Servant......THE BLUEPRINT

What's good about a servant?
Servants Do stuff....they get stuff done
They do exactly as they are commanded Psalm 123
They don't have to know why.
They don't have to know how it fits in with anyone else or the overall plan.....that's the Master's problem.
They can be wholly concentrated on the task in hand and completing it.
The last part of the body to be born is generally the feet.....the feet walk the gospel out. "Having your feet shod with the gospel of peace."
Servants don't have to be concerned with someone else's role or task, just their own.
There's a lovely simplicity to serving....leave others to all the complications.
The Last shall be first and the first last. Servants in the world tend to be the least, but in the Kingdom they are just about TOP DOG.
Most of the Kingdom works upside down.
God came as a servant in Jesus.
He laid the pattern with 12 ordinary men.
He served them and spoke Word to them until they reached the Ephesians description....of "working properly"....then in Acts 2 they began the same system.
Ch 4" but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together [k]by what every joint supplies, according to the [l]proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love."
THAT WHICH EVERY JOINT SUPPLIES......
BUT ONLY WHEN WORKING PROPERLY....
Until one is properly born again then "Christed" properly.....the service we can give is restricted to the natural realm....what we can do....what we are naturally as individuals....all of which has to go into the ground and die to become this fruitful Kingdom plant that then
"SERVES ON ACID" !!!!!!
Psalm 123 describes how we wait on God for His every indication
Christ knows what He is building and what we need to do next....WE INVARIABLY DON'T.
Man builds a building that looks like scaffolding....
Jesus uses His true servants to BUILD A LIVING CHRIST who reproduces
AFTER THE GOD KIND.
You may be sent abroad.
You may be called to serve a family member and go nowhere. But locking yourself in to God's actual will is explosive....
Brother Lawrence famously learned to practice the Presence of God while purely washing up. HE SO FOUND the Presence of God Kings and Commanders CAME TO HIM for wisdom and advice.
"Grab a wiping up cloth and I'll tell you!!!!"
20 YEARS AGO leaders all over the world came up with "servant leadership"....but the "models of the churches", the "infrastructures" never really changed.
MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE ON EARTH....THE EARTH'S FUTURE DEPENDS ON CHRISTIANS LEARNING TO SERVE AS NEVER BEFORE....not just the famous loocleaning....that's a given!!!!
NO....The secret is every Body member learning supernaturally Psalm 123...what Jesus wants them to do next according to the heavenly Melchizedek Order of priesthood.
AGAINST SUCH THERE IS NO LAW.....it's way beyond any human protocol anywhere....there is no human to judge what is going on...we only see what we see in the Spirit....then look round some time later and there's a whole new KINGDOM HUB BUILT shining its Light for the world to see!!!!.
SERVING is not a small PEP TALK
SERVING is the VISION of the TRANSPLANTATION OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD !!!!

KOG2 The Prayer that Birthed the Kingdom - Daniel Yordy

The Kingdom of God series has just been published by Amazon as a book entitled "The Kingdom Rising". Here is your chance to read it for free, and if you like it to buy copies for your your friends. Daniel's other book "the Jesus Secret" has just come out too.

The PDF and audio versions are available here
I have read nothing quite like it. AC Welch

 © Daniel Yordy - 2012 - Our Path Home

Part 2  The Prayer that Birthed The Kingdom
What is the kingdom of God?

The kingdom of God is the Father being Himself through us.
Christ as us is our own personal joy, but the kingdom is that which goes out from us to others. If our knowledge that Christ is living as us in this world were not complete, then we would imagine that we have to "fix" or "change" ourselves in some way and for some reason. That idea, then, creates all sorts of false images and always, immediately, pushes God into the background.
God being Himself and I being myself go hand in hand. That is not a formula for selfishness - indeed, we're talking about God - who is real and who is alive in us. And this God, who is real and alive in us, just being Himself, is Love.
Now, we have one example in all the universe of the Father being Himself in a visible way.

 Subduing the earth was to come by the rivers of living water flowing out of Adam's innermost being.

