and all I see is Christ filling my heart with His glory. I don't "feel" that He is; I know with quiet certainty that He is all there is in me.
Why? How?
God says, "Christ lives in your heart." Faith says, "That's it; nothing else."
This one word is sufficient to settle all reality, but because we are human and because we live in a complicated world - all caused by a God who just keeps talking, we then wonder, a little bit, about LOVE.
But I "feel" so very unloving and so very unloved. – "The love of God IS shed abroad in your hearts."
Did you notice the "is?" Not was, not shall be, not ought to be or should be or could be. IS. God says, "Is." Faith says, "That's it; nothing else." (The verb form “has been” is as strong as “IS,” it is present perfect, which means an event that began in the past – the resurrection – my born-again experience – and continues into and is made perfect in the present moment.)
I like the King James' "shed abroad." And then notice - by the Holy Spirit given to us.
It gives me this sort of a picture. The Holy Spirit is inside of me holding a paint-ball machine gun. Only the Holy Spirit is more spherical, with many, many little paint-ball machine guns all around His person, like many eyes. And He gleefully blasts the LOVE of God in all directions at all parts of me all the time - SHED ABROAD - more like blasted abroad.
Do I "feel" that He is? Sometimes. But oftentimes not at all. - I don't "feel" a thing. So what! Big deal! What I "feel," or what I "see" means zilch. What God says is the ONLY thing that is true.
Now, "shed abroad" is much more than being enthusiastically splattered with the Love of God in all places at all times on the inside of me. You see, this is the Holy Spirit - and He is rivers of living water.
You see on TV sometimes; and in Oregon in my youth, I saw long lines of biker gangs traveling several abreast coming up the freeway from California. Picture yourself behind a TV camera slightly above and slightly behind this several-abreast long line of leather-jacketed thugs on Harleys. Now, picture that it is not one line or freeway going out from your position, but many freeways radiating out in all directions filled with lines of bikers.
The Holy Ghost is rolling out from us at all times and in all directions. The love of God IS shed abroad within our heart and shed abroad without. Mighty, mighty rivers of living waters flow out of us.
BUT! I don't feel anything. I don't see anything. I am unmoved. What God says is true - a firm and final decision made long ago that I never ever ponder. Faith. I gamble ALL on those five words.
Now you might think here, "OK, Yordy, thugs on Harley's? The Holy Spirit?" It's just this. The Holy Spirit carries too much of an image of stained-glass windows and bright rays of light and fields of daisies. A long line of thugs on Harleys holds your attention, they mean business, they are doing stuff. That's the Holy Ghost moving out from us.
But here's the thing. The more I practice, practice, practice knowing that Christ dwells in my heart, that He, Jesus, is my life, that the Holy Spirit abounds all through my being with the enthusiasm of the love of God, the more I practice knowing this against all other voices, against all other feelings, against all other seeing, the more I come to know that God is REAL in me.
And then, wonder of wonders, there come moments, creeping up around the edges, catching you by surprise, when suddenly you SEE and you KNOW that it is true.
The God who fills me full takes my breath away.
And the God who fills me full loves to talk, His name is Jesus. You see, the accuser is God's excuse, as if He needed one, though it was God who put the guy there in the beginning. The accuser accuses, he comes along with QUESTIONS. "Did God really say that?" Which then gives God a very good reason to do what He likes doing best - talk some more.
In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. John 14:
When I look at myself, ALL of myself, regardless of whatever it is I might see or feel, I KNOW that the person and consciousness of the Lord Jesus Christ is inside of me and inside of all that is me and that my person and consciousness is inside of Him.
Sometimes I know it is true against what I see and feel - and sometimes I know it is true BY what I see and feel. God takes my breath away.
The same Lord Jesus Christ who walked this earth talking with His disciples, that same Jesus lives inside of me in Person. We walk together; He talks with me and I with Him in sweet communion.
So what if I don't feel it or see it. What I feel or see means nothing. What God says is the only reality there is. When I don't feel it and when I don't see it, Jesus in me and I in Jesus are always walking together in perfect intimacy, in sweet communion, in heart-shared knowing and delight in one another, side by side as equals. My lack of feeling and my lack of seeing are evidence that I am blind and ignorant. They are evidence of nothing else.
And when I do feel it and when I do see it, God takes my breath away.
Then we find that Paul's words in Ephesians 3:17, as mighty and incredible and all-encompassing as they are, are simply the preface, the opening lines, the prelude of a symphony far grander than all the heavens singing in unison.
THAT Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, THAT you might KNOW the unknowable love of Christ that has seized you in its grip, THAT you might COMPREHEND the extent of the incomprehensible and the infinite, THAT you might be filled with all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:17-19
If I did not KNOW that what God says is true, I would know that He has absolutely popped His cork, lost His marbles, flipped His wig, off to a padded cell with Him!!!
You can glimpse, here, the powerful electrical currents of hostility flowing all through the substrata of "Christianity" against anyone who would dare to imagine that what God says is true. Did God really say that? It doesn't matter what words you "think" you read; you may not imagine it has anything to do with now or with here or with you.
Think about this. If I, Daniel Yordy, am filled with ALL the FULNESS of God, then who's bigger, God who fills me full, or the human me who contains all of Him? If God sits upon the throne of heaven, which is bigger, the God who sits, or the throne big enough to hold Him?
Now, we understand that I am framing these questions with physical terms and that the realms of Spirit in which God's words are spoken are a very different sort of fabric or way of being than the dimensions of physical size.
I'm not trying to define God by the physical; I'm trying to help God take your breath away.
Next time you're walking through the grocery store, look at yourself, then look around you, then think this.
"Wow, look at me. Here I am walking through these aisles, filled with all the fullness, every particle and dimension, of the God who contains inside Himself all creation, heaven and earth. The PERSON of God sits here inside of me, inside my heart. Holy, holy, holy! The glory of the highest heavens, the essence of the throne room of the Holy, is just a little part of the God who fills me full. Hi God; how are you doing?"
"Hi, son. Doing real well. I sure enjoy dwelling inside of you, sitting upon My throne."
"Wow, God, look at You. Varoom, varoom, varoom, bursting out of me in RIVERS of living water. Wow, God, did you see that lady that looked so distraught? Did You catch her, as I stopped to let her go ahead, smiling caringly to her? Did Your Rivers flowing out of me catch her in their overwhelming love and power?"
