Covenant Series P12: Carry Your Cross by Daniel Yordy

 In all the wonder that fills an infinitely wondrous God, room after room of glorious qualities and expressions, there is no room inside of Him more Wondrous or more Holy or more filled with Living LIFE than the room I want to peek into with you, the room God calls, “the Lamb slain.”

  
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Carry Your Cross

I have never watched Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. It is not my intention to watch it. I have no problem with other people watching it; God speaks to each inside His purposing for their life.
The Passion of the Christ is the Catholic crucifix – a suffering man hanging from a cross. To watch it is to be caught in the wrong place. I understand that the movie had an overwhelming effect on people, that is the purpose of the crucifix. That is not the purpose of God. In my gut I always knew that I did not want the power of that image against my heart.
There are two ways to view the cross, the first is of God, the second is the imagination of evil.
The first way to view the cross is as Jesus said, “Follow Me.” But we cannot comprehend His words apart from the gospel Paul preached. Any “gospel” that does not come out of Paul's gospel, the way of seeing that Paul's gospel requires, cannot be our reality.
The gospel of Christ preached by Paul is a mystery; that means it is known only by those whom God opens their eyes to see. And what do we see?
The way of the cross splits all humanity and all Christendom into two groups of people: those on the outside of Jesus looking AT and those on the inside of Jesus looking out, bearing His same heart. The truth is, all creation was on the inside of Jesus; He carried everything to death. The difference, though, is in the knowing. Eternal life is to know God and to know Jesus Christ whom God has sent. Eternal life is NOT anything else.
The purpose of the crucifix is to bind people to the outside looking at things they cannot understand and in the imagination of their minds. 
But when we are on the inside of Jesus looking out, we know that we have always been inside of God, always. And we know that when Jesus said, “Follow Me,” He meant to walk just as He walked.
No one looking at the way of the cross from the outside will ever know how He walked. That gift is given only to those on the inside of Jesus looking out.
In this letter I hope to change my definition of the cross and my definition of the death of Christ.
Let's start with death.
I read a phrase recently, and I know the entire realm of thinking out of which it comes.“True life only comes out of death.”
I am so sorry, but true life only comes out of God, and there is NO death in God.
What is death? First, death is a curse. It came into the experience of creation entirely as a curse in consequence of disobedience. Death is the enemy, the last enemy that will be defeated. And in the end, death is cast into the lake of fire. The soul that sins shall die. The gift of God is living forever, that is, not dying.
Now, here has been our problem. We have always viewed death as some thing. We've almost given it the same definition as that given to a living entity. In other words, death, in the human imagination, has become its own creature. Looking back, I find that I have at times written out from that untrue image of death.
I thought to do a complete word study on “death” and the “cross” in the New Testament, but the moment I read the Strong's definition for the Greek word thanatos, “death,” my questions were answered. Death is so simple to understand. And the simple understanding of death answers everything.
Death is cessation, an ending. Something is, and then it stops and is no more.
Let's give a clear picture of death. Look carefully at the following sentence.
Death is no more.
Do you see that period just after more? At that point the sentence ends. Now, look carefully from the period on to the right side of the page. Does the sentence continue? Does the period stretch across the page as if it is something? No. At that period, the sentence ceased. The sentence is no more.
Interesting, but there are a number of Greek words translated “destroy” or “defeated” in the King James. All of them mean simply “to cease,” or “to annul.” God is not violent.
To imagine death as something inherent deep inside the heart of God is to declare two things about God. It declares that there are places and facets inside of God that are temporary, that come to an end. Second, since the only things that God requires to cease are things objectionable to Himself, then saying that death is in God is saying that there are things in God that are sinful, that are abhorrent to Him, and that must be destroyed.
Here is our problem. We seek to know the Lord. In seeking to know the Lord, we receive revelations about things we do not really understand. From those revelations, we create cute little sayings that sound “right” to us. Yet we have never learned to speak only what God speaks concerning Christ our life. The problem is God never says such a thing. Thus the statement, “True life only comes out of death,” is in open opposition to what God actually says about both life and death.
That is why it is so very important to speak only what God speaks concerning Christ our life.
I read a familiar cute Christian saying on Facebook recently. “No local fellowship is perfect.”
Wow. Now, that used to be something I imagined was true. But because I have been speaking what God speaks concerning Christ our life for six years now, the phrase sounds to me coarse and dark and totally false.
For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.
All of His ways concerning me are perfect; He has never led me wrong. (My unchanging confession.)
Every local body of believers is perfect in two ways. It is perfected forever for real in all the perfection of God AND it is the perfect place designed by God in which to form Christ in us. When we speak what God speaks, we know there is no other factor, no other way to view the local body of believers.
The original cute phrase simply leaves God entirely out in the cold. The speaker can explain “what he means.” The problem is that God in Person in us in fullness right here right now is nowhere near his explanation of what he means. And that is an insurmountable problem.
What, then, is this very life-filled thing inside of God that He calls, “the Lamb slain”?
In all the wonder that fills an infinitely wondrous God, room after room of glorious qualities and expressions, there is no room inside of Him more Wondrous or more Holy or more filled with Living LIFE than the room I want to peek into with you, the room God calls, “the Lamb slain.”
God is love. Love must have a lover. But God, bringing His lover out of Himself, loses her. He loses her.
Love suffers long.
Sinful acts, and sinful persons acting out of sin, by their very nature MUST BE temporary. They must cease. Death is not “punishment.” It is simply that what is objectionable to God cannot continue. It must cease. Death is the certain consequence of sin. Sin causes death, that is, cessation; death does NOT cause life.
Love must have a lover. How can God bring forth a lover out of Himself knowing that she must cease?
No. There is a whole other dynamic inside of God operating all through the creation scenario. In fact, I suspect that creation itself exists only inside of God inside this Life-filled and Living room that He calls, “the Lamb slain.” Inside this Room that we call “Jesus.”

 The way of the cross splits all humanity and all Christendom into two groups of people: those on the outside of Jesus looking AT and those on the inside of Jesus looking out, bearing His same heart. The truth is, all creation was on the inside of Jesus; He carried everything to death. The difference, though, is in the knowing. Eternal life is to know God and to know Jesus Christ whom God has sent. Eternal life is NOT anything else.

Creation does not exist separately from the dynamic workings of this unique aspect of God Himself.
God cannot, nor is it His nature to endlessly bring forth lovers only to lose them, and then bring forth more, and lose them. That possibility does not exist. Yet Love must have a lover.
Therefore, God brought forth His entire creation inside the Lamb slain.
And I saw in the right hand of Him who sat on the throne a scroll written inside and on the back, sealed with seven seals. Then I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and to loose its seals?” And no one in heaven or on the earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll, or to look at it . . . “Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals.”
And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth. Then He came and took the scroll out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne . . .
And they sang a new song, saying: “You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth.” Rev. 5:1-10
You see, here is our problem: the curse. The soul that sins shall die! The curse sits upon all mankind, filling or minds and  our hearts. We cannot continue; we must cease. That's why people say, “True life comes out of death.” They see themselves as evil, they hate the way God made them, and they expect His curse upon themselves.
We CANNOT solve our problem. We CANNOT cause ourselves to cease. Physical death happens because life in the body ceases. After the cessation of life in the body, the body is eaten by various sizes of creatures and returns to dirt. The human spirit “died” in that it's connection to the heavens ceased. Yet man continues as a living soul, disembodied and spirit-less, wandering in the darkness. Man CANNOT cease.
Man CANNOT cause himself to cease. Nor can He cause the way of living that MUST result in cessation to cease. Even in cessation, man continues wandering and lost in the shades of gray.
Now, some believe that when unregenerate humans die, they cease utterly. Some also believe that in the end, God will cause the devil and his angels also simply to cease. I don't see either one because of what God says. God says that EVERY knee will bow and give homage to Jesus. God says that all creation will be given back to God fully restored by Jesus. God does not bring forth in order to lose what He brings forth. God does not make in order to unmake. All glory belongs to Jesus – All.
The Lamb slain. The form of “slay” used here is found only in these two references to the Lamb slain in this chapter – present perfect tense, “having been slain,” made perfect in the present moment. The more general Greek word refers to the sacrificial slaying of an animal and the poured-out blood. No sacrifice ever slayed itself.
A sacrifice is a substitute death.
Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Romans 6:6-10
Jesus did not cease upon the cross. He very much continued on. Even in Hades, the place of the dead, He continued speaking as the very human Word of God and brought many out of Hades with Him with newly living spirits into the heavens. Jesus' physical body was slain, nothing more. “God” did not die upon the cross.
Jesus was slain by the violence of human wickedness. Cain killed Abel. Note that the LION, the mighty victorious Warrior, is a Lamb having been slain. Jesus swallows up all human wickedness into His physical body.
There is only one sacrifice for sins and it ain't you and me.
There is only one sacrificial death and it ain't us dying.
God created me inside the Lamb having been slain. Therefore the moment I see myself in that Lamb I AM passed from death to life. Not only have I escaped death utterly and completely, but I have escaped ALL of that thing that God required to cease.
The Lamb slain is a place of Living Reality inside of God that takes everything that MUST CEASE and causes it to cease – all without losing a thing. We know it's reality by faith.
Only one thing is lost in all God's creation – only one thing in one moment of time – the mortal physical body in which Jesus walked for 33 ½ years.
 For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.
By one offering we are translated instantaneously out of death, out of cessation, out of the curse, out of “the soul that sins shall die” and into unending, immortal LIFE.
For whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
This place inside of God inside of which we were originally created, the Lamb Slain, this one offering for sin forever, then REQUIRES AN ANSWER to the most significant question in Christianity. The problem with the most significant question in Christianity is, of course, that no one asks it honestly. Yet it MUST BE asked, and it MUST BE answered, fully.
Since the old creation ended in its entirety with the death of Jesus' physical body, and since the new creation, spoken into existence by Jesus in John 17 and birthed brand new as Jesus' resurrected, incorruptible physical body is real and complete, since we are already perfected forever, since we are already glorified just like Jesus before God right now WHY do we see none of it? WHY do we not know the full reality of full reality?
Now, I say that no one asks the question honestly. Yet you will find that all deception in Christianity IS a dishonest attempt out of unbelieving hearts, hearts that do not engage with God Himself, to give an “excuse” for this seemingly utter failing of what God says to be true.
Our physical bodies should not die. Rather, they should be swallowed up in the incorruptible, immortal, resurrection life of Jesus. That is the gospel! Let's talk about that resurrection life for a moment.
The resurrection Life that re-created a new incorruptible physical body as Jesus came “back to life” came entirely out of the Father, out of His very bosom. The resurrection body of Jesus came out of God-life. It came out of the words Jesus spoke in His prayer in John 17, speaking the Kingdom of God into being. Those words were not dead or dying, how can we think such a thing? Jesus said, The words that I speak are Spirit and they ARE LIFE!
The path of the just shines brighter and brighter until the coming day. – The Daystar arising in our hearts. – But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. – But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
 The death of Jesus did not cause His resurrection. Jesus' resurrection did not come out of His death. The death of Jesus' physical body constituted for God the cessation of the entire old creation. That death was a one-time account: Jesus dies no more.
Resurrection life comes right out of the bowels of God. It is a new creation that has NO relationship with the old. The old has ceased; it is no more; it is  gone forever.
Do you see that period after forever? Does the sentence continue? In the same way, the death of Jesus' physical body on the cross is the period by which the old creation ceases.
Thus Love can bring forth His lover AND win her heart.
The Lamb slain is the only way Love can bring forth His lover, which means losing her, AND win her heart. That's why we were created only inside that Lamb. And that is the answer to the question.
You see, the Covenant is God filling us full with Himself in Person. The Covenant is shared heart with God.
We can never “see” the new creation until God wins our hearts.
Very few people ever fall in love with God in Person inside themselves. Those who do are called the firstfruits of the Covenant, the firstfruits unto the Lamb.
Many people say, “The new heavens and new earth are full and complete right now.” Yet they plan to die. Their folly is clear. Here is their problem: they have not fallen in love with the God who fills them with ALL of Himself. Those who have fallen in love with God think only of breaking the curse of death and violence and casting all of it off of all mankind. They love as He loves.
My title is, “Carry Your Cross.” There is a definite reason why I have not arrived at that thought.
Yes, everything I have described up until now is found in Moses' Tabernacle in the wilderness; it is found in our walk into the Holiest of All, but it is ENTIRELY behind us.
The Lamb Slain appears in the Tabernacle path the moment we enter the gate into the outer court. It is the brazen alter. The brazen altar is the sacrifice by which the old creation ceases – the Lamb slain.
This room in God, the Lamb slain, the Altar of Sacrifice, is a place of great dynamic and Living workings whereby all that is placed therein is caused to cease while the individual involved continues on brand new. In other words, when we place our sin and the crying lusts of our flesh into the Lamb, something incredible happens. He, by His very nature, causes those things to cease. When we do not place our sin and our flesh into Christ – and leave them there, then we ourselves are trying to make to cease what becomes more and more of a horror inside of us – and that we can never do.
Take any crying wickedness you may find inside your body and place it into Jesus, seeing Him personal and real. Say to Him, “Lord Jesus, this awful thing belongs to You. My flesh is Your flesh. You are responsible for me.” You do that in faith, in the expectation of God, refusing to see any part of yourself outside of Him and – you are transformed into His image from glory to glory, as He says.
That is the Lamb Slain, the Brass Altar; it is entirely behind us.
When Jesus said, “Carry your cross,” He was not speaking of our “need to die.” He was not speaking of difficult things by which we “learn” to come to the “end of ourselves.” He was speaking of something utterly, utterly different. As different as day is from night. He meant, “Follow Me.”
The old has ceased; it cannot be found; it does not exist.
Yet God must still win our hearts. God cannot possess His lover without first winning her heart.
I want to bring in here a paragraph I read on the Internet. Understand, that I am not speaking against the brother who said this, nor am I speaking against anyone who, reading something like this, receives life from God. The point is the removal of the curse from off the experience of man on this earth. To engage fully with the heart of Father God filling us full with His Person requires turning our backs on what is, for many, “good” Christian experience.
For us, the “good” is the enemy of “all fullness.”
Where does love hide? It hides in the Cross of Jesus Christ, who eternally was, but was never human until his incarnation as the God-man. Angry at Him, we each one drove in the nails with our hatred of who we were and our hatred of who He was for exposing it by simply being Himself unfettered with sin’s alienation from the Father. Everyone who has ever lived had a hand in putting the savior to death, but only that death it turns out can save us.
I reject this thought absolutely. There may be some true things in it, but the problem is the seeing. Reading it now sends horror all through me. This is written by someone who imagines that they are there on the outside of Jesus. And yes, they are utterly in death. To be outside of Jesus looking at Him is to be in darkness. No one, seeing in this way, can ever know Him, especially to pronounce some “definition” of who and what He is.
I am NOT on the outside of Jesus killing Him with my hatred. Jesus did not die “because of” our sins. The death of Jesus' physical body on the cross was God revealing to us inside of our present sense of  lostness the Living Reality of the One in whom we were created. So that we can KNOW that all separation from God, all wandering in lostness, IS ceased.
Put your own name in the blank instead of mine. I am inside of God, and God is inside of me. There is no God without   Daniel Yordy   inside of  Him; there is no   Daniel Yordy    without God inside of him.
The altar of sacrifice is BEHIND me, and by it I KNOW that I have nothing whatsoever to do with death or dying or anything except God in me and me in God, which is life in life in life – unto ever increasing LIFE.
This reality is eternal, because God is only now; it is infinite, because God is only present.
By the Lamb slain our unreality vanished. By His resurrection, our reality is eternal and complete.
May I suggest that you read Ezekiel 8. Let me bring in a few verses here.
Furthermore He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel commits here, to make Me go far away from My sanctuary? Now turn again, you will see greater abominations.” – – – So He brought me to the door of the north gate of the Lord’s house; and to my dismay, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz.
Weeping for Tammuz is the next to the last abomination being committed inside the house of God, the worst is worshiping Apollo - Ra the sun god.
Tammuz is the Babylonian name for the Egyptian Horus, the single-eye that you see proliferating in all pop culture all around us in every direction. (Interesting, but the single eye and Monarch butterfly “transformation” are, in this world, so utterly perverted and evil, bringing upon, especially the younger generation such a slavery under darkness that we cannot imagine – and those two things are specifically what God is revealing in us now in light and truth and love.)
Tammuz is the T, the Tau, the cross. Tammuz is the crucifix, weeping over the “dead one.” “Oh, look what we did, that is our sin there killing the dying one.”
Weeping, weeping over sin, weeping, weeping over death.
That is why I will not watch The Passion of the Christ.
Turning the Lamb slain into an abomination. Turning Man as God revealed into “God the Sun.”
We do not weep for Tammuz.
Tammuz/Horus was the one crucified “for the sins of the people” long before Jesus walked this earth. It was He who said, “Except you eat my flesh and drink my blood, there is no life in you.” The cross, the T, was Tammuz.
That fact causes many to say that the Christian message is just a made-up copy of the pagan rituals that were developed long centuries before.
The truth is, Satan originates nothing. All he ever does is take that which is most holy and twist it, pervert it, turn it inside out and upside down so that foolish people look at the truth and say, “Oh, that's just like what those evil people do, so it can't be God.”
Whatever God is magnifying in the experience of His elect, that very thing the enemy magnifies in perverted form in modern culture.
Yet here's the deal. The primary reason he does that is not to delude those who are already in his clutches, but rather, to twist the thinking and practice of those who belong to Jesus, to get them to “worship Tammuz” in the temple of God – and thus the image of the crucifix.
You and I exist only in Jesus. When Jesus said, “Here am I, I and the children whom You have given Me,” I was there inside of Him. The fact that I was seven before I came to know that doesn't mean a thing.
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!
The reality of the Lamb slain, the altar of sacrifice, is NOT the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant is entirely the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Ark of the Covenant, the Acacia Wood, is the resurrected flesh of the Lord Jesus, His flesh and mine.
Thus before we can leave the Ark of Acacia Wood, we must see it entirely through the resurrection.
What about “carry your cross”?
We walk just as He walked. “Follow Me,” does not mean, “Walk just behind Me.” We are never “just behind” Jesus; we are only ever inside of Him and He inside of us. But that's just it.
Jesus walked filled with God; God is the One who carries His enemies inside Himself, stumbling in their way, carrying them all the way through that transition Place of Life bringing forth Life, all the way into goodness.
God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself; God is in us, reconciling the world to Himself.
When God says to us, “May I share Christ with you?” He is asking of us to be the same reconciliation, to be a member of that reconciliation, by which He carries all of His creation into life.
When we believe that every circumstance, every pressure, every difficulty, every “waywardness” we feel and go through, that God IS using all of that to reconcile the world to Himself. When we believe that we contain inside our hearts that very real and special Room in God, the Lamb Slain, that, by willingly drawing into ourselves the failings of others, in love, and by the Lamb Slain, they cease. When we believe that our tender compassion, our light touch, our kind words are God Himself going out from us as the goodness of life. Then we ARE “carrying our cross,” we are a member of His body, a member of this wondrous faculty of God that causes the darkness to be no more and yet brings the person into life.
I will make a new covenant . . . I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”
The Ark is the wooden box, the human flesh, that carries this Covenant. We received the fullness of this Covenant the moment we entered the gate and beheld the Altar of Sacrifice; we signed the Covenant by the brass washbasin, by the water of baptism. Our ignorance of that Covenant meant nothing.
As the Ark of the Covenant, however, we are no longer having this Covenant “happen to us.” The Covenant “happened to us” in the Outer Court. In the Holy Place, we learned what it meant in the heavens, in the Spirit. Now, as the container of that Covenant, we carry this ministry of Christ out to all creation.
Through the Christ who fills our hearts, the Covenant – all “sins and lawless deeds” vanish. If God does not remember them, they do not exist. If God does not remember them, how can we, regardless of how bad other people's actions may make us feel?
Through the Christ who fills our hearts, the Knowing of God, eternal life, extends itself out as rivers of living water.
Now, here's the deal – and this is so very, very important. It is the difference between life and death.
When I was told over many years that “carry your cross,” meant, “You have to die, brother,” that meant two things to me. The first thing it meant was that “I” was bad. The second thing it meant was an absolute horror. I could not do it; I could not die. I always got up the next morning, and it was always me facing another day.
Inside that darkness, though I cast myself with great struggle and wrenching “surrenders” upon the Lord over and over through much difficulty over many years, not without periods of running and hiding and wanting God to stay far, far away from me (which He never did), even though, yes, through all of that, I did learn of Him, that He is tender and kind – yet none of it was a joy, none of it was life, and none of it was EFFECTIVE in me or anyone else.
It is darkness that benefits no one, ever. The life that I came to know came in spite of that darkness, because God is good; it did NOT come because of that darkness.
I have no self to “come to the end of.” I have no “me” that is even “dead.” Listen, I am not dead. The dead “me” vanished with the physical body of Jesus. It does not exist. People who say, “You're just a dead man walking,” are perilously close to the Tammuz stuff.
I am alive unto God.
And the period at the end of that sentence does not mean “cessation,” it means absolute and Today. There is nothing else.
Yet now, when I know that I am utterly alive unto God, that I am flesh of His flesh, that I am a member of His body, that He reveals Himself in all that He is through me, what a sea-change difference it makes. I now walk in utter life; death does not exist.
That means that as difficult things happen to me, as people fail me or treat me badly, as I stumble and fall, as everything that can go wrong does go wrong, I walk through those things entirely different from how I walked through them before.
Let's say someone speaks ugly at me. I draw them into the Lamb slain who fills my heart. Their “sinful self” ceases, and now I carry them, KNOWING that God in me carries them, KNOWING that God and I together are redeeming them in tender love, KNOWING that, unbeknownst to them, LIFE has grabbed hold of them and carries them all the way into LIFE!
Here's what I find – I can do that.
Always before the thought of “Bad me must die,” crippled me, and all I could ever do was hide.
 Now I walk knowing that I am filled, saturated with God Himself in Person. I know that all that He is, all that He does, He is and He does through ALL that is me. When I look at myself, all I see is joy and the expectation of God. Even in the press of difficulty, I know that there is nothing else there.
I am the container of the resurrected and very much ALIVE Lamb-Having-Been-Slain.
I am the Ark of the Covenant.

Carry Your Cross - Daniel Yordy

This is an outstanding post by Daniel Yordy.
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 Carry Your Cross

I have never watched Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. It is not my intention to watch it. I have no problem with other people watching it; God speaks to each inside His purposing for their life.
The Passion of the Christ is the Catholic crucifix – a suffering man hanging from a cross. To watch it is to be caught in the wrong place. I understand that the movie had an overwhelming effect on people, that is the purpose of the crucifix. That is not the purpose of God. In my gut I always knew that I did not want the power of that image against my heart.
There are two ways to view the cross, the first is of God, the second is the imagination of evil.
The first way to view the cross is as Jesus said, “Follow Me.” But we cannot comprehend His words apart from the gospel Paul preached. Any “gospel” that does not come out of Paul's gospel, the way of seeing that Paul's gospel requires, cannot be our reality.
The gospel of Christ preached by Paul is a mystery; that means it is known only by those whom God opens their eyes to see. And what do we see?
The way of the cross splits all humanity and all Christendom into two groups of people: those on the outside of Jesus looking AT and those on the inside of Jesus looking out, bearing His same heart. The truth is, all creation was on the inside of Jesus; He carried everything to death. The difference, though, is in the knowing. Eternal life is to know God and to know Jesus Christ whom God has sent. Eternal life is NOT anything else.
The purpose of the crucifix is to bind people to the outside looking at things they cannot understand and in the imagination of their minds. 
But when we are on the inside of Jesus looking out, we know that we have always been inside of God, always. And we know that when Jesus said, “Follow Me,” He meant to walk just as He walked.
No one looking at the way of the cross from the outside will ever know how He walked. That gift is given only to those on the inside of Jesus looking out.
In this letter I hope to change my definition of the cross and my definition of the death of Christ.
Let's start with death.
I read a phrase recently, and I know the entire realm of thinking out of which it comes.“True life only comes out of death.”
I am so sorry, but true life only comes out of God, and there is NO death in God.
What is death? First, death is a curse. It came into the experience of creation entirely as a curse in consequence of disobedience. Death is the enemy, the last enemy that will be defeated. And in the end, death is cast into the lake of fire. The soul that sins shall die. The gift of God is living forever, that is, not dying.
Now, here has been our problem. We have always viewed death as some thing. We've almost given it the same definition as that given to a living entity. In other words, death, in the human imagination, has become its own creature. Looking back, I find that I have at times written out from that untrue image of death.
I thought to do a complete word study on “death” and the “cross” in the New Testament, but the moment I read the Strong's definition for the Greek word thanatos, “death,” my questions were answered. Death is so simple to understand. And the simple understanding of death answers everything.
Death is cessation, an ending. Something is, and then it stops and is no more.
Let's give a clear picture of death. Look carefully at the following sentence.
Death is no more.
Do you see that period just after more? At that point the sentence ends. Now, look carefully from the period on to the right side of the page. Does the sentence continue? Does the period stretch across the page as if it is something? No. At that period, the sentence ceased. The sentence is no more.
Interesting, but there are a number of Greek words translated “destroy” or “defeated” in the King James. All of them mean simply “to cease,” or “to annul.” God is not violent.
To imagine death as something inherent deep inside the heart of God is to declare two things about God. It declares that there are places and facets inside of God that are temporary, that come to an end. Second, since the only things that God requires to cease are things objectionable to Himself, then saying that death is in God is saying that there are things in God that are sinful, that are abhorrent to Him, and that must be destroyed.
Here is our problem. We seek to know the Lord. In seeking to know the Lord, we receive revelations about things we do not really understand. From those revelations, we create cute little sayings that sound “right” to us. Yet we have never learned to speak only what God speaks concerning Christ our life. The problem is God never says such a thing. Thus the statement, “True life only comes out of death,” is in open opposition to what God actually says about both life and death.
That is why it is so very important to speak only what God speaks concerning Christ our life.
I read a familiar cute Christian saying on Facebook recently. “No local fellowship is perfect.”
Wow. Now, that used to be something I imagined was true. But because I have been speaking what God speaks concerning Christ our life for six years now, the phrase sounds to me course and dark and totally false.
For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.
All of His ways concerning me are perfect; He has never led me wrong. (My unchanging confession.)
Every local body of believers is perfect in two ways. It is perfected forever for real in all the perfection of God AND it is the perfect place designed by God in which to form Christ in us. When we speak what God speaks, we know there is no other factor, no other way to view the local body of believers.
The original cute phrase simply leaves God entirely out in the cold. The speaker can explain “what he means.” The problem is that God in Person in us in fullness right here right now is nowhere near his explanation of what he means. And that is an insurmountable problem.
What, then, is this very life-filled thing inside of God that He calls, “the Lamb slain”?
In all the wonder that fills an infinitely wondrous God, room after room of glorious qualities and expressions, there is no room inside of Him more Wondrous or more Holy or more filled with Living LIFE than the room I want to peek into with you, the room God calls, “the Lamb slain.”
God is love. Love must have a lover. But God, bringing His lover out of Himself, loses her. He loses her.
Love suffers long.
Sinful acts, and sinful persons acting out of sin, by their very nature MUST BE temporary. They must cease. Death is not “punishment.” It is simply that what is objectionable to God cannot continue. It must cease. Death is the certain consequence of sin. Sin causes death, that is, cessation; death does NOT cause life.
Love must have a lover. How can God bring forth a lover out of Himself knowing that she must cease?
No. There is a whole other dynamic inside of God operating all through the creation scenario. In fact, I suspect that creation itself exists only inside of God inside this Life-filled and Living room that He calls, “the Lamb slain.” Inside this Room that we call “Jesus.”
Creation does not exist separately from the dynamic workings of this unique aspect of God Himself.
God cannot, nor is it His nature to endlessly bring forth lovers only to lose them, and then bring forth more, and lose them. That possibility does not exist. Yet Love must have a lover.
Therefore, God brought forth His entire creation inside the Lamb slain.
And I saw in the right hand of Him who sat on the throne a scroll written inside and on the back, sealed with seven seals. Then I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and to loose its seals?” And no one in heaven or on the earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll, or to look at it . . . “Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals.”
And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth. Then He came and took the scroll out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne . . .
And they sang a new song, saying: “You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth.” Rev. 5:1-10
You see, here is our problem: the curse. The soul that sins shall die! The curse sits upon all mankind, filling or minds and  our hearts. We cannot continue; we must cease. That's why people say, “True life comes out of death.” They see themselves as evil, they hate the way God made them, and they expect His curse upon themselves.
We CANNOT solve our problem. We CANNOT cause ourselves to cease. Physical death happens because life in the body ceases. After the cessation of life in the body, the body is eaten by various sizes of creatures and returns to dirt. The human spirit “died” in that it's connection to the heavens ceased. Yet man continues as a living soul, disembodied and spirit-less, wandering in the darkness. Man CANNOT cease.
Man CANNOT cause himself to cease. Nor can He cause the way of living that MUST result in cessation to cease. Even in cessation, man continues wandering and lost in the shades of gray.
Now, some believe that when unregenerate humans die, they cease utterly. Some also believe that in the end, God will cause the devil and his angels also simply to cease. I don't see either one because of what God says. God says that EVERY knee will bow and give homage to Jesus. God says that all creation will be given back to God fully restored by Jesus. God does not bring forth in order to lose what He brings forth. God does not make in order to unmake. All glory belongs to Jesus – All.
The Lamb slain. The form of “slay” used here is found only in these two references to the Lamb slain in this chapter – present perfect tense, “having been slain,” made perfect in the present moment. The more general Greek word refers to the sacrificial slaying of an animal and the poured-out blood. No sacrifice ever slayed itself.
A sacrifice is a substitute death.
Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Romans 6:6-10
Jesus did not cease upon the cross. He very much continued on. Even in Hades, the place of the dead, He continued speaking as the very human Word of God and brought many out of Hades with Him with newly living spirits into the heavens. Jesus' physical body was slain, nothing more. “God” did not die upon the cross.
Jesus was slain by the violence of human wickedness. Cain killed Abel. Note that the LION, the mighty victorious Warrior, is a Lamb having been slain. Jesus swallows up all human wickedness into His physical body.
There is only one sacrifice for sins and it ain't you and me.
There is only one sacrificial death and it ain't us dying.
God created me inside the Lamb having been slain. Therefore the moment I see myself in that Lamb I AM passed from death to life. Not only have I escaped death utterly and completely, but I have escaped ALL of that thing that God required to cease.
The Lamb slain is a place of Living Reality inside of God that takes everything that MUST CEASE and causes it to cease – all without losing a thing. We know it's reality by faith.
Only one thing is lost in all God's creation – only one thing in one moment of time – the mortal physical body in which Jesus walked for 33 ½ years.
 For by one offering He has perfect forever those who are being sanctified.
By one offering we are translated instantaneously out of death, out of cessation, out of the curse, out of “the soul that sins shall die” and into unending, immortal LIFE.
For whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
This place inside of God inside of which we were originally created, the Lamb Slain, this one offering for sin forever, then REQUIRES AN ANSWER to the most significant question in Christianity. The problem with the most significant question in Christianity is, of course, that no one asks it honestly. Yet it MUST BE asked, and it MUST BE answered, fully.

Since the old creation ended in its entirety with the death of Jesus' physical body, and since the new creation, spoken into existence by Jesus in John 17 and birthed brand new as Jesus' resurrected, incorruptible physical body is real and complete, since we are already perfected forever, since we are already glorified just like Jesus before God right now WHY do we see none of it? WHY do we not know the full reality of full reality?

 We are never “just behind” Jesus; we are only ever inside of Him and He inside of us.

Now, I say that no one asks the question honestly. Yet you will find that all deception in Christianity IS a dishonest attempt out of unbelieving hearts, hearts that do not engage with God Himself, to give an “excuse” for this seemingly utter failing of what God says to be true.
Our physical bodies should not die. Rather, they should be swallowed up in the incorruptible, immortal, resurrection life of Jesus. That is the gospel! Let's talk about that resurrection life for a moment.
The resurrection Life that re-created a new incorruptible physical body as Jesus came “back to life” came entirely out of the Father, out of His very bosom. The resurrection body of Jesus came out of God-life. It came out of the words Jesus spoke in His prayer in John 17, speaking the Kingdom of God into being. Those words were not dead or dying, how can we think such a thing? Jesus said, The words that I speak are Spirit and they ARE LIFE!
The path of the just shines brighter and brighter until the coming day. – The Daystar arising in our hearts. – But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. – But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
 The death of Jesus did not cause His resurrection. Jesus' resurrection did not come out of His death. The death of Jesus' physical body constituted for God the cessation of the entire old creation. That death was a one-time account: Jesus dies no more.
Resurrection life comes right out of the bowels of God. It is a new creation that has NO relationship with the old. The old has ceased; it is no more; it is  gone forever.
Do you see that period after forever? Does the sentence continue? In the same way, the death of Jesus' physical body on the cross is the period by which the old creation ceases.
Thus Love can bring forth His lover AND win her heart.
The Lamb slain is the only way Love can bring forth His lover, which means losing her, AND win her heart. That's why we were created only inside that Lamb. And that is the answer to the question.
You see, the Covenant is God filling us full with Himself in Person. The Covenant is shared heart with God.
We can never “see” the new creation until God wins our hearts.
Very few people ever fall in love with God in Person inside themselves. Those who do are called the firstfruits of the Covenant, the firstfruits unto the Lamb.
Many people say, “The new heavens and new earth are full and complete right now.” Yet they plan to die. Their folly is clear. Here is their problem: they have not fallen in love with the God who fills them with ALL of Himself. Those who have fallen in love with God think only of breaking the curse of death and violence and casting all of it off of all mankind. They love as He loves.
My title is, “Carry Your Cross.” There is a definite reason why I have not arrived at that thought.
Yes, everything I have described up until now is found in Moses' Tabernacle in the wilderness; it is found in our walk into the Holiest of All, but it is ENTIRELY behind us.
The Lamb Slain appears in the Tabernacle path the moment we enter the gate into the outer court. It is the brazen alter. The brazen altar is the sacrifice by which the old creation ceases – the Lamb slain.
This room in God, the Lamb slain, the Altar of Sacrifice, is a place of great dynamic and Living workings whereby all that is placed therein is caused to cease while the individual involved continues on brand new. In other words, when we place our sin and the crying lusts of our flesh into the Lamb, something incredible happens. He, by His very nature, causes those things to cease. When we do not place our sin and our flesh into Christ – and leave them there, then we ourselves are trying to make to cease what becomes more and more of a horror inside of us – and that we can never do.
Take any crying wickedness you may find inside your body and place it into Jesus, seeing Him personal and real. Say to Him, “Lord Jesus, this awful thing belongs to You. My flesh is Your flesh. You are responsible for me.” You do that in faith, in the expectation of God, refusing to see any part of yourself outside of Him and – you are transformed into His image from glory to glory, as He says.
That is the Lamb Slain, the Brass Altar; it is entirely behind us.
When Jesus said, “Carry your cross,” He was not speaking of our “need to die.” He was not speaking of difficult things by which we “learn” to come to the “end of ourselves.” He was speaking of something utterly, utterly different. As different as day is from night. He meant, “Follow Me.”
The old has ceased; it cannot be found; it does not exist.
Yet God must still win our hearts. God cannot possess His lover without first winning her heart.
I want to bring in here a paragraph I read on the Internet. Understand, that I am not speaking against the brother who said this, nor am I speaking against anyone who, reading something like this, receives life from God. The point is the removal of the curse from off the experience of man on this earth. To engage fully with the heart of Father God filling us full with His Person requires turning our backs on what is, for many, “good” Christian experience.
For us, the “good” is the enemy of “all fullness.”
Where does love hide? It hides in the Cross of Jesus Christ, who eternally was, but was never human until his incarnation as the God-man. Angry at Him, we each one drove in the nails with our hatred of who we were and our hatred of who He was for exposing it by simply being Himself unfettered with sin’s alienation from the Father. Everyone who has ever lived had a hand in putting the savior to death, but only that death it turns out can save us.
I reject this thought absolutely. There may be some true things in it, but the problem is the seeing. Reading it now sends horror all through me. This is written by someone who imagines that they are there on the outside of Jesus. And yes, they are utterly in death. To be outside of Jesus looking at Him is to be in darkness. No one, seeing in this way, can ever know Him, especially to pronounce some “definition” of who and what He is.

Tammuz is the T, the Tau, the cross. Tammuz is the crucifix, weeping over the “dead one.”

 

I am NOT on the outside of Jesus killing Him with my hatred. Jesus did not die “because of” our sins. The death of Jesus' physical body on the cross was God revealing to us inside of our present sense of  lostness the Living Reality of the One in whom we were created. So that we can KNOW that all separation from God, all wandering in lostness, IS ceased.
Put your own name in the blank instead of mine. I am inside of God, and God is inside of me. There is no God without   Daniel Yordy   inside of  Him; there is no   Daniel Yordy    without God inside of him.
The altar of sacrifice is BEHIND me, and by it I KNOW that I have nothing whatsoever to do with death or dying or anything except God in me and me in God, which is life in life in life – unto ever increasing LIFE.
This reality is eternal, because God is only now; it is infinite, because God is only present.
By the Lamb slain our unreality vanished. By His resurrection, our reality is eternal and complete.
May I suggest that you read Ezekiel 8. Let me bring in a few verses here.
Furthermore He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel commits here, to make Me go far away from My sanctuary? Now turn again, you will see greater abominations.” – – – So He brought me to the door of the north gate of the Lord’s house; and to my dismay, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz.
Weeping for Tammuz is the next to the last abomination being committed inside the house of God, the worst is worshiping Apollo - Ra the sun god.
Tammuz is the Babylonian name for the Egyptian Horus, the single-eye that you see proliferating in all pop culture all around us in every direction. (Interesting, but the single eye and Monarch butterfly “transformation” are, in this world, so utterly perverted and evil, bringing upon, especially the younger generation such a slavery under darkness that we cannot imagine – and those two things are specifically what God is revealing in us now in light and truth and love.)
Tammuz is the T, the Tau, the cross. Tammuz is the crucifix, weeping over the “dead one.” “Oh, look what we did, that is our sin there killing the dying one.”
Weeping, weeping over sin, weeping, weeping over death.
That is why I will not watch The Passion of the Christ.
Turning the Lamb slain into an abomination. Turning Man as God revealed into “God the Sun.”
We do not weep for Tammuz.
Tammuz/Horus was the one crucified “for the sins of the people” long before Jesus walked this earth. It was He who said, “Except you eat my flesh and drink my blood, there is no life in you.” The cross, the T, was Tammuz.
That fact causes many to say that the Christian message is just a made-up copy of the pagan rituals that were developed long centuries before.
The truth is, Satan originates nothing. All he ever does is take that which is most holy and twist it, pervert it, turn it inside out and upside down so that foolish people look at the truth and say, “Oh, that's just like what those evil people do, so it can't be God.”
Whatever God is magnifying in the experience of His elect, that very thing the enemy magnifies in perverted form in modern culture.
Yet here's the deal. The primary reason he does that is not to delude those who are already in his clutches, but rather, to twist the thinking and practice of those who belong to Jesus, to get them to “worship Tammuz” in the temple of God – and thus the image of the crucifix.
You and I exist only in Jesus. When Jesus said, “Here am I, I and the children whom You have given Me,” I was there inside of Him. The fact that I was seven before I came to know that doesn't mean a thing.
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!
The reality of the Lamb slain, the altar of sacrifice, is NOT the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant is entirely the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Ark of the Covenant, the Acacia Wood, is the resurrected flesh of the Lord Jesus, His flesh and mine.
Thus before we can leave the Ark of Acacia Wood, we must see it entirely through the resurrection.
What about “carry your cross”?
We walk just as He walked. “Follow Me,” does not mean, “Walk just behind Me.” We are never “just behind” Jesus; we are only ever inside of Him and He inside of us. But that's just it.
Jesus walked filled with God; God is the One who carries His enemies inside Himself, stumbling in their way, carrying them all the way through that transition Place of Life bringing forth Life, all the way into goodness.
God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself; God is in us, reconciling the world to Himself.
When God says to us, “May I share Christ with you?” He is asking of us to be the same reconciliation, to be a member of that reconciliation, by which He carries all of His creation into life.
When we believe that every circumstance, every pressure, every difficulty, every “waywardness” we feel and go through, that God IS using all of that to reconcile the world to Himself. When we believe that we contain inside our hearts that very real and special Room in God, the Lamb Slain, that, by willingly drawing into ourselves the failings of others, in love, and by the Lamb Slain, they cease. When we believe that our tender compassion, our light touch, our kind words are God Himself going out from us as the goodness of life. Then we ARE “carrying our cross,” we are a member of His body, a member of this wondrous faculty of God that causes the darkness to be no more and yet brings the person into life.
I will make a new covenant . . . I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”
The Ark is the wooden box, the human flesh, that carries this Covenant. We received the fullness of this Covenant the moment we entered the gate and beheld the Altar of Sacrifice; we signed the Covenant by the brass washbasin, by the water of baptism. Our ignorance of that Covenant meant nothing.
As the Ark of the Covenant, however, we are no longer having this Covenant “happen to us.” The Covenant “happened to us” in the Outer Court. In the Holy Place, we learned what it meant in the heavens, in the Spirit. Now, as the container of that Covenant, we carry this ministry of Christ out to all creation.
Through the Christ who fills our hearts, the Covenant – all “sins and lawless deeds” vanish. If God does not remember them, they do not exist. If God does not remember them, how can we, regardless of how bad other people's actions may make us feel?
Through the Christ who fills our hearts, the Knowing of God, eternal life, extends itself out as rivers of living water.
Now, here's the deal – and this is so very, very important. It is the difference between life and death.
When I was told over many years that “carry your cross,” meant, “You have to die, brother,” that meant two things to me. The first thing it meant was that “I” was bad. The second thing it meant was an absolute horror. I could not do it; I could not die. I always got up the next morning, and it was always me facing another day.
Inside that darkness, though I cast myself with great struggle and wrenching “surrenders” upon the Lord over and over through much difficulty over many years, not without periods of running and hiding and wanting God to stay far, far away from me (which He never did), even though, yes, through all of that, I did learn of Him, that He is tender and kind – yet none of it was a joy, none of it was life, and none of it was EFFECTIVE in me or anyone else.
It is darkness that benefits no one, ever. The life that I came to know came in spite of that darkness, because God is good; it did NOT come because of that darkness.
I have no self to “come to the end of.” I have no “me” that is even “dead.” Listen, I am not dead. The dead “me” vanished with the physical body of Jesus. It does not exist. People who say, “You're just a dead man walking,” are perilously close to the Tammuz stuff.
I am alive unto God.
And the period at the end of that sentence does not mean “cessation,” it means absolute and Today. There is nothing else.
Yet now, when I know that I am utterly alive unto God, that I am flesh of His flesh, that I am a member of His body, that He reveals Himself in all that He is through me, what a sea-change difference it makes. I now walk in utter life; death does not exist.
That means that as difficult things happen to me, as people fail me or treat me badly, as I stumble and fall, as everything that can go wrong does go wrong, I walk through those things entirely different from how I walked through them before.
Let's say someone speaks ugly at me. I draw them into the Lamb slain who fills my heart. Their “sinful self” ceases, and now I carry them, KNOWING that God in me carries them, KNOWING that God and I together are redeeming them in tender love, KNOWING that, unbeknownst to them, LIFE has grabbed hold of them and carries them all the way into LIFE!
Here's what I find – I can do that.
Always before the thought of “Bad me must die,” crippled me, and all I could ever do was hide.
 Now I walk knowing that I am filled, saturated with God Himself in Person. I know that all that He is, all that He does, He is and He does through ALL that is me. When I look at myself, all I see is joy and the expectation of God. Even in the press of difficulty, I know that there is nothing else there.
I am the container of the resurrected and very much ALIVE Lamb-Having-Been-Slain.
I am the Ark of the Covenant.

KOG4 Gethsemane by Daniel Yordy

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© Daniel Yordy - 2012 - Our Path Home

Part 4. Gethsemane

Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane . . . and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. Then He said to them, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me." He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, "O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will." Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, "What! Could you not watch with Me one hour? Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Again, a second time, He went away and prayed, saying, "O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done." And He came and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy. So He left them, went away again - And He knelt down and prayed - the third time - saying, "Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done." Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him. And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. Matthew 26:36-43 and Luke 22:41-44 combined
In that day you shall know that I am in the Father and you in Me and I in you. Jesus' words - one hour earlier.
When Jesus said, "In that day," He did not mean that someday we would be in Him and He in us; He meant that at a certain DAY in our lives, we would discover and thus know something that is true. "That day," in the gospel, is always today. "Today is THE day of salvation." "Today, if you will hear His voice."
Look back at the words of Gethsemane. When Jesus says, "You in Me," I believe what He says. Should we do anything else with what He says? I was not in Him, as He traversed this dark passage, figuratively, but literally. I was not in Jesus in a metaphorical sense, but actually. Notice that He said "You IN Me and I IN you."
I sit here groaning over this word, IN, as Jesus used it here, in great perplexity and agony of spirit. Do we dare to limit God; does anyone in Christendom dare to say, "Well, it certainly does NOT mean A, B, or C; it means only what my limited box-knowledge of God allows it to mean"?
I am inside of every word, every moment, every action of Jesus in Gethsemane, and every word, moment and action of Gethsemane is inside of me. The words God uses to define "IN" is "FILLED with ALL the FULLNESS."
Gethsemane is the beginning of the Covenant. We begin the Blood Covenant with God inside of Jesus in Gethsemane. Gethsemane inside of Jesus inside of us is the beginning of full Covenant Union between us and God. We "begin" full Covenant union with God by discovering - in that day you shall KNOW - that our union with Him in Gethsemane is already true.
I want to insert this understanding here. I am using the tabernacle of Moses in the wilderness as a metaphor of our entering into full covenant relationship with God. God gave us that picture because it helps us to speak meaningfully about the various aspects of God's work in our lives. This metaphor, however, we apply at two different levels, always both at the same time. We see all things as finished and complete; we see that by faith. By faith I know that I already sit upon the Mercy Seat at the right hand of the Father inside of Jesus. As I see anything that crosses my path, I know that I am looking out from the throne of God; I see all things from that throne.
At the same time, God applies this same metaphor to our walk into the fullness of God made visible and complete - the manifestation of the sons of God in full glory upon this earth. We will know without question when that walk is complete - our bodies will be transformed into immortality, visibly and openly. There's no faking that, nor any doubt when it happens.
Thus the tabernacle shows us what we already are, and it shows us how we become what we already are.
In my last letter, I stated that I do not understand why those who dwell in all the experience of the Holy Spirit will not enter into the Holy of Holies. I now understand. Outwardly, I have been saying why all along, but I understand it now for the first time. Most Christians, including those with much experience and knowledge of God, looking at the things God says about life in the Holy of Holies, are absolutely convinced that those things are speaking of "heaven." And so they have reduced grace and the gospel down to the non-Biblical idea that God has promised us that we will experience Holy-of-Holies life, that is, third-level life, in heaven. They don't mean heaven right now, as God means, they mean "go to" heaven at some future time. And that "grace" means only that we don't "earn" this "going to" heaven. So right now we are just happy and later, someday, "going to heaven" is entering the Holiest of All.
Now, this much I understood. What I did not fully see is this. Paul says that we are in heaven right now - seated with Christ in the "epouranios." He says that, since we live in the Spirit, that is, in heaven, let's walk in the Spirit, that is walk in heaven, as well. What does that mean?
It takes tremendous faith to walk in heaven right now, a bold and daring heart of faith and absolute confidence in our union with the Lord Jesus Christ - that what He says, all that He says, is actually true. The reason it takes tremendous faith is that we are blind; God has not yet opened our spirit-eyes to see the obvious. Therefore, every step is a step in darkness, trusting absolutely that what our Guide, the Lord Jesus, speaks, is absolutely true and trustworthy.
And so again, the reason most Christians who live in the light and experience of the Holy Place, refuse to walk in the Holy of Holies right now, is that they simply do not trust Jesus. They are convinced He is speaking nonsense, and that they will know what He means and can then TRUST Him ONLY after their eyes see and they can confidently maneuver heaven on their own.
In other words, they want the same self-reliance in heaven that they walk in upon the earth. Thus they have concocted the "go to" heaven fantasy, rejecting the idea that they are already there in fullness, as God says. And when they hear us speaking about the salvation of heaven revealed in all fullness through us right now in this earth, they imagine we are speaking something other than the gospel; their gospel being reduced to a full rejection of Hebrews 10:19, that we enter into the Holiest, all the life of heaven, right now in boldness and by the blood of Jesus.
They are convinced that if they do not see reality, then reality cannot be real. Thus they walk by sight, having reduced faith to silly talk about happiness "in heaven," all the while refusing a heaven they live in, but cannot see right now.
And so, I must say something about all the "union with Christ" teaching across the entire spectrum, and many are rejoicing in many different expressions of our discovery of union with Christ. I must say what I see, not because I want to elevate myself or put anyone down, but simply - how can I be found faithful if I do not share in the gentleness of the Lord Jesus what I see?
I see so many speaking union with Christ at the door, and then speaking separation, separation, separation regarding everything of Christ beyond the door. WHY? Because they are absolutely convinced that REAL union with Christ can be known only after we "go to" heaven. And thus they draw a line through everything God says in the gospel concerning the reality of the Holy of Holies fulfilled now in and through us into this earth, convinced that we CANNOT know such union with God, not until AFTER we die and "go to" heaven.
And that is why God has promised to shatter heaven. Because all of these precious dear ones can never know union with Christ in full reality as God says it in the New Testament until their white-knuckled grip on "go to" heaven fantasies is broken. And so, in the travail of the Holy Spirit in groanings inside of me, I give myself to the Lord Jesus as He shatters heaven through me, here, in Gethsemane.
Many may rejoice in their present knowledge of union with Christ, and that is wonderful, I in no way speak against their joy. But they cannot walk this path of the Atonement inside of Jesus because this is an unseen path. As long as they insist the heaven they live in right now is real only when they can SEE it, then they cannot know full union with God.
Why can't they know it? Unbelief, as the gospel says. Thus God must shatter our heaven fantasies before we can continue in the Atonement of Jesus revealed through us.

We must place Gethsemane into context.
Jesus spoke the Kingdom of God, the new creation, into existence in John chapter 17. From that moment until He sat down at the right hand of the Throne, He walked through every step of the birthing of that Kingdom. In John chapter 17, Jesus took you and me into Himself, thus establishing the gospel revealed through Paul, that Jesus did not do these things for us, as the earlier apostles had thought, but that we were in Him and He in us through every step of that path - literally and actually.
The Atonement begins in Gethsemane and is finished in the Throne. The revelation of God to all creation as who and what He really is begins in Gethsemane and is made complete in the Throne. The birthing of the Kingdom begins in Gethsemane and is revealed in the Throne. Our full union with God in a Blood Covenant relationship, complete and made manifest, begins in Gethsemane and finishes in the Throne.
Rebellion and the darkening of the present creation began in Adam's will. Obedience and the light of the new creation begins in Jesus' will.
Just as it was the will of the human that spoke the words that opened the Gate into the knowledge of Jesus as Savior, and just as it was the will of the human that spoke the words that opened the Door into the knowledge of Jesus as Baptizer, so it is the will of the human that speaks the words that opens the Veil into the knowledge of Jesus as our very and only Life.
Yet it is not our human will by which we spoke those words, but His. Jesus said, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you." Thus, for us, Gethsemane is NOT, "Obey God, loser, do His will and not your own." Gethsemane is not something we "copy" in an outward way, though God gives us the words to speak. In complete contrast, Gethsemane is a complete surrender into Jesus AS our will, having already, Himself, chosen God and thus, WE ALSO.
When Jesus said, three times, "Not My will, but Thine be done," I said three times, "Not my will, but Thine be done." His agony is my agony; His choice is my choice; His words are my words. My surrender is to accept my place inside of Him and the place of that surrendered One inside of me.
This point is the turning of the Covenant. Everything that comes after, the trial, the crucifixion, even the resurrection, all of it flows out of this moment.
We entered the Outer Court by faith, by asking, by receiving, and by believing that we have received. In so doing we entered into that level of the knowledge of God freely, and all that is found in Jesus the Savior - the Way - was found in us.
We entered the Holy Place by faith, by asking, by receiving, and by believing that we have received. In so doing we entered into that level of the knowledge of God freely, and all that is found in Jesus the Baptizer - the Truth - was found in us.
In just the same way, we enter the Holy of Holies by faith, by asking, by receiving, and by believing that we have received. In so doing we enter into that level of the knowledge of God freely, and all that is found in Jesus the Fulfiller - the Life - is found in us.
Gethsemane is the Gate, the Door, the Veil. Three times Jesus said, "Not My will, but Thine be done." Three times we said those words inside of Him. Three times we enter into a deeper place of knowing God.
Jesus said, "Take this cup away from Me."
What is that cup?
We dare not fall short of the glory of God in our answer to that question; we are speaking of the Becoming One.
Paul's gospel is radical and most Christians have never known it. Yes, many Christians can mouth the concepts of Paul's gospel - Jesus became our sin that we might be the righteousness of God. Dead in Christ, buried with Christ, risen with Christ, seated in heaven now in Christ. Yet these things are little more than theological talking points.
Why? Because Paul's gospel is too radical to actually believe, that is, to make it personal and here and now.
And so for most, the sacrifice of Jesus is something God did for us - that's how the other disciples understood it before Paul preached his revelation of Christ, and that's how most of the church sees it. Then, in the latter rain outpouring, came a vision of our place in that same Atonement, only it was seen in this way, that Jesus is our Pattern, and that we ourselves must follow the same path, we must choose God, we must enter full crucifixion ourselves, and so on, and that God will "help" us follow Jesus' pattern. Yet this view remained entirely inside the rebellion and separation of Adam.
Let me give a different view of the path of the Atonement beginning here in Gethsemane. Let me give a view of the cup Jesus drank, a view that comes out from the Holy of Holies, a third feast view, a third level view.
In the upper room, in Jesus' prayer in John 17, Jesus did something radical, something God. Jesus reached forward and back, He extended Himself out to all things, and He drew all things, that is, you and me, into Himself, literally and actually. It does no good for us to contemplate the "all things" part, what we must know is, the "you and me" part.
But including you and me into Himself was only one side of the equation. You see, Jesus said we would know three things. We would know that He is in the Father. We would know that we are in Him - that's the first side of the equation. But He said also that we would know that He is in us.
We became the Jesus who walked through the Atonement, and the Jesus who walked through the Atonement became us as we walk through our appointed times in this present age.
Jesus took His shattered creation into Himself, that He might carry it all the way to the Father, AND Jesus became His shattered creation that He might walk it all the way to the Father.
Jesus had already taken us into Himself before He entered Gethsemane and wept over the cup His Father asked Him to drink. It was His joy to take us into Himself. Yet the transition must be complete - God would complete it upon the cross. Jesus must become us.
Jesus must become all the darkness and difficulty of our path. He became our sin and took it into death upon the cross; He must become us that He might take us into life upon the throne.
Jesus was not drinking three twenty-four-hour days of difficulty; He drank three one-thousand-year days of difficulty.
Jesus agreed to become me.
And He asks me to accept Him as myself.
He asks me to stop "choosing" between "His way" and "my way" - that is the rebellion of Adam. He asks me to sink utterly into Him and to see Him alone in all things I find in me. He asks me for the most complete surrender I have ever known.
Let's do that here. Let's follow the pattern. We know how we passed through the Gate into the Outer Court. We know how we passed through the Door into the Holy Place. The Veil into the Holy of Holies is no different. Let's ask.
"Lord Jesus, I ask You to be my life, to be all that I am, all that I find myself to be in this world. I ask You to be the end of whatever "I" of me that once existed before I knew You. I will never look at or consider that former "I" again. Lord Jesus, I ask you to be me, the present me, walking through all the difficulties and ineptitude of my life in this world. I ask you to be all of my failures, all of my short-comings, all of my down-fallings. I cannot carry myself, Lord Jesus. I have tried and I have failed. Forgive me, Lord, for trying to be Christ-like. I give You my permission, Lord Jesus, to be me, to be all of me as myself.
"And, Lord Jesus, I ask You to be me as Yourself. I ask You to be me, to be my life as the King of Glory, as the Risen and Ascended Christ, as the Living and Ever-Coming Son of God.
"Lord Jesus, forgive me for ever saying, "Maybe someday, I'd like to be"; forgive me, Lord. From this moment on, I will say only, "I am." I am the firstfruits unto God. I am the manifestation of the sons of God. I am the manchild caught up to God's throne. I am the second witness of Christ. I am the Mercy-Seat. I am the throne of heaven. I am the revelation of God.
"Lord Jesus, I am just like You, for You and I are one. All that I am in this present world, You are, and all that You are, the Son of God, I am. You are my breath, You are my life, You are my every moment.
"And Lord Jesus, having asked You to be me, to be my very life, I believe that I receive all that I ask for. I walk forward expecting that I am filled with all the fullness of God. I walk forward expecting that rivers of living water flow out of my belly. I walk forward expecting that kingdoms of darkness are falling into ruin all around me. I walk forward KNOWING that in my weakness, in all of my glorious weakness, Your strength is proven, Your strength is MADE perfect. For You, Lord Jesus, are strong enough to drink the Cup, the precious Cup, Your Father gave You. You are strong enough to become me."
If you have prayed this prayer, not necessarily my words, but yours, in your own intimate knowing of Jesus inside of you, if you have prayed this prayer in sincerity of heart before God, in the Spirit who alone gives you power to believe what God says, then turn around. Your way into the Father is complete. You are now seated upon the Mercy Seat. You are the Ark, the carrier, the embodiment of the Covenant.
As you look out upon an entirely different-looking world, you see through the Veil you just passed. To your astonishment, it was always wide open. And now you are looking out, first you see your precious brethren in the Holy Place, then you see your precious brethren in the outer court, then you see all the people of this world, then you see all creation, heaven and earth.
God is in you reconciling the world to Himself.
And every moment of your life, all your joys and sorrows, all your triumphs and failures, all your doing well and doing badly, all of it is the Intercession of God, the Lord Jesus, inside of you, reconciling all creation to Himself.
From this moment on, not one moment of your life is your "redemption." It is finished. Every moment of your life now is mission, it is sending; it is Jesus Christ whom God has sent. Every moment of your life is now the revelation of God into this world. Every moment of your life is God Himself proving Himself through you to His creation.
But, in spite of our unlimited view of all things out from God's throne, what is it we see first? What part of God's reality is closest to our eyes?
The Altar of Incense, and all of our precious brethren, close to our hearts, who labor there.
And suddenly we know that, having passed through Gethsemane inside of Jesus, now, Gethsemane passes through us.
For there, right in front of us, is the precious Woman of God, caught in the jaws of the dragon.
And now we must KNOW this Atoning One, this Becoming One who is our very life. Let us look upon Him, this Revelation of the Person and Nature and Being of the Father as He walks the Path of Revelation.
The upper room is not far from the east side of the city of Jerusalem. It is a short walk from there down to the bottom of the sharp cleft below the eastern wall of the city in which runs the brook Kidron. It is April, so the brook is running water, though small. Jesus and the disciples cross over the brook and immediately begin climbing the steep slope of the Mount of Olives, higher than Jerusalem to the east. Gethsemane is a little garden in a flat and sheltered spot among the olive trees part way up that slope. By the time they reach the garden, Jesus is already laboring under unfathomable pain.
From the moment Jesus steps across the Brook Kidron, all demonic realms assault Him with all the fury of their madness. Remember, in the midst of the storm, Jesus slept. When they tried to stone Him to death, He just walked through their midst and they did not even notice. He is the unflappable One.
Yet here, He is unflappable no more. Sorrow deeper than anything known by man before or since grips His soul. Death mocks Him, and He stumbles under its terror. Two-and-a-half hours of praying, three times of surrendering Himself to God, and still, it gets worse. An angel shows himself, a cherub of the throne, putting his arm around this very broken Man. Yet the agony only increases until blood flows out of His pores.
Jesus did not do this "for us." We were there, utterly and actually, inside of Him.
Yet the darkest moment of internal torment, of unmitigated demonic assault inside of Jesus, comes shortly before it ends. After three hours, the internal assault simply ceases. Now the external assault begins, a demonic fury never manifested through men before or since as it shows itself through the next few hours.
As Jesus rises from prayer, the first thing He sees is His friend, his brother, this one who has walked with Him, laughed with Him, eaten with Him, now filled with Satan - possessed by the person of Satan, not by his demons. Jesus rises from Gethsemane into the jaws of the dragon.
Jesus' friend kisses Him on the cheek. And all of His other friends run in terror as far and as fast as they can in the darkness. Mark is there, following from a distance; he runs away stark naked.
Jesus is alone. And the beating begins.
At first it's just the soldiers of the High Priest. But all the demons of the Abyss are there as well, and so the men who mock Jesus, mock Him at the core and center of Christ, the revelation of God. "Prophesy! Who hit you? Aren't you the Christ?"
Why did they hate Him? They hate Him because He is weak. They hate Him because He is only a Man. They hate Him because there is no "Super-Christ." They hate Him because He is the opposite of everything they lust after.
He stands before Israel in the place of Moses, the priests of God inspecting the Passover Lamb. Again, the hard, cold fury centers on the issue of Christ. They reject utterly a Christ of flesh, a Lamb who lays down His life, who becomes them. They will not have a God of weakness. They inspect Him and find Him guilty of being one with a God whom they despise.
Peter screams and curses, "Damn you; I do NOT know Him." His words pierce the center of Jesus' heart.
They bind Jesus with ropes. They do not have the authority to kill Him; the Romans tore that authority away from them and they dare not challenge the Romans who are more than willing to bloody all Jerusalem and to desecrate the temple if they have to. Pilate's citadel is on the north side of the temple wall, higher than the temple and thus looking down into it. The Jews will not enter that citadel; therefore Pilate must come out to them.
But it is some distance from the court of the Sanhedrin to Pilate's court. While they push Jesus before them, Judas, empty now, and horrifically alone, comes weeping back to the remaining priests. They laugh at him; he goes out in black despair and hangs himself.
Jesus knows.
Pilate comes out and looks down at the Jews. Suddenly he knows that there is something terribly wrong with the universe. They bring Jesus up to Him. "I find no fault with this man," he says. But he wants nothing to do with the hellish fury he sees before him, so he sends Jesus to Herod.
Herod is a playboy. Herod is the life of the party. Herod makes everyone laugh. "Oh, goodie, do a miracle for me. I'd just love to see a miracle." Everyone laughs. Jesus is silent.
Back to Pilate.
Let me give you what are supposedly Pilate's own words as written in the government accounts required by all Roman governors. Whether this is actually Pilate's writing, as I read it now, I doubt. Facts of Christian knowledge and ideas gathered over centuries are all cobbled together in this account. However, it does give the picture I want to draw and so I will include a portion here.

~

Jesus was dragged before the High Priest and condemned to death . . . Caiaphas . . . sent his prisoner to me to confirm his condemnation and secure his execution . . . Soon my palace assumed the aspect of a besieged citadel. Every moment increased the number of malcontents. . . All Judea appeared to be pouring into the city . . .
By this time the marble stair groaned under the weight of the multitude. The Nazarene was brought back to me. I proceeded to the halls of justice, followed by my guard, and asked the people in a severe tone what they demanded. . .
"Crucify him! Crucify Him!" cried the relentless rabble. The vociferations of the infuriated mob shook the palace to its foundations.
I then ordered Jesus to be scourged, hoping this might satisfy them; but it only increased their fury. I then called for a basin, and washed my hands in the presence of the clamorous multitude, thus testifying that in my judgment Jesus of Nazareth had done nothing deserving of death; but in vain. It was his life these wretches thirsted for.
Often in our civil commotions have I witnessed the furious anger of the multitude, but nothing could be compared to what I witnessed on this occasion. It might have been truly said that all the phantoms of the infernal regions had assembled at Jerusalem. The crowd appeared not to walk, but to be borne off and whirled as a vortex, rolling along in living waves from the portals of the praetorium even unto Mount Zion, with howling screams, shrieks, and vociferations such as were never heard in the seditions of the (Pandemonium), or in the tumults of the forum. (The Archko Volume, 138-141)

~

In the garden, only Satan himself appeared to Eve as a serpent, a solitary and fairly quiet creature in the beauty of Paradise. In Jerusalem, Satan appeared in Jesus' friend, and all the angels fallen from heaven possessed all the people Jesus came to save, His people, possessed them with all the fury of rebellion and separation from God, all the vomit of the abyss.
Man and Satan together scream, "Crucify him!"
Then the physical pain begins again. They strip Jesus, scourging Him until his back is strips of flesh and visible bones. They press a crown of thorns upon Him and pluck out His beard until His face is a bloody and mangled pulp.
They mock Him. They drive Him forward, placing a cross upon His back.
Passing through the crowds of people lining the way, screaming their fury at Him, He stumbles and falls.
This Jesus, this One who is weak, He is no Christ for us. We will not have a God revealed through weakness. Give us power; give us miracles; give us thunderbolts; but the very last God we will accept is a Man who lays down His life, who does not fight back.
It is not my purpose to replicate The Passion of the Christ, and so I will go no further. It is my purpose to unveil for us Man as God revealed.
This is the One whom we are in, and this is the One who is in us.
Christianity would teach us that it was our sin that "did this" to Jesus, that we were "there inside that crowd." NO WE WERE NOT!!! But we were there, all right; we were there inside of Him.
Let's return to the Covenant.
In the Covenant, God's concern is ours and our concern is His. God looks out for our concern while we look out for His concern. We give no thought to our concerns, not because they are unimportant - but because God holds every tiny concern we have inside His heart and He meets each concern more wondrously than we can think or even imagine. At the same time, the One who is our Life - He carries in Himself God's concerns, and in us, He expresses those concerns. That is, He is our embracing of all the concerns and interests of God.
KNOWING that God utterly has our back, we take up God's back. And when we say, "WE," we mean Jesus, for we never separate ourselves from Him nor He from us.
And here, sitting upon the throne of God, looking out as the expression of the Heart and Concern of God, we see the woman filling the Holy Place, a woman clothed with the sun, a woman in travail.
Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child. But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. Revelation 12:13-17
These words are not for "figuring out" in any way, shape, or form. These words are Spirit and they are Life.
Think - sitting upon the Mercy Seat, looking out with the eyes of God - the first thing we see is our precious brethren in the Altar of Incense, in the Holy Place, who have not yet entered into the Holy of Holies. The angel told John that the Outer Court is not now being measured by the measurement of Christ, only the Holy Place. That is not a put-down; each one will come in his or her season.
The King James says, "And they shall nourish her there."
We are the "THEY." The Bowels of God long over the Bride of Christ, right now upon this earth in the year of our Lord, 2012. He longs over her as she enters her hour of trial, not understanding a thing about what is happening to her. This is the God who fills us, who has made Covenant with us to accomplish His purposes in creation.
Let me fix our eyes on this one point. The God of the Covenant will nourish His woman through you and through me and He will do it in the face of the serpent.
It is here, at the point of the Word God speaks, of a woman in travail, and the face of the serpent that God shows Himself as He really is. 
  – Through us.
Believe in Jesus!