Being Spiritual - Wooden Box and Khavod glory

 

Recorded as Facebook Live. For copyright reasons my software introduces scratches when it's copied.

The Ark of the Covenant by Daniel Yordy

Acacia Trays

Bagel and Griff Trays

Our Path Home - © Daniel Yordy 2012  

11. The Ark of the Covenant

And they shall make an ark of acacia wood; two and a half cubits shall be its length, a cubit and a half its width, and a cubit and a half its height. And you shall overlay it with pure gold, inside and out you shall overlay it, and shall make on it a molding of gold all around . . . And you shall put into the ark the Testimony which I will give you. Exodus 25:10-16

And they shall make a "box" of acacia wood. The Ark of the Covenant IS a wooden box.

We must begin here. Wood is a symbol of human flesh.

At all times and in all ways, this box pictures for us the Lord Jesus Christ. But as we see Him as He is, we are made just like Him. Therefore, in all ways and at all times, this box pictures us in our present state of perfection moving out from God.

The wooden box is Christ as us. In recent writing I have suggested the idea of "God as us." I am now backpedaling from that thought. Christ is as us; our flesh is His flesh and His flesh is our flesh. We are one flesh with Him. God is not the box; Christ is. God fills the box.

Writing the article "Filled with All Fullness" has changed everything for me. Since writing that, I no longer wake up in the middle of the night feeling "awful." That is gone. I wake up in the night, now, knowing that God Himself fills me full. More and more, I know nothing else. How do I know this? I know it by faith. I choose to believe absolutely that what God says is true and personal in me. I speak of myself ONLY to set before you that you as well ought to be seeing God Himself in Person filling you in all fullness all the time as well. See Him just as I see Him - by choosing to do so first, and by practicing that seeing second, because He says.

More than that, everything looks different, especially everything God says in the Bible.

I am writing two articles at the same time. In fact, all through this series, I have been following two large metaphors, going back and forth between them. One of those metaphors is the path from the Holy Place into the Holy of Holies; the other is the path of the Atonement from Gethsemane to the right hand of the Father.

I arrive at the cross at the same time as I arrive at the Ark of the Covenant. The connection is astonishing!

Everything looks entirely different from what I have ever seen before. Here is the difference. Always before, I had placed myself on the outside looking on. Now I see myself on the inside looking out.

Let's bring in the Word: In that day you shall know that I am in the Father and you in Me and I in You.

I did not include this statement of Jesus in my list of "the most important verses in the Bible." But I see now that it must be placed alongside of Galatians 2:20 as its necessary counterpart. Galatians 2:20 is incomplete, only half of the seeing of our salvation; John 14:20 is the vital second half of our seeing.

Let's make a statement of reality based on John 14:20. I will expand on this statement in my letter on "The Cross." 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.

Look at the Ark of the Covenant - remembering that Hebrews 10:19-22 says that we enter boldly into the Holiest of All. That means that we are that Ark. It is a box of Acacia Wood, at this point open to the heavens. We are not yet considering the Mercy Seat. But as a symbol or metaphor, the Ark has a major flaw, a flaw intended by God as part of "The Veil."

You see, gold is visible; God is not.

And so, I always heard the Ark of the Covenant fulfilled in our lives explained in this way: man, covered on the inside with the nature of God and covered on the outside with the nature of God. That way of seeing was good for that time, since it drew us on into God. But as time went on, it became the very thing that kept and still keeps so many out of the Holy of Holies, laboring forever in the Altar of Incense, blocked entirely by the Veil.

It became the block of the Veil because we focused our eyes, then, on the need to make ourselves the "nature" of God, inside and out, visible gold, a desperate and impossible task.

Now, God does send out from Himself the Holy Spirit whose task is to reveal Christ as us inside of us. But that is the ONLY thing God gives us OF Himself. He will never ever give us His "NATURE." That's not the deal.

The Covenant is not a package of things we get from God. The Covenant is God HIMSELF in Person, filling us full. God sends us nothing; He comes in Person to be Himself our insides and our outsides.

And that is why faith IS the central quality of the Ark of Acacia Wood, the central quality of the human.

Because, you see, God is invisible.

When you looked at the outside of the Ark, all you saw was gold. When you looked on the inside of the Ark, all you saw was gold. Wood was simply not visible. You would not know there was any wood involved, let alone that it was actually a box OF wood, unless you had been told. And that is the "problem" with the metaphor.

God is invisible. When you look on the outside of man, you see man. When you look on the inside of man, you see man. God is invisible. Yet God fills us full with all of Himself, and He flows out from us in Person as mighty rivers of living water. We look like God because we can't look like anything else.

We are the face of God. I am inside of God and God is inside of me AND flowing out from me, touching all; I am the face of God. This reality is absolute and Today.

For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.

So what if I am still "being sanctified," I am first perfected forever - just as my Father is perfect.

So, looking at this equation between God and the face of God, me, we see that God has no problem being Himself. God is very good at being God; it's what He does best. God knows exactly how to be God in me and how to be God flowing out from me. God's side of the equation is set and certain. All we have to know is that the largest part of who and what we are on the inside and on the outside IS God in Person.

We know that by faith.

The real question before us, then, is this box: an ark of acacia wood.

You may have noticed that Alexander Pope is my favorite poet. Let me bring in a third line from him that rings with truth. "Know then thyself. Presume not God to scan; the proper study of mankind is man." We thought once that this was a statement of "humanism." I no longer think that. Pope was aiming directly at what has been termed England's second greatest literary work, Paradise Lost, by John Milton, written a generation before him.

Let me bring in a rabbit trail. I always teach from rabbit trails for two reasons: I like rabbit trails, and I am convinced that rabbit trails connect us with truth in surprising ways. I am always amazed years later when I visit with a former student and discover that it was the rabbit trail they remember as the thing that cemented whatever I was teaching into their minds and hearts.