"We caught her, son. We sure did; you and I together."
God in me, familiar, close, and personal. We walk together, Him and me. (Of course, don't think my thoughts; see the God who fills you full in your own way.)
Then, right on cue, the accuser steps into view. Let's see where he comes this time.
. . . behold, a door standing open in heaven. And the first voice which I heard was like a trumpet speaking with me, saying, "Come up here, and I will show you things which must take place after this."    
Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne set in heaven, and One sat on the throne. And He who sat there was like a jasper and a sardius stone in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, in appearance like an emerald. Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and on the thrones I saw twenty-four elders . . . And from the throne proceeded lightnings, thunderings, and voices. Seven lamps of fire were burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God
Before the throne there was a sea of glass, like crystal. And in the midst of the throne, and around the throne, were four living creatures . . . Whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying: "You are worthy, O Lord, To receive glory and honor and power; For You created all things, And by Your will they exist and were created."
Here is the context, the scene and stage to which the serpent comes, forcefully and directly. Can you believe his words, that he would dare to say what he says, here, in this place? He's an idiot; he doesn't care. And so the accuser stands in this holiest place in all creation, and he speaks to your heart and to mine, he speaks through the voices of thousands upon thousands of "Christian ministers," men who do not know the God who fills them full, whose breath has never been taken away by the glory inside their hearts.
"Steady now," he says. "Don't be fooled by anything you see here. Look at the throne. Pay no attention to the One who sits upon it, give no heed to the mighty words spoken before it, turn your eyes from the glorious beings falling on their faces. Hear only what I say to you. Look at yourself and be ashamed. The throne of God IS DECEITFUL above all things and desperately WICKED."
Have you never heard these despicable words directed towards you and towards the throne of God inside of you, the throne of all heaven, your heart? I once heard them, spoken at me over and over and over, inside and out.
Yet now we laugh. How mindlessly ridiculous, how patently absurd! You see, we know something Christianity thinks it knows, but doesn't.
Jesus was crucified, and He rose from the dead! Jesus, the Always Speaking of God.
We know that God creates and sustains everything that exists, heaven and earth, through the Words He is always speaking, through the Story He is always telling. Those words and that story is Jesus. The Words and the Story of God DIED upon the cross. That means everything died, everything.
And then we also know that the Words and Story of God rose from the dead. And thus we KNOW that what God says through Paul in 2 Corinthians 5 is true. What God says is true.
Old things ARE passed away; behold ALL things ARE made brand new . . .
We know that Jeremiah was speaking truth BEFORE the cross, and we know that Jesus said, "It is finished."
All creation, everything found in heaven and on earth, died upon the cross. The cross is larger than the entire universe. But far more than that, all things that exist now are found only in the resurrection, which is greater than the cross by all infinity. . . . And all things are of God.
But the accuser is persistent. God made him that way, so that we would ask the right questions, so that God could keep on talking, or, shall we say, "Jesusing."
FLESH! Oh dear, oh dear, the flesh!
For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Ephesians 5:29-32
There it is, plain and simple. I am the flesh of God. My flesh and His flesh are one.
This is not Jesus as He walked this earth, this is Jesus right now, ascended above all heavens - as much FLESH as He always has been from eternity. I am FLESH of His FLESH.
Now that the accuser has fulfilled his great purpose, bringing us to contemplate the full wonder of this incredible relationship between God and you and between God and me, let's allow the God who fills us full to take our breath away.
And You in Me and I in you.
Five years ago I was completing my book, The Jesus Secret. From then until now, I have spoken what God speaks about me - to my own heart and mind. I had sent a draft to a few for their comments and editing. One sister whom I had known for years responded well at first in her marks, but I slowly lost her. Finally, she wrote the comment: "This will not work; it will not do what you think it will do." Meaning that my speaking what God speaks about me to myself with my own voice will not cause me to be a part of that overcoming company of sons that sets creation free.
So, five years is a good assessment point. Outwardly there may be little difference, but outward appearances can change dramatically in a moment. God humbles the mighty and exalts the lowly on high.
Inwardly? How can words convey?
The Lord Jesus Christ in His cross, His blood, and His resurrection - my Life, has become so large, so very very large. I cannot see anything or anyone real (the "world" is fakery and not real) outside of Him.
Every sin committed from the fall of Adam to the Great White Throne, past, present, and future, is found inside of Jesus - dead upon the cross. It is ridiculously impossible for you or me to pry anyone's sin, including our own, back out of Christ to place on ourselves or on any other person.
I cannot see anything or anyone except through the Blood always flowing over my eyes. People who once offended me, people of whom I have been afraid and therefore hostile towards, I can no longer see in that way. I look at them now, seeing through all the smoke of their pretending right to their heart, hurting and lost, and I find compassion for them, and the knowledge that they, also, are carried utterly inside of Christ.
People want to talk about "sin," "sin," and I cannot see it. I cannot see of what they are speaking; all I can see is the Blood.
But infinitely larger than the infinite Cross, infinitely larger than the infinite Blood, beyond all things, swallowing all things up inside itself is the Resurrection life of Jesus filling me full to overflowing at all times. I am alive; I am alive!
This is real; it's real because God says. I catch glimpses of how real these things are as God takes my breath away.
But there is something else I have come to know over five years of speaking and writing that what God says is true. Something else essential to being part of that overcoming company of sons who set all creation free. It is something I now know with all certainty. I also know that this knowledge must come to anyone who is part of that company; it must come to you.
I am blind. And I am ignorant.
All the fullness of Almighty God in all of His glory, in the Holiest of the highest heavens, fills me full. And I do not have the present capacity to see what is true. I am truly blind.
All the power and might of the King of the Universe flows out of me at all times and in all directions in mighty rivers of living water, and I do not know it. I am truly ignorant.
You see, by speaking what God says over the last five years, a vague suspicion, an inkling of an idea has been creeping into my mind and heart around the edges. I have begun to suspect:

That what God says is TRUE!

I have begun to suspect that what God says is true and that the entire reason why I don't "see" it is that I am blind. And that the entire reason why I don't "feel" it is that I am ignorant.
Then, also creeping in around the edges, sneaking up on me unsuspecting, even as I rest in this incredible dichotomy of God speaking the truth and I being blind and ignorant, here and there, God lifts back the veil.
And in a moment, I SEE Him inside of me; in a flash I KNOW that His glory fills me to overflowing.

God takes my breath away!

I read a most incredible statement in a Facebook conversation. A statement I simply do not comprehend. Here it is: "i dont think we r christ in us and we in him just yet."
Now, God says that Christ lives in, that the love of God abounds in our hearts. He says that I have the mind of Christ, that I live always in the Spirit, not in the flesh, that my body is the dwelling place of the Holy Ghost. He says that Christ is my life, that I am complete in Christ, that rivers of living water flow out of me because I believe in Jesus.
Surely, surely, this brother has overwhelming evidence, then, that Christ is not, in fact, in him, and that he, in fact, is not in Christ - NOT YET! Surely he has incontrovertible proof that God is not telling us the truth?
Unless, of course, his first three words are the truth, "I don't think." Yes, it is true, anyone who uses blindness and ignorance as PROOF! that God is not speaking the truth is simply not thinking.
But when we know that we cannot see because we are blind, when we know that we cannot feel because we are ignorant, when we know that God, speaking through Paul's gospel, is showing us the only thing that IS true:

God takes our breath away!

When I read anything written by any Christian (or to me), I have one criterion of judgment concerning where the writer is in his or her knowledge of God. If I don't see what I'm looking for, I know they have no idea what they are talking about. My question is this. Does the God who fills them to overflowing with all of His glory and might take their breath away?
When I see evidence that He does, then I know that all they are saying is flowing out of the God who fills them full, tempered and molded by Christ as them inside whatever human messiness God has appointed for them: they are the flesh of God. And when I see no evidence of the God who fills them with all the glory of heaven taking their breath away, I know they are speaking words without meaning, no matter how many Bible verses and King James pronouncements they throw in.
Will it work for you?
Will speaking what God says about yourself to your own heart and mind ESPECIALLY when you do not see and do not feel, ESPECIALLY when you see horror and feel far cut-off from God, will God take your breath away when He lifts back the veil and allows you to actually see and actually feel what is ALWAYS filling you full and overflowing?
Is Jesus real?
God is utterly scientific. He says, "Prove Me."

God always takes our breath away!