The Father cannot be Himself in heaven; angels do not make God visible. God presented Christ to the entire universe, both heaven and earth, as His express image.
The Lord Jesus was just being Himself; in full measure, God also, was just being Himself through Jesus. Thus Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is in your midst - among you." The things God did through Jesus were simply God being normal - what He really is at the core of His person.
The kingdom of God was God being Himself through Jesus; thus the kingdom of God was among them. If God, then, is in us, that same kingdom is "in the midst" of all those around us.
When God directed Adam to subdue the earth, God meant AFTER Adam would eat of the tree of life. Subduing the earth was to come by the rivers of living water flowing out of Adam's innermost being.
Since the kingdom of God is God being Himself through us, then the kingdom of God and the rivers of living water are two ways of saying the same thing. Also, to subdue the earth means to bring all things into the knowledge of God being Himself.
We must understand that God is invisible and unknowable, period. God is no more known or seen in all the heavens than He has been in all the earth. Angels long to know the God who created them, but they must wait for us to reveal Him.
The first moment in both heaven and earth that God began to be knowable and visible was the conception of the Lord Jesus Christ in Mary's womb.
We know God by seeing Jesus.
But of course, God does not limit Himself to one person and to one personality. God wants many sons just like Jesus. Thus the kingdom, really, is God just being Himself through many, all of whom are being themselves through Him.
God gave us Jesus as an example of who we are. When we see Him as He is, that is, as the one through whom God was being Himself in a mutual relationship of joy and honor, then we KNOW that we are just like Him. God is Himself through us in the same mutual relationship of joy and honor.
This is why what Paul said is so important. "We do not know Him according to the flesh."
Jesus was a person, that is, He had a particular personality, ways of doing things, personal likes and dislikes. As individual persons, we are different from Jesus. But God is in us as we are, just as He was in Jesus as Jesus' own personality. Jesus was 100% comfortable with Himself. 

Now, before continuing, I want to bring in the one verse in the New Testament that seems to counteract the statement I just made.
Who, in the days of His flesh, when He (Jesus) had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him (God) who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him. Hebrews 5:7-9
This verse, taught by the ministry under which I lived for many years, was the most powerful theological concept that separated me from God. If Jesus had to line Himself up with an implacable God through "strong crying and tears," then how much more must I?
Paul said that we do not know Him "according to the flesh." That means, we do not know Him out from a separate-from-God mentality nor do we see Jesus as one who lived and walked in any way separate from the Father.
I bring in this that has been the most horrific of verses in my Christian experience because God says it and it seems to be pressing against my statement that Jesus was comfortable with Himself. And when I say "horrific," I mean only when it is used as a "how-to" verse, that is, "how to become like Jesus" through a similar "strong crying and tears." That use of this verse is an extraordinary miss-use of God, of Christ, and of salvation.
God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself. All things that Jesus did, He did as our Head, carrying us inside Himself through what we ourselves cannot do. Those who seek to "obey" Him in outward form do not know Him, that this very One is our life. They are trying to follow the path of atonement on their own and not inside of Him.
If Jesus prayed with strong crying and tears, then He was just being Himself. And I am INSIDE of Him.

*****

Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: "Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life (the life of the age to come) to as many as You have given Him. And this is the life of the age to come, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was (before the age, this period of time, began). John 17:1-5
Jesus' words confirm something I said earlier, that knowing God and authority over all flesh are the same thing. God being Himself through us and rivers of living water subduing the earth are the same thing.
When Jesus said, "Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You," He was speaking of us for we are His glory. It is here, in this personal exchange with the Father, that Jesus begins to include us inside Himself.
Then Jesus prays for His disciples around Him at that time. He states: "I pray for them.  I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours. And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them. Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept . . ."
"I do not pray for the world," is one of the most extraordinary things Jesus ever said. We must understand that the atonement is not "for the world." It is for all men, yes, but in no way for the world. We must have the distinction clear in order to see the kingdom birthed through us. But Jesus goes on to say that while He was physically present - on the outside of His disciples - He had "kept them."
Then Jesus speaks the atonement: Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth.
To be sanctified is to be swallowed up by the being, the essence, the person of God.
Finally, Jesus speaks the Kingdom.
"I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word;  that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.
"Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them."
First, Jesus specifically includes you and me inside the creative power of His words.
But let's back up. What is happening here? Jesus is the Word God speaks. When God said, "Let there be light," that was Jesus, the Word God speaks, issuing forth from a Father who cannot be known, making Him visible. Making God visible - light - and creating all things in both heaven and earth are the same thing. Jesus is the creation of the universe. When God speaks through Christ the ages are formed and all things spring into existence.
Now, in these words, Jesus is speaking into existence an alternate universe, another dimension - the kingdom of God. Heaven, as it is right now, is part of the first creation. Everyone who is "in heaven" remains inside the first creation. Only those who are in Christ are found in the second creation, which is not a creation at all, but rather, a birthing.
But let's focus on this reality. Just as God speaking Christ: "Let there be light," resulted in the creation of all things that exist, so these same words here are speaking into being an entire universe of reality and existence - the kingdom of God.
Paul says this in 2 Corinthians 4: For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And he says this in Colossians 1: Giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love . . .
Paul is saying the same thing; that, just as God created all things that exist by speaking, so He does the same thing again - here - in these words of Jesus in John 17.
Let's begin with the absolute blasphemy of Jesus' words.
The Jews did not name God. Their word for God was not Yahweh, it was YHWH, breath, and unspeakable. Thus Moses said, "Hear, Oh Israel, the Lord your God is ONE.
That they all may be ONE, as (here is that Greek word again - it means "just as") - as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be ONE in Us.
Jesus defines exactly what He means as He speaks this word that births a new creation: "That they (you and me, we are right inside His words and the breath coming out of His mouth) ALL may be ONE."
If we do not understand the blasphemy of Jesus' words, we will imagine He was just talking about something of the present creation, something limited by our limitation, maybe "just getting along." We will imagine that He is giving us an ideal, something to hope for, though we cannot ever really know what it means, not until after we "go to heaven," which is itself a further part of this same original creation.
Forgive me if I sound like a broken record, but this misconception so fills the minds of almost all Christians that I must speak against it continually. Christians imagine that heaven is the new creation and that earth is the old creation. They do not get this idea from the Bible; they get it from the gross unbelief that fills Christianity. Heaven - the place where our loved ones live who have lost their physical bodies - is as much a part of the old creation as is the earth. God says, in Hebrews 12, that He will shatter (future tense) heaven as well as earth. Heaven is passing away.
Before we continue with the words of Jesus through which God birthed the new creation, let me say this. I am convinced that the birthing of that kingdom is a three-step process. I am convinced this is the teaching of the New Testament.
John said in Revelation 12: "Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, "Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come . . ." This voice speaks right after these words: Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth . . . And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born. She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne.
Jesus said in Luke 13: "Go, tell that fox, (Herod) 'Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.'
"Today" meant Jesus' time on this earth, "tomorrow" meant the age of the church, and "the third day" means the transition between two ages in which you and I are caught. Another way to understand "today and tomorrow" is as the 2,000 years of the church age, specifically, from AD 29 to AD 2029. (I am not setting a "date," we know that whatever time the Father has set, Jesus altered that time by His words, "the time will be shortened.")
This kingdom, spoken into being by Jesus' words in John 17 is in gestation in the womb of the church. That kingdom has been conceived; it has not yet been born. Revelation 12:5 is the birthing of that kingdom into open and full reality - the new creation consisting of a newly created physical realm and a newly created spiritual realm as inter-related together as the old creation heaven and earth, only more so.
The three steps of the kingdom are first, the conception, second, the gestation, and third, the birthing. The time of the birthing is upon us.
I do not believe that anyone who is right now in heaven is in the full and open experience of that new creation. It has not yet been brought forth in its reality; it has not yet been birthed.
The kingdom of God, in the present hour, is a fetus. Yet, as members of that "fetus," you and I call forth those things that "be not" as though they are. Thus the kingdom is in our mouth and in our heart.
What is the kingdom of God?
The kingdom of God is the Father being Himself through us. The kingdom of God requires physical bodies. The physical body is the temple of the living God.
That they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us.
God is One. God is person inside of person. In the same way that the person of the Father was inside the Man, Christ Jesus, in that exact way the person of the Father is inside of you and me AS Christ Jesus. God does not erase us, He fills us. God does not replace us, He inhabits us. God fills every particle of our being, spirit, soul, and body. God carries every particle of who and what we are inside Himself.
The act of seeing any part of yourself as separate in any possible way from the revelation of the Father is to place yourself outside of the kingdom - outside of God. Outside of, separate from, the Father is death. All who imagine that they must "get themselves" into the Spirit are dead.
Our faith, the audacity of our faith, really is the dividing line. But even that faith is not "ours," it is the faith of the One who loves us and gave Himself for us. When I say "mine," I mean His; when I say "His," I mean mine. It matters not which one I say, for they are both the same.
I am one.
I am one with God, and I am one with you. Yet that oneness is the oneness of God, that is, a oneness that never violates any individual person's integrity or respect, but at all times highly honors each individual person in every particle of their being.
This oneness is filled with the power of God, that is, with the dynamism of the One who always takes into Himself all that opposes Him, carrying even His enemies inside Himself, stumbling and falling inside the limitations of their weakness, He carries them into death - and into life, and then ascends on high, and we in Him.
Next, Jesus says, "That the world may believe that You sent Me." Let me tell you something, the world, right now, does not believe that God sent Jesus.
Key in, now, to what Jesus says next. He repeats Himself. (By the mouth of two or three witnesses, let every word be established.) Jesus speaks the conception of the kingdom a second time.
And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one.
We possess the glory of God; we are His glory. The purpose of glory is that we might be one. In case we missed it the first time - exactly like God is one. What does that mean? "I in them, and You in Me." Person inside of person: man as God revealed. It's not clear yet? Let's make it as clear as we can. "That they may be made perfect in one."
Do you see what I mean by blasphemy? Jesus' words are open and unrestrained blasphemy. And until we know that they are, we cannot know the kingdom being birthed out of those words.
Jesus was killed because He blasphemed. "I and the Father are One." We are just like Him.
Then Jesus repeats the effect of the kingdom a second time, only He adds another dimension. "That the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me."
We must understand what these words are. These are universe-creating words.
Then come the words of the atonement. By these words, Jesus took you and me into Himself, carrying us inside Himself through that dark passage between the cherubs to the tree of life.
"Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me."
"I desire." "Father, this is what I want."
What do you want?
The kingdom is birthed out of desire. There is no compulsion here, no command, "Thou shalt eat."
Spirit of God, open up to us the passion, the intense fury, the depths of determination, the crazed wildness, the dauntless energy, the sheer grit, the ecstatic fervor, the storm of fire inside these two words: "I desire."
This desire is infinite, it is HOLY, it is God Himself. God is desire.
What do you want?
We know exactly what Jesus wants; He told the Father what He wants. "That they also whom You gave Me . . ." That's you and me. Any idea that it might not be me vanished from my being 34 years ago. I have not thought such a nonsensical idea since, not on the inside of me. I belong to Jesus.
". . . May be with Me WHERE I AM."
"In that day you shall know that I AM IN THE FATHER, and YOU in Me and I in YOU."
Jesus, even here, sets the birthing of the kingdom as the opposite of the world.
"The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me." 
Then Jesus' final kingdom-birthing words are, to us, the most precious.
"That the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them."
"AND I IN THEM."
It is impossible for us to spend too much time plummeting the depths of these four words. At no point do we ever draw a line and say, "Well, it means this much, but no more." To limit God here is to place upon ourselves the waiting of an entire age before we also may enter in.
The whole of Christianity demands an addition to these words.
PARTLY.
The choice is ours. God never says, "Partly." Nowhere in the New Testament do you find the word "Partly" added to any element of the revelation of Jesus Christ and salvation in us or as us or through us. "Partly" is moral relativism.
"And I in them" is absolute. It is eternal, it is infinite, and it is complete. It is all in all.
I am complete inside the Lord Jesus Christ, and He is complete in me.
What does this mean? It means that God is doing His thing, being who and what He is inside of, as, and through, every particle of my being all the time.
I am the kingdom of God. I am God being Himself through me.
Now, I do not "see" this outwardly, nor feel it outwardly. Thus I am not caught in the arrogance of one who makes claims for himself. I speak by faith; I speak in the absolute certainty that in my blindness, in my ignorance, in my present condition that feels very much like "lostness," the only thing I can know is what God says.
"And I in them."
Here I will hold even unto death.
Yet God is being Himself through me. That means that everything I am and everything I do and everything I go through is God reconciling the world to Himself.
"That the world may know" - not just God, but the sending of God into human flesh.
Yes, Jesus wept on His knees in the garden, some 30 minutes after He spoke the kingdom of God into existence. Jesus was a real man, just like you and me. He felt as limited by His humanity as you and I do. Yet He knew that He was acting as the Head of the body, that the entire body of Christ was kneeling before God. As the Head said, "Father, not My will, but Thine be done," so all the body spoke inside of Him. Jesus was not weeping for Himself nor for His own death.
And neither do we.
We are His heart, the expression of His passion.
Our lives in their entirety, in everything we are and in everything we go through, moment by moment, is for His bride, His precious woman, caught, now in her hour of trial.
The Love of God in all of its fullness and expression is in us.
God is just being Himself through us.

The Kingdom of God - Where we are Now by Daniel Yordy

15. The Kingdom of God by Daniel Yordy
(Daniel's numbering www.dyordy.com)

I want to give a specific overview of the critical elements of the Kingdom of God as it is now being birthed upon the earth in our experience. Before I do that, however, I find it necessary to give an account of my revelation.
First, I would like to point out that if you were to comb through everything I have written over the last several years and jot down every Scripture reference I use, you would see a vast panorama of Scripture drawn from almost every book in the Bible and covering most of the themes and teachings of Scripture. I freely admit that I have used fewer things from the Old Testament than I could have. The revelation of Jesus Christ is most certainly written all through the history of the children of Israel and through the symbolism woven into their worship of God. My purpose has been to establish fully in my own understanding the gospel that comes to us through Paul and John.
The point I am making is that I draw from all of Scripture, from all that God says, much more than do most teachers or preachers of the word. More than that, even if I do not mention them, all the stories of all the men and women of the Bible from Job to David to Daniel to Jesus to John press upon my understanding as I write, along with all the symbols and metaphors God uses from the tabernacle in the wilderness to the journey of Israel to the life of David to the gospels of Jesus to the vision of John.
Everything I teach and every present revelation the Lord Jesus opens to me in our walk together comes, however, out of the definition of one Hebrew word:
צַלְמֵנb·tzlm·nu,
the center part - tzlm, which is tselem, when the vowels that Hebrew does not use are inserted. The first time tselem is found in the Old Testament, the translators use the English word "image"; most of the time it is used, however, the translators call it, "idol."
I know almost nothing about Hebrew, but some 20-25 years ago, I did a word study on the word tselem with whatever resources I had at the time and determined through that study that tselem means "a visible representation of an invisible spirit."
EVERYTHING that I teach and EVERY PART of the revelation that grows inside of me is rooted in and comes out of a continual contemplation of that definition of that word. In other words, if I have the definition wrong, or if God does not give much importance to it, then all my revelation must be empty. Of course, I bring that definition into the New Testament and there I do find it written all through the revelation of Jesus Christ as if that definition is correct and as if God places everything upon the meaning of that one word -
Let us make man in Our IMAGE!
That is, let us make man to be the visible representation to all creation of our invisible Person and Godhead.
You see, I also apply two other definitions to every word God speaks, starting with this word, "image." I define every word God speaks as personal - Jesus - revealed personally in me. And I define every word God speaks as being without limitation unless God Himself has placed some limitation upon that word in that passage. Now, if I am wrong, if God is a far-away and impersonal God who speaks things far-away from me (how could I so love the Bible if that were true), and if God is a limited God, whose words, when spoken, must be defined and limited and made humanly "reasonable," then all that I teach must be wrong.
And so, it is by that statement of God in Genesis chapter 1 that I have determined that Romans 8:28-30 is the most important verse in the Bible. "From the beginning, God determined to conform me to the image of His dear Son." Out from that same word "image" and its definition, I have determined then, the eight most important verses of the Bible as I have shared.
And so over the last several years, I have thought continually about the word "image" and what it MUST mean. Out of the contemplation of that meaning comes everything I teach. Obviously, I add to my understanding of the word "image" all the many critical things God says in the Covenant He signed with Christ my life upon the cross.
Now, Peter, in 1 Peter Chapter 1 makes an incredible, mind-blowing claim. It's good that Peter makes this claim and not Paul or John. That, I think, allows us to give this claim the weight it demands.
Peter claims that there is coming into the experience of the church of Jesus Christ upon this earth two things that WERE NOT experienced or known by any of the writers of the New Testament. That means that neither John nor Paul nor Peter nor James nor Luke nor Matthew could tell us one thing about the reality or the experience of these two things as they come upon us now at the end of this age.
We are on our own - save the Jesus who lives in our hearts who knows the full reality of these two things.
The first thing Peter says must come into our experience right now is a SALVATION that has never been known or seen upon the earth. The second thing Peter says must come into our experience right now is a GRACE that has never been known or seen in the life of any Christian before. Actually, that Grace comes as the forerunner of that Salvation.
This Grace and this Salvation have begun to come upon our lives. It is Salvation in fullness and it is Grace without measure. "I will give unto My two witnesses, and they shall prophecy."
As we see, more and more, the full meaning and revelation of the eight most important verses of the Bible revealed in our lives, the necessity that what those verses, and the other many verses that say almost the same thing as those eight, mean - MUST BE blowing us away.
If I am in fact filled with all the fullness of God - I am His dwelling place far more than heaven ever could be - if, in fact, God flows out of ME as rivers of living water, if in fact my very life in its entirety is a casting down of all things that oppose God or that seek to cause hurt to others, then the meaning of those three things MUST grow forever, and especially, the meaning of those things MUST BE EXPLODING in my sight right now.
Driving back from school yesterday evening, it dawned on me that I am driving through heaven. That all of the activities of earth are actually taking place in heaven, surrounded entirely by the denizens and structures of heaven. This kind of seeing is exploding within us right now and comes entirely out of that little five-letter word, "image," and its mind-blowing definition.
More than that, every single moment of our lives IS an eternal God showing up to creation, both to heaven and to earth. I am convinced that "eternality" is not a heavenly quality, but only a God quality. How could eternality be part of the fabric of heaven if heaven is passing away? The angel Gabriel told Daniel that it took him three weeks to bust through the powers of darkness before he could reach Daniel. Three weeks is a period of time.
Time is the eternal NOW of God showing up in heaven and on earth. It is only the serpent that seeks to degrade both God and man by causing us to imagine that "time" is low and evil and temporary. The writers of the New Testament never once thought "eternal," they thought only of future ages of time.
Here is what I am saying. I take the entirety of the Bible, a book I know by the revelation of the Spirit, by much reading and study, and by having sat under endless hours of anointed teaching coming out of the throne room of God, I take all of it and cause it to pass through this one word - IMAGE. And I see all of it finding its fulfillment inside of me - Faith - Christ made personal in me. More than that, I see it as it must mean without limitation or boundary of any kind.
Then, as all that I know of all that God speaks, as it comes out on the other side of that word, "image," so I SEE and so I teach. And more than that, I see the reality of this Grace and this Salvation never before experienced upon this earth shining through that word "image" to show us the difference between the in-part knowledge of the writers of the New Testament versus those fullness things they said that are absolute. I'm not talking about any form of re-write of the New Testament; I'm talking about the revelation of Jesus Christ. Everything found in this never-before-seen Salvation and this never-before-known Grace is written fully all through the fabric of the entire Bible for those who have eyes to see and hearts to contain the mighty revelation of God Himself.
Now, let's define the Kingdom of God, not in its future unfolding, but in its present birthing.
First, I would like to share a small exchange with someone I don't know on Facebook. The question that was raised goes right to the heart of the kingdom of God being birthed upon the earth.
~
J: Flesh cannot be holy; there is no good thing in the flesh.
My reply: Paul said that we are flesh of His flesh - I am the flesh of Christ, God says I am. Paul said that the Holy Spirit fills every member and particle of my physical body. Jesus is the Word made flesh and again - alive in us. My flesh is holy, it belongs utterly to God and He fills my physical body and every part of my being with Himself. John says the spirit that claims that Christ is not come in flesh opposes Christ. The blood of Jesus is absolute and has made me altogether clean.
J: If flesh is holy, why does it return to the grave?
My reply: J, If you are one who is "on their face" before God in this present hour with a wide-open Bible and a wide-open heart filled with an unquenchable desire to know the living God, then we have much in common.
I have pondered your question for several days now. Indeed, it is the central question of the entire universe and goes right to the heart of the great contest God Himself has arrayed against the Word that He speaks. I don't know if it could be said more clearly.
God makes some big claims, doesn't He? First, He claims that the Holy Spirit saturates every cell and organ of our body with Himself. More than that, He claims that this same Holy Spirit is right now imparting the very resurrection life of Jesus to our physical bodies. More than that, He claims that Jesus abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. And to top it all off, He even claims that He has given us the very same victory over physical death won by Jesus as our own possession.
Yet we look at our bodies and see only tiredness and stumbling and dying and death.
What gives?
Do you see how God has backed Himself into a corner? Obviously, He has done this deliberately; He has a thing for showing His stuff in the middle of utterly impossible contradictions!
Then we hear Him say, "Present to me your bodies as a living and a holy sacrifice, that I might prove My will in your bodies."
How else could we respond except to say, "Oh Father, I know that what You say is true. You fill me with Your glory, Your Holy Spirit saturates every particle of my physical body with the undying life of Jesus, my flesh is holy and acceptable to you. God, my body is your eternal dwelling place; in spite of its tiredness, its stumbling, its sickness, its death, it belongs to You - prove that what You say is true in my body.
"Father, I see only You. Do it, God, right here, right now, in my body, in this age, on this earth - in me. I belong to You, let it be to me according to every word that You speak."
Indeed, J, what else could we possibly answer to such a God who has seized us in His reckless determination to prove Himself mighty and true?
~
Now, let's understand this reality. Paul places the victory of God in our physical body - life swallowing up all the death remaining in it without its passing through the grave - as the central core and focus of his gospel. Read Romans 3 through 12; see how much the entirety of the gospel is woven around this victory in our physical body. More than that, Paul says that a critical part of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives is as both a GROAN and a GUARANTEE before God for this very transformation of our physical flesh into LIFE.
Where is that Spirit ministry of groaning throughout the church of Jesus Christ?
It was banished utterly long centuries ago and replaced with a "maybe, maybe, someday." Hardly any ministry anywhere will teach the central focus of the gospel - victory over death. They all run from it, terrified of being found "silly." Some "deeper truth" circles have even eliminated the possibility of victory over death entirely, claiming that Christ is not physical at all. But we know that the separation of Christ and all of His victory from our physical flesh is anti-Christ.
Victory over physical death IS the birthing of the Kingdom. Anyone who thinks to teach on the "kingdom of God," without placing at the core of that Kingdom our immanent victory over physical death - not dying - has neither seen nor known that Kingdom.
"By man, death, by man, also, the resurrection of the dead."
But there are two other victories that MUST COME first.
We can say three absolute things about the Kingdom. First, the Kingdom of God is God just being Himself through us (filled with all the fullness of God), second, the Kingdom of God is the Abundance of God Himself flowing out from us to bring life and healing and glorious liberty to all creation (rivers of living water), and third, the Kingdom of God is absolute and visible VICTORY over all that opposes the Word God speaks (casting down the accuser).
God is, by His very nature and Person, Abundance. Thus in generating increase and life and joy, God is just being Himself, God is, at this pin-point, showing Himself as He really is.
That is why the increase of His Kingdom shall never end.
And God is, by His very nature and Person, Victory. Thus, in defeating His enemies, God is just being Himself, God is, at this pin-point, showing Himself as He really is.
That is why God presents the victory of Life over death, of the Lamb over the Beast, of Love over hatred, of Light over darkness, of Mercy over cruelty, as the moment of the birthing of His kingdom into the universe.
Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. Revelation 12:10
The coming of the Kingdom begins with the casting down of the accuser. That casting down is the present exercise God has every one of us engaged in right now. As I see myself, all of myself, utterly inside the Lord Jesus Christ, as I see Jesus - and the Father Himself - inside of me, inside of every particle and element of my person, as I see every circumstance, every difficulty, every stumbling, every weakness, every joy, every triumph, everything I experience and go through as God reconciling the world to Himself, the accuser is cast down.
This is how we overcome - boasting with all exuberance in the victory of Christ inside of us, even though it is not visible outwardly. This is the "obedience of faith," the obedience of Christ living as us.
Then we come to the next victory-over that God has placed before us.
For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. 2 Corinthians 10:4-6
For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world-our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 1 John 5:4-5
And I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire, and those who have the victory over the beast, over his image and over his mark and over the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, having harps of God. They sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb . . ." Revelation 15:2-3
Before God in us defeats death in our bodies, God will defeat the world/beast through us.
As I have clarified before, the world/beast is NOT individual people, no matter how involved they may be in its reality and in its cruelty. All individual people, each one as an individual person is beloved of the Lord and included in the atonement. The time of their knowing that inclusion is by the election of God.
Yet in the present time almost all individual people on this planet including almost all Christians allow the world spirit, called the dragon or Satan, that original serpent in the garden, to connect them together with one another. All human interaction takes place INSIDE a spirit. The Kingdom of God is that interaction together that takes places between Christ as me and Christ as you through the Holy Spirit. The world is that interaction that takes place between individuals on this planet through the spirit of the "air," the spirit of disobedience.
ALL of the structures of human interaction in this world, all governments, all institutions, all church organizations, all businesses, all "neighborhoods," ALL, are breathed upon by the spirit of disobedience and all interaction that takes place inside those structures moves through that spirit.
Now, what about a Christian involved in a human organization? Let's take for instance myself, in my role as an instructor in a community college. I walk in a "bubble" of the Holy Spirit. While I "teach," in what appears to be a human endeavor, I am fully confident that the river of life is flowing out from me even though my students or any other teachers with whom I interact may not realize it. Yet at the same time, I see the darkness of the spirit that rules that institution. I am not part of that spirit nor the purposes or drives of that institution. I am also confident that great evil is taking place in the same building I teach in. I am confident that lives are being turned to darkness, that truth is being snuffed out all around me in the hearts of these young people by ungodly men and women.
I also know that many of my fellow believers in Jesus Christ imagine that the world is "good" and that by giving their hearts wholly to the institution of the college, they are doing "good" in the world. I cannot join them in their naiveté because all I can see between myself and the entirety of the college is the cross. I am crucified to the world and the world is crucified to me. I function in my role, but I am in no way of the college or what it is or does.
A Christian's ignorance of the evil being done by an institution or by a nation does not mean that the Christian is not assisting in bringing destruction into the lives of innocent people by the actions of that institution or nation. At the same time, God has placed us in this world as a light in the darkness. It is a fine line of separation by which we walk, certainly not something to be treated as meaningless. And so we do what God gives us to do to provide for our families, believing that God has placed us as a light in the darkness, as a spring of living water to all around, BUT we do not give our hearts to that world, always knowing that we are separated from it by the cross of Jesus Christ.
We also know that God has given us the commission to defeat every element of that world/beast spirit by which all the institutions of man in the earth and all interactions between almost all people including almost all Christians connect together.
We have no conception of the lifelessness that will come to all human endeavors on this earth when the serpent and all of his demons are cast off of it. It will astonish us even to see the lifelessness that comes to many "Christian" institutions.
We will also be utterly astonished as we witness the vehemence by which our brethren count us as "the enemy" when we shatter that world/beast spirit and all the institutions and nations of men that operate by it.
I can see here the tremendous vacuum that must then be filled with the Kingdom of God. I just don't see that happening in an instant. From a historical point of view it will take time; that is the singing of the song of the Lamb. We "sing" the Kingdom all through the lives of peoples and nations upon this earth. But before the singing of the song of the Lamb, we sing first the song of Moses. There is no more terrible song sung in all the universe than the song of Moses, yet it must be sung as the final act of judgment by which the love of God is made free to draw all men into Christ.
The Kingdom comes with the casting down of the accuser. It proceeds through the shattering of the nations and the driving off of every spirit of darkness from this planet and from all the experience of man. And that Kingdom comes into full triumph by the defeat and annihilation of death from our physical bodies.
Salvation simply means to be rescued from something. Not one person, including all who are dead in Christ, are saved until we are rescued in fullness from the original final death that came upon Adam as the condemnation of sin - the death of