Someone mentioned my comment that Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is among the greatest works of literature; I would place it in the top five, defining literature here as any great creative fictional story in any form that causes us to think deeply on this object God calls His image. That comment immediately set me off once again creating my list of the top ten greatest literary writers in history. The top five are fairly easy, though some would debate the order in which I will list them. Here they are.

Leo Tolstoy - War and Peace

Miguel Cervantes - Don Quixote

William Shakespeare (Edward de Vere) - Hamlet/Othello

Homer - The Iliad/The Odyssey

Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice

Everyone of these individuals explores deeply, with much thought, an understanding of who and what the image of God, this box of acacia wood is, how he/she works and operates maneuvering through a dark and fallen world.

The second five are a bit harder to choose, since so many crowd up into the top twenty to thirty. (I have a purpose for my rabbit trail.) Let me have a go at it, though the "order" is not important.

Fyodor Dostoevsky - The Brothers Karamazov

J.R.R. Tolkien - The Lord of the Rings

Sophocles - Oedipus Rex/Antigone

Geoffrey Chaucer - Canterbury Tales

?? - ??

The problem with the last entry is that many vie for that spot. So in trying to fill it, I pulled Milton's Paradise Lost off my shelf and in a few minutes understood why I would never include it or Dante's Divine Comedy in any list of great creative literature, why I would agree fully with Alexander Pope.

The difference between the nine authors I have listed and Milton/Dante is huge. The nine (and at this point I would likely stick Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot in that tenth spot as a study of the image of God) all knowingly wrote fiction with the intent of unveiling the truth. Milton and Dante imagined they were creating a work describing the truth - scanning God - and instead became the two powerful minds behind the realms of Christian fantasy that hold most of our brethren in bondage to nonsense.

The images of Paradise Lost rule the Christian picture of "heaven" and "hell," and they are darkness.

By studying man, the image of God, the great authors unveiled truth while "pretending" to write fiction. By scanning God, the other two created lies and fiction while "pretending" to write the truth.

Now, it is really easy to read any literature of any kind and see nothing but the folly of man upon the earth, filled with darkness, though the same is true of reading the Bible. At the same time, the pure in heart see God. We can read these same works and see a groping for, a desire to understand the image of God, and thus understand God Himself.

The Bible itself is, primarily, the telling of many human stories. In fact, Jesus said that everything said in the Bible "about" God is only figurative, that the only way we can see God is to look at a Man laying down His life for His friends. The only way we can know God is by story, His story and ours.

We do not create a god in the image and likeness of man, as so many do. We know God by knowing His image and likeness in the earth, first the Man, Christ Jesus, and then by knowing the God who fills us full, though He forever remains unseen.

I have read/watched all in my top ten, except Othello and some of The Canterbury Tales.

I find the same deep longing call inside of me reaching for knowing this One who fills me full when I contemplate these literary works as I do when I read the Annie visions or Hind's Feet on High Places or even the Bible. It is the heart of man God is engaged with, not some outer form. That is not speaking against the Bible; everything I see, I see out from what God says in the Bible concerning Christ our life.

And that brings us to the Ark, to the acacia wood. I want to approach that Ark from the mindset of Alexander Pope's counsel, "Presume not God to scan; the proper study of mankind is man." God can be who He is inside of us and flowing out from us without any help from us other than our firm confidence that He IS. What we desire to know is who and what is this man that God calls His image.

"I have found Me a man after My own heart."

One of the most important verses in the Old Testament is 1 Samuel 13:14, an incredible verse, almost beyond our limited ability to accept.

The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart . . .

Paul said it this way in Acts 13:22: He (God) gave testimony and said, "I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all My will."

First, God spoke this word through Samuel in 1063 BC. David was neither born nor known. David was born eight years later in 1055 BC.

To understand the powerful and unbelievable implications of this verse, we must see the Ark of the Covenant.

What is Acacia wood?

If you want to see a picture of an Acacia bowl, go here. Read the short description below the image as well.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-acacia-wood.htm#lbimages.

The variety of Acacia used for the Ark of the Covenant, also known as "Shittim-wood," is, in fact, a thorn tree. It is called the "tree of life" in Egyptian lore, and Christian lore states that Jesus' crown of thorns was made from that same Acacia. Note that it is also used for medicine and for incense. Interesting, but this is the first I knew this fact. When I talked about the tree of life as a thorn tree, I was simply surmising.

I have not worked with Acacia wood, though I have worked with desert cedar and have some knowledge of Texas Mesquite, both of which are very similar in appearance and quality to the Acacia wood. Had I the extra money, I would have my woodshed filled with all three woods. I suspect now that Acacia wood would be my favorite.

I don't know that there is any other wood more beautiful and more a pleasure to work with than these; I have worked with walnut, which itself is wonderful. However, all three grow only in desert conditions, they are twisted and gnarled in trunk and in branch, and to obtain a large plank from them is rare and expensive.

Here are some more pictures of Acacia wood products: http://www.surlatable.com  

Remember that the gold, God Himself, is never actually seen. All that is visible is the beauty of the Acacia wood.

What is Acacia wood? What is a man after God's own heart?

We will know who and what God is only when we know who and what we are.

"He who has seen Me, has seen the Father." The Man, Christ Jesus, the first One of our kind.

"I have found Me a man after My own heart." God, who is seen only through His image.

God placed David at the center of the Bible. David and his Psalms fill more pages of Scripture than any other person. A study of David is a study in brokenness, in the shaping of a man's heart. I have a course on my college transcript titled, "The Life of David," 45 hours of teaching by one of the best Bible teachers I have been privileged to sit under, Ernest Watkins. I have another course on my transcript titled "The Tabernacle of David," another 45 hours taught by Ethelwyn Davison, another wonderful teacher, a woman of praise and of God.

If I could draw back into myself every word that they said, I would do so with tears. How many times over the years did I cry out to God, "God, please, my mind is finite; I forget so easily. Please, somehow, write these things upon my heart. Make them become me, that I might never lose the reality of You that is in these words."

Yet here it is not my purpose to give a "study" of the life of David. I could, however, point you to Gene Edward's book, A Tale of Three Kings, a book I have studied deeply, having turned it into a play for my college Creative Writing course. (Gene Edwards uses the human story to unveil, just a bit, this One who fills us full.)

Rather, I am very interested in this thing we and God call "heart." And I am very interested in the nature and characteristics of those human beings who are in the present moment the elect of God, through whom God is preparing to reveal Himself in the manifestation of the sons of God, and through whom God is preparing to cover and nourish His woman.

To start, I bring in a line from John's vision on Patmos.

These are the ones who were not defiled with women, for they are virgins. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These were redeemed from among men, being firstfruits to God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no deceit, for they are without fault before the throne of God. Revelation 14:4-5

I prefer, here, the King James for the important line: And in their mouth was found no guile . . .

The sin of that other guy, the one long dead and buried, is forever gone. The firstfruits of God simply do not pretend. They are utterly real and thankful for themselves exactly as God made them.

Acacia grows slowly, twisted and gnarled in the windy and dry desert climate. It is a tree of thorns.

If you would like to purchase the fruit of the Acacia tree, you can do so here: Wattle Seed, 5 Oz Unit In the natural, one could call this "the fruit of the tree of life." (This seed is the Australian version, not the same species of Acacia that grows in the Sinai, a description of that can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acacia_seyal) It has no power in the natural, of course, except that it is highly nutritious.

We are speaking here of symbols and metaphors.

In Augustinian Christianity, there is a great desire to call Jesus, "God the Son," something God never ever says, primarily to sever the Lord Jesus far, far away from us. By this means, the serpent relegates the core promise of the Covenant, "We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is," into a meaningless oblivion.

Jesus said two things - among many - that do not allow us to join in that darkness.

I am the same yesterday, today, and forever. - Whatever you do unto the least of these My brethren, you ARE doing it to Me.

What is heart?

It is harder to define "heart" from the Bible than it is to define "heaven," which is nearly impossible.

I suspect that heart is found only at the junction of God and dirt. God is not a man, but Jesus IS. Jesus, the Image of God, the pattern by which we were formed in the beginning, and are being made just like, now, in the end, is a Man. Jesus is the first One of our kind.

Man is God revealed. And God revealed is, primarily, heart.

"I have found Me a man after My own heart."

These are incredible words, impossible to grasp or to admit. We will never know God until we are comfortable with "blasphemy." (That is, with what religious man calls "blasphemy," fleeing in horror from a God who always reveals Himself through weakness.)

There is only one way by which I can talk about what is this "man after God's own heart," and that is to draw from story, whether the story of Jesus, David, and Abraham, or the stories of great literature, or my own story. Heart is known only by story; it can be known no other way.

Let me get at this reality more closely. In the Great Books series, four authors only are granted two books each. The largest by far is Thomas Aquinas. His Summa Theologica numbers over 1900 pages in the Great Books, which would likely be more than 5000 pages if it were printed the same as my books. (If I keep writing at my present rate, I might surpass him in twenty more years!)

Now, let me say this about Thomas Aquinas. First, though he quotes Augustine a lot, I find him to be more honest, less offensive and more "likeable" in his search for understanding God than Augustine. Second, Thomas Aquinas clearly had a heart to know God because we discover that in his later years he had an experience with God that we would call the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, after which he had this to say about his Summa Theoligica, "All that I have written is like straw in my mouth."

Thomas Aquinas based his great "study of God" on this definition of "image." - "Hence it is according to his intelligence and reason that man is said to be according to the image of God." Thus it's not hard to see, looking at all that he says about God, about Christ, about salvation, and about us, most of which is considered good "Christian truth," that Thomas Aquinas, in Summa Theologica, is looking AT God from the outside.

You could spend a lifetime studying Summa Theologica - AND the Bible, and never know God.

God is known only in the dealings of the Holy with the heart of a man. Intelligence and reason, though useful and important servants, can never know God. Only heart can know God.

So what are the characteristics of such a man with such a heart, a man or woman who is the Acacia Wood of the Ark of God. (Though I use the male term, I am always speaking of women equally with men.)

There is no guile in the mouths of God's elect, no pretending, no grand-standing, no need to prove one's self "superior" to others.

From their hearts flow a sheer delight and love of all others - as they are real and honest in the light of God.

But also in their hearts is found an abhorrence of pretending and masquerade, of bullying and manipulating others for self-pleasure.

We all stumble and fall flat on our face in the mud, including Jesus - but that's just it, the elect of God know that about themselves. They do not hide. They are simply real and open before one another.

But we're talking about the end; let's go back to the beginning. How is a heart prepared to contain the Living God? Two things: Desire and Battering. The call of the deep and the Hound of heaven.

For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives. Hebrews 12:6

The lives of God's elect are always filled with both, never one without, fully, the other.

They honor His word; they speak only what He speaks concerning Christ revealed in them; they tremble when God speaks. They are concerned about His heart alone; they speak only for Him.

Like David, they sing His praises in the nighttime when they feel lonely and cut-off. Like David, they turn to Him when everyone else abandons them. Like David, they grasp for God when they are attacked by bullies. Like David, they run straight into the Holy of Holies when they are caught in their sin. Like David, they turn and walk away when someone challenges their place and their honor. They do not defend themselves. And they have done these things for years. In "The Grace that Is to Come," I included these thoughts;

I live in a grace I already know. I have seen His grace in my life innumerable times in all the years I have walked with Him. I have seen His grace in the power of the Holy Ghost upon me and upon His people. I have watched Him heal physical bodies and deliver myself and precious friends from the agony of demonic assault. I have known His hand guiding my steps, preparing the way before me, bringing goodness and mercy into my life.

I have known His love in the midst of my bitterness, His strength in the midst of my weakness, His faith welling up in the night watches when all I could feel was loss and emptiness and missed opportunity. I have watched Him deliver me from physical death more times than once.

I know His grace that has never let me get away with anything that was not His purpose for my life, constraining me, blocking my way, keeping me from evil. I have known affliction and sorrow and great grief, and in the midst of all of it - Jesus, in tenderness and in grace. All my life is seized in the grip of His determination; I know His grace.

~~~

The elect of God live with their faces upon the ground before the Presence of the Holy. At the same time they look God in the eye, face to face, heart to heart, shoulder to shoulder. They worship and command, both at the same time, both 100%.

They love one another.

They love one another.

They would find it easier to hurt themselves than to inflict pain on one of these little ones. Yet they speak the judgment of God as the only thing that will set people free. They are clothed in sackcloth. They walk in unending grief; they walk in overflowing joy.

They prove with their bodies the will of God in the earth.

But here I am at the end of the path again. What about the beginning? Where do we find the first evidence of Acacia Wood in the heart of a man or woman?

We find it in the hearts of two 16-year-old boys, John and Andrew, who run away from home because they heard that God is speaking to Israel once again and they CANNOT be anywhere else.

We find it in the heart of a hero, bold and ambitious (Odysseus), who contends with "the gods" until they win and the deepest of thankfulness and humility now rests in the core of his being. Though he still exhibits strength, he no longer trusts in it.

The elect of God simply do not fit into this world. They try, occasionally, and there may be periods in their lives where they "appear" to be making a go of it in the world, but it never works. They never fit. They always look around themselves and see others filling their minds and hearts with emptiness and they just don't understand how they can do that.

The elect of God awake in the middle of the night, all through their lives, seized by a great horror, that God is doing something in the earth, and they have not yet found it.

They know the limiting hand of God all through their journey.

They must know Him; they must. No other option is available to them. Yet He batters their way with difficulty.

We find the Acacia Wood in the heart of a little girl, Much-Afraid, who cannot rest until she knows her Beloved, though she walks long with Suffering and with Sorrow.

We find the Acacia Wood in an old man, John, who thrusts out his hands to us and says, "Do you see these hands, here, these rough and hoary hands. These hands have touched God." We find it in another old man, Andrew, preaching for three days from the cross while many, many who hear him rush into the kingdom.

Why? Why is the Ark that contains the fullness of Almighty God made of Acacia Wood?

God has many, many who know great power, anointing, and authority from God. They move in mighty ministry with certainty. I'm sure you've known such people. They always begin their introduction by presenting to all the great calling God has placed upon their lives. They describe moments of visitation, divine revelation, powerful heavenly visions. They speak with strength and authority. They say, "Follow me," in one form or another.

Why does God not give these capable people the revelation of Jesus Christ? These ones whom you never witness crying. You never seem them weak and tired and afraid.

Let me quote, here, a chapter from Gene Edward's A Tale of Three Kings - concerning David as he fled from Saul.

Caves are not the ideal place for morale building. There is a certain sameness to them all, no matter how many you have lived in. Dark. Wet. Cold. Stale. A cave becomes even worse when you are its sole inhabitant. . . and in the distance you can hear the dogs baying.

But sometimes, when the dogs and hunters were not near, the prey sang. He started low, then lifted up his voice and sang the song the little lamb had taught him. The cavern walls echoed each note just as the mountains once had done. The music rolled down into deep cavern darkness that soon became an echoing choir singing back to him.

He had less now than he had when he was a shepherd, for now he had no lyre, no sun, not even the company of sheep. The memories of the court had faded. David's greatest ambition now reached no higher than a shepherd's staff. Everything was being crushed out of him.

He sang a great deal.

And matched each note with a tear.

How strange, is it not, what suffering begets?

There in those caves, drowned in the sorrow of his song, and in the song of his sorrow, David very simply became the greatest hymn writer, and the greatest comforter of broken hearts this world shall ever know.

~~~

David cried, a lot.

In my letter on the cross, I will explain more fully why we NEVER see the chastisement of God as something "bringing us to the end of ourselves," as if we are "bad," and "bad" me must die. That thought is the core and center of darkest rebellion.

God fills our hearts with Desire and then Batters those same hearts all the days of our lives for one purpose.

That we might KNOW Him.

You see, He is the One who weeps; He is the One who is silent when He is mocked; He is the One who walks away when everything He ever did is challenged and ruined and lost. He is the One who never fights back. He is the One who lays down His life for His enemies. He is the One who carries inside Himself even those who are spitting on Him - all the way into life. He is the One who stumbles and falls under the weight of a cross He cannot carry, a cross He must ask another to carry for Him.

Very simply. How can God reveal Himself through us unless we are just like Him?

I am convinced that we will never call the Battering of the Holy we have known all our lives, "Chastisement." We will call it "Glory."

There are two elements that go perfectly together in all ways - gold and acacia wood.

God will never be seen, never be known, except through the hearts of those who KNOW Him.

I have found Me a man after My own heart.

If you WANT TO BE this man or woman, then your Desire is sufficient. Let God make you just like Himself - The Ark of the Covenant. Let Him teach you to cry.

....speaks of God (now) Come Home

Christianity is about Presence and Consciousness. Both are Agape Love since God oozes the stuff.

 Ask most people "outside" leftbrain locked Western civilization, and they know that who you "call on" will come to you. 

This principle is behind Shamanism,African Tribes rituals,Indian religions....but also Christianity...if you "call upon the Lord" He will "come" with salvation, and Presence.

But consciousness is God's real aim.

This is the tabernacle picture then of us, represented by the "Ark of the Covenant" with Law and Manna inside it. 

And with Presence over the top of it.
This is not afar off. 
This is the meaning of the torn veil.

 At the moment it is starting to be a notion among believers, attended by God's freeing Word....But I'm telling you like a "cloud" the size of a man's hand, this "notion" will soon be a rainstorm to beat every single revival in history...since it speaks of permanent Union,God with His people, God come home.

Part Two of How can you tell a 2nd level church ?- (and how, thankfully the Holy Spirit completely ignores the restrictions).

Completed -3.07am- Fri June 26th-Facebook note

In part one a foundation was laid describing how the Kingdom is about bringing the Heavenly Reality…that is the ways, attributes, functionings of heaven to earth. That there is now, and always has been a heavenly Tabernacle which was represented by an early prototype in Moses Tabernacle, then later by the Tabernacle of David, and later Solomon’s Temple.
The true Tabernacle and Temple
But Jesus said “I will tear down this temple (meaning His body now) and rebuild it in three days, signifying by what death He was going to die.”

Why , in this discussion is this important?

Because Jesus was going to do something no one had ever done before. Ever.
Outside of our time world, He had declared “Today, I have begotten you, It is written of me in the book, “I come to do your will O Lord.””

The Word that dwelt with the Father was not human, but God, present at the foundation of our known world. He was saying an Eternal “YUP”……
to becoming a containing vessel like us,
to becoming fully human
and to, (for the first time anywhere, ever,) bringing human flesh in its now glorified form
into the very Presence of the Father in the Holiest Place.
Never. Never. Never. Had anything like this ever happened.
Before this the Word had dwelt in the Presence of the Father….but never had a human.
So for the first time in heaven , now since the ascension, a human stands on the righthand of God the Father. And guess what? It gets better! He is interceding there for us. Why is that good? Just because He’s good at praying…so that us struggling little beings make it to the end of our lives without losing faith?
Nope.
His intercession is for us to catch the revelation on our insides that He has prepared a place for us. What, you mean rent-a home, on the outer reaches of heaven somewhere in the outer circle?
Nope. You’ve completely missed it.
He is not ashamed to call us brethren.
The place He has prepared for us fellow humans….. Fellow containers of God Himself is in this unheard of place that no one in their right mind in heaven would have even contemplated…


The very Holiest of Holies. This new place where human flesh can go and yet still live.
This is what is meant by
He has opened up for us by a new and Living Way……..
a place at the right hand of God
A place in the very heart of the Father
A place, in that sense that no angel can ever quite get near.
A redeemed place.
A place that Satan chose not for himself, in the midst of the full glories of heaven…yes by a very deliberate choice..
and we, in the face of appalling negatives, by faith, on earth, surrounded by very real opposites, have chosen…yes
God Himself.

Because we are containers of His glory…
God designed this picture of it:
A wooden (representing human flesh) Ark of the Covenant
covered on the inside and the outside with gold, representative of His Kingly glory.
Inside this Ark are the Two Tablets of the Ten Commandments.
This is Jesus life within us, in exactly the same way that Jesus on earth here , as a human, was a container for the Father’s life. He is the actual Law keeper within us.

So how does this affect us?
How does this affect us? Are you kidding? Nothing that we currently do can ever quite remain the same.

First some ground rules.
Did you notice how Nancy jumped in at the end of Part One and said this
"We have all three levels in us, when we have Christ in us"
and a few weeks ago when I was describing how it was now time for the Third level to be corporately manifested in the Church, she said "The mature Father level has always existed since the Church was born in Acts."
Do you remember me saying it is just as Ezekiel said...Wheels of prophetic outworking within wheels.
I describe this more in the Third Level audiomessage part 1 see picture link on my blog.
The arc , and probably the most important arc that Nancy is seeing began at the Cross, has always existed ever since and will culminate in ever increasing glory until the return of Jesus.

What I am declaring is quite specific and is no different , but perhaps stronger,with more clarity, than both Graham Pulkingham and later John Wimber. God's tide is no different than a gradually rising incoming sea tide. It comes in and goes out in individual waves, but the net effect increases until hightide is reached.I speak of the revelation of the Church, both local and corporate, which in the Spirit have little to differentiate them.

Something ,as I have stated repeatedly on my blog, of unique importance happened around 1906 as a man called Evan Roberts lay , conducting meetings, face down on a Welsh chapel floor. Yes, the return of the Holy Spirit supernatural form of Christianity returned in Wales,The Black Forest and Azusa St, but something even more incredible was happening. It was the birth of a Church actually beginning to function corporately, and not just as a man in a pulpit pulled strings. This was the Order of the Holy Spirit.The Order of heaven. A manifestation of the all but forgotten heavenly realm that Jesus Our High Priest moves in, the Melchizedek order of Hebrews chapter 7.


These sort of waves, only God knows about. Specific historic timings in God.

What Nancy is talking about is our foundation.
The Cross favours all or it favours no one
Jesus died to bring absolutely everyone back into a full and complete restoration to God the Father.
"The Fulness of the Godhead dwelt bodily in My Lord (the song from Colossians says)and we are complete in Him." We have everything pertaining to life and godliness in Christ NOW." We don't need to go up for it,that's to bring Christ down, we don't need to go into hell for it, that is to bring Christ back out of His sacrifice. As stupid as it may seem to our left-brains locked into what we can see hear touch and taste....our lives may not look like what we consider is Him....but if we just believe ON Jesus, on the very Power of His Life within us,He has promised to bring us ably to full maturity. It is not dependant on us willing and striving, it is dependant on the Power of His Life to get us there, from wherever we may be now.
Is that not rather cool?
As I stated in Part One, the order, the timing,the way,is entirely up to Him...providing we keep our hearts open to Him and don't as it says...harden our hearts, or allow any root of bitterness to rise up and take us clean out of His plans for us.This is why we encourage one another. Not just with friendly words...but because our words have spiritual power and strength as they come from the Holy Spirit.
As insane a thought as watching a cell divide and so develop into a complicated human Body....I mean the initial division doesn't look anything like it will look...so in the Spirit, our initial experiences may seem to be of absolute irrelevance to what we're aiming for. But that is just the nature of this present universe!!!!
The second ground rule
In every church, however dire,even the ones that have no idea about the gospel based on the finished work of Christ and not of works.....somewhere even there, is the stubborn "twinkler" in God who has somehow in this parched desert environment,reached full maturity in God...though he or she is blessed if she can tell why....they just...well....and tears fill their eyes at this point.....are in love with God...you see.

I know the Holy Spirit is a gentleman etc, and doesn't force Himself on anyone....yet I have noticed , because He only sees a full complete work of Christ at the Cross...He does tend to ignore the religious restrictions and mindsets of His people. Quite often He shocks those with little or no faith, byanswering their prayers and absolutely clearing someone's body of cancer. This is because when you are All powerful, and a full and complete annhihilation of all the Devil's works has been accomplished by the Son, Your co-worker at the Cross....it is terribly easy , by accidentally flicking your finger a bit too much, to 150% answer someone's prayer when they are only in faith for 10%. This is what is meant by He is well able to accomplish far above what we can even dream or think.

The power of the Word and faith over decades seems to have sufficient power to bring on even those who have spent their life kicking and screaming against loss of control, and baptism in the Holy Spirit, such that even they too reach an incredible maturity. It's just that the original plan for the Church was that this take 3, 4,5 years and not 70. If the disciples took only 3 years, what is possible in the Holy Spirit according to Jesus phrase "Greater things than these shall you see".

So the Holy Spirit is continually ignoring any first and secondlevellers plea for the quiet life, and rudely sends thirdlevellers in whose job it is, as it says in Isaiah, to stir the nest of the eagles, that they may be pushed out and forced to find their wings.

In general the Holy Spirit ignores all man made traditions and ideas of what Christians think Christianity is, to continually get believers to read of their position in Ephesians chapter 1 and 2, and in Colossians and Romans. He even gets the complete Bible to be read out in Anglican Churches. And gradually at least some start to get the hang of the radical stuff that Jesus has done for us.

The third ground rule
What is meant by a first, second or third level church?
Well according to the Tabernacle picture, a church that does not accept it's need for the shed blood of Jesus on the Cross to re establish and reconnect people back to God the Father, does not understand the brazen altar at all, and as such have not even begun to enter the real Presence of the Living Lord.
They are doing acts of religion, but the reality is not inside them, in their hearts.We have to ASK Jesus in.
No I am talking about the three personal and corporate stages of maturity as outlined in 1 John 2:12ff "Children, young men,fathers." This is spiritual development , not age.
It is not possible to have a church full of people at one level, nor, as in life, desirable.It is not like a school. No , I am talking "destination".
Imagine buses. Say London ones : Watford, Golders green , Marble Arch,Waterloo station,say. ie going south. So you wish to get to Waterloo, but your bus only takes you to Golders green (incidentally it's Jewish).
A first level church will only take you as far as evangelicalism. Faith in Christ. A basis of faith for living.
A secondlevel church can either like Keswick, point you to the exchanged life, or be charismatic, and teach you functionally about entering into, and moving in the Power of the Spirit.They are rarely both, I have found.
A thirdlevel church, has as its end goal, mature sons of God. Now, as we will see, every other level will claim they do this...because no one likes to think of themselves as immature....but the Holy Spirit will soon find you out if you are faking it.
So, I recommend looking into the destination on your church wall...it will save future frustration.
The fourth ground rule
If you have ever read the Intercessor magazine produced by the people Norman Grubb was with called Zerubbabel, or if you have read my blog " 080808 On,now,to the third level" you can be excused for mistaking "the independent self" teaching and Christ as me in my form, for the third level.
This is NOT so. Sorry. The believing of these things into being is equivalent to the reckoning that goes on in Romans 6 and 7. It is NOT Romans 8,9,10 11 and 12....which actually, as Nancy points out with Norman, IS the third level.
The third level is like Ephesians, where you have spent Chapters 1 to 5 being matured into a position of KNOWING who you are in God. Then ON that basis....and only that basis....you move into battle and intercession as described in Ephesians 6. The THIRD level is the Poured Out Life for Others. You can have all the theory...but if the "fruit" of John 15 is not popping out the end of your branches...well, you ain't got it....or else, as it says, you are going through another season of pruning.

By the third level, you are not allowed your little quirks anymore,(quirks being what you personally like to believe in because it suits you. Jesus is King, and He decides what you get to believe in.)
You have to be what Smith Wigglesworth calls Word and Spirit.
If before, you were exchanged life....but had great hangups about Toronto...and you were blowed if you were going to stagger about looking silly....and you were going to remain in control at all costs....
Guess what?.....You can forget that! The Holy Spirit is coming to tickle you....so you lighten up!!
If before you were charismatic...with a particular predilection for funny tic noises and movements at strange times.......well, you're going to be learning about the Exchanged life, that you've skilfully avoided up until now....hmmm.....BIG TIME.

How can you tell a 2nd level church ?
The easy thing would be one sentence here. Read Jack Fortenberry's "Corinthian Elders",Darin Hufford on Free Believer's Facebook blog, and Stephanie Macentire. They have all done an excellent job at nailing the externals of 2nd level churches. They don't call it that, but that's what it amounts to.

There are two types. Some that are really quite happy and will remain as they are for years, maybe forever. Some, like Havant, or Rob Rufus's church in Hong
Kong "City Church International" are genuine "seeking the Lord as the face of the God of Jacob type churches". Perhaps they are TWOPLUS. If the hunger is genuine, you just know they are going to meet with God as a Church, as indeed He is doing.
TWOPLUS churches are interesting because certain Thirdlevel facets are already arriving.

I hope it's not too much exposure to say Havant are already pretty dead to "ministries". In the third level you just are ministry...so you don't bother ever talking about it.Most people in Havant are extremely prophetic...but they don't talk about that with anyone. Rather they talk about opening up wells of healing...that is the current faith challenge. In Havant, leaders are not always prominant at all.Christine and I spent 8 or 9 months not knowing John and Wendy Wilbraham were the pastors.There is a very high participation level. These are all good features.The best meetings are the Key of David meetings.I feel slightly less like a kamikazi suicide bomber in these when I bring some snippet of what I'd really like to share lots about.

You have to go through the young men reckoning stage to get to be a thirdlevel church.Many churches have made the charismatic realm a dead-end, with no vision for ever going further.These I am calling 2ndlevel churches.The destination on the church wall is 2nd level only .

First and secondlevel churches have this feature. Control.
They are still to some extent absolutely locked in their left-brains.Locked into step by step thinking. Pulling strings. They're frightened God won't show up, so they won't allow Him to be God.

Related to this, but by far the biggest feature underneath everything, they are still locked in the delusion of the independent self. This is the lie that the devil sowed in Genesis 3:5. that if you just take of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil you will be like gods....able to be self-running beings in your own right. It sowed the lie about the Father being a rather distant angry God who doesn't really love us nor want the best for us, which has remained inside us for millennia. And it failed to say that there is no independent position anyway, so we switched by default to being run by Satan himself....for as Bob Dylan sang...we gotta serve somebody....and we became containers for another deity, little d....the devil.

2ndlevel churches universally don't want to hear this....and consequently cannot take on board huge sections of New Testament scriptures. They are like the multitude listening to Jesus message "Unless you eat My flesh and drink My blood you cannot have life within yourselves." And nearly everyone withdrew saying "This is a hard saying". This is the gospel of the Exchanged Life that very few want to hear. (Read Sylvia Pearce "Two deliverances at the Cross)

2nd level churches, in my experience, spend little time in Romans, Colossians and Ephesians. They have little or no overarching revelation on these, so therefore cannot begin the reckoning process needed for them to break into the third level. "Break in" is a good phrase, because it describes the energy needed as violent men/women of the Spirit, to take the Kingdom by force.

2nd level churches believe that Romans 6 and 7 is a repeat of Romans 3,4 and 5, which it isn't, it describes instead a new phase entirely.

Relationships are enormously affected by these lacks, because by not knowing properly who they were, and who they now are, they are unable to fulfil the scripture "henceforth we see no man after the flesh"...for their entire walk is to see people after the flesh, as independent beings.

I began part One describing John the Baptist very deliberately. Charismatic pioneer ministries today like Morris Cerullo, Rheinhard Bonnke, David Hathaway, Youth With a Mission, all stride the globe at a rate of knots, leading people into 2ndlevel revelation. It is true to say they almost bust a gut doing so, while secretly being very frustrated that so few are out there helping them.

Third level ministry is of such a higher order, that asJesus said about the Kingdom as to John the Baptist, so it is to the current "flatout" ministries....."the least of these is greater".


Why? Morris Cerullo's gospel, Benny Hinn's gospel, only talks about salvation and deliverances.
Well, you can deliver someone and then 7 times as many devils can come back in. But the thirdlevel gospel gets the root....Jesus said "I came to lay the axe to the root".

So as fast as Winkey Pratney(YouthWithAMission training course) is training up a friend of mine who came into Bible House Emsworth with me later, just as fast this lad is marrying, getting divorced, and having to completely rebuild his life, because at no point....even in all the subsequent Word of Faith teachings of the Copelands which he attended, were the real roots of the gospel explained or preached to him.

Out of my whole Live in Community Bible College I attended, very many have divorced already, and even a surprising number are dead. It is a very dangerous thing to half build the Tower of God. We expose ourselves to ridicule and open ourselves to much danger spiritually.

2ndlevel Christianity does not work. It is flawed. Even in the time of Israel, all of them were intended to go right into the Land, not die in the Wilderness. 2ndlevel Christianity was NEVER meant to work....it was only ever meant to be a through stage to get to the third level.

If you are a 2ndlevel leader it is exhausting, because nobody reaches the stage where they take your place as a father ministry. This leaves only one option:install a leadership that you can trust while you remain at the top of the pyramid.Who can you trust? Well on the one hand it's the blessing of God that your kids have followed you into the Kingdom....but it's quite another to say they should be given positions over the same work....and especially if you are still the string puller at the top.And where do you get the idea that YOU do the installing anyway? A man's gift makes way for itself. All a ministry is, is the grace ability to move people on inthe Spirit by transplanting Christ, transplanting Word. What's this CEO corporation you are building anyway?

So you are left with a bunch of unmotivated disappointed people who believed Christianity should work, but plainly doesn't, and now you have to work twice as hard motivating them to keep coming. Ofcourse huge numbers come in the front door of the church and walk straight out the back.

2ndlevel churches don't get the Cross and the Communion as Sylvia Pearce has shared.
If you are in a 1st or secondlevel church watch the Communion closely. Outside the revelation of the Holy Spirit it is almost impossible to maintain the right tone with the Communion.

It either becomes extremely heavy and as in Transubstantiation in Catholic churches...possibly very weird indeed...if not connected to simple faith....
or as in most new Protestant independent churches...an incredible levity bordering ludicrous.There will be an appreciation of the Blood of Jesus, but nearly no revelation at all on the Body of Christ.
Why?
This Body revelation (see Two deliverances at the Cross article by Sylvia Pearce June 2010 on my blog.) is precisely the missing ingredient which takes you on to the Third level.

Likewise 2ndlevel churches have no real idea how to maintain the wonderful Presence of the Lord in meetings, when outside. There is a similar kind of effect to Communion goes on. Struggling not to be too spiritual, nor to revert back to the flesh.....(it's an awkward time)

when ofcourse once your interior believing has changed in the third level....you are fully convinced of who it is living your life AND YET

it's not theory, because for some months ,years,decades you have learned to distinguish between "independent believing" and believing in your new life as Christ as you....having your senses trained as mature people ....

In the 2ndlevel , because you do not know who you are with any confident assurance, you put intolerable pressures on your congregation, on your spouse, your children, all those around you.

You spend way too much time organising outreaches not realising your extreme Body Odour is making people run a mile.

2nd level churches arrange house groups or cellgroups of people that normally would not be seen dead together. In one sense this is good discipline, to learn to relate to those you would not ordinarily be with. On the other hand, if you taught the gospel properly, so that as Paul said....I looked for Jesus crucified among you....and by this time, that everyone knew in the Spirit that they
have all died with Christ and that
it is not them who live, but it is Christ who lives within them....
such a savour of Christ is now swirling around...
like in the best Key of David meetings...

that you actually do want to spend the rest of eternity together like the Fisherfolk Community with Graham Pulkingham.

I was in a community where , at the highpoint there were 30 all together in a standard three storey house in Emsworth. It fell to me to build the rabbithutches...then using much of the same technology I built 3 x 2 bunkbeds for us lads. OK, we were all cramped together....but our hearts were never melded, so one person's bunk could have been a million miles away. We had separate existences because we were a 2ndlevel church...so none of us knew who we were yet.

2ndlevel churches are filled with political intrigue. They are pyramid shaped with a pastor at the top.The devil only understands pyramids. God the Father builds open relationship families.
2ndlevel churches have hidden and open structures. They have pecking orders.

1st and 2ndlevel churches have a reality problem. This becomes more intense, not less after having been baptised in the Spirit, because you now know for certain that God exists, and you are familiar with His actual Presence. Then like Peter at the Transfiguration, you have to go down in the valley again and face all the problems in the real world. Romans 8 does not deny the real world....the persecutions , the sufferings, the problems. Rich Novek's series of posts in May on my blog are excellent on this:
Seeing God only. No more compartmentalising. All of life is His unfolding plan.Even those "drawings"and "pulls" you're not telling anyone about.It's Him, not in the sense that He is doing the drawing...for as James says God tempts no man....but He means for us to face choices....it is not outside our "earth curriculum".


What do we desire? It is legitimate to own up to what is pulling us....but what do we do with it? This is seeing God in everything. We proclaim the truth about what God has done for us in the midst of "how it looks" to our eyes. We allow the Genesis figleaves to be ripped away. We allow our shame to be covered by Jesus all sufficient Blood Covering, but we go further , believing on His very Life to birth in our being His very life...which isn't just the absence of a particular sin.....it's so far the opposite...that when later we face say a roomful of people with "stealing" problems...we irradiate them with the grace glory of Jesus own" giving" kind of life.



Helen Rubio made a fantastic point (see her message Helen Rubio and the Russian Dolls on my blog).
She made the point that she doubted if we could go a lot further in advancing in worship in what is called the 3rd heaven...without going a lot further in our daily walk. Ofcourse this is said very much from a 2ndlevel framework.

The truth is.....you bettya! 2ndlevel worship is so bowed down by shame, and people wrestling with their feelings of inadequacy, because nobody has preached to them what Paul is actually writing, and what Jesus is actually saying that....yes there is a huge ceiling on our present corporate worship.
Learn the 3rd level walk and boy will the corporate level of praise and worship fly!!!!

At the moment the whole thing is a bit "ass about face" because people are trying to get into something Jesus put them in 2000 years ago. They are using the CDs of Hillsongs in a rather manic way, to plug the hole left by rather weird onesided preaching as to the true nature of the human condition.


And they wonder why it doesn't work.
So 2ndlevel churches duly send their worshipleaders off to get more training and anointing....when what they really need is to sit down and "get" the 3rd level teachings.

2ndlevel churches either struggle for cash, or make the gospel look ludicrous by using crass commercial (Jerusalem moneylender) techniques for clawing in the dosh.

The real point of the 3rd level is this. The Holy Spirit Himself brings us to the Romans 12 point of offering ourselves as a sacrifice. In my experience, this is not really a repeated thing...it is a defintion God brings us to.
Without that point being reached, you are going to spend your life as 2ndlevel churches cajoling,pleading,preaching repeatedly,generally pulling your hair out....
but the one thing necessary has never been faced...

they follow one leader
they have a handful of doctrines
they have never decided to be that person offering themselves FREELY in the day of Power
they follow man not God
they have never heard anyone preach many of the doctrines in the NT
they certainly have never heard one message on hebrews 7 about the Melchizedek order
they still think if you give money to God you'll run out
they've never grown up and they never intend to grow up
for faith comes only by "hearing"(gaining a spiritual capacity to hear) and hearing by the Word of God.
they live in cliques and sects.
they relegate all NOW words of God like Martha to the day of resurrection

they are 2ndlevel
Cindi Estep and Francois Du Toit like this.
Francois Du Toit check out Athanasius on the Incarnation, http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/history/ath-inc.htm#ch_1
Yesterday at 12:12 · Chris Welch thanks Francois will do
Yesterday at 12:22 · Cindi Estep Wow Chris! I will read over again a time or two, maybe three or four! Much to absorb here....To see Him in everything! Blessings ♥
Yesterday at 13:11 · Chris Welch Think I will too Cindi
Yesterday at 17:13 · John Madden thanks Chris and Joanne
19 hours ago · LikeUnlike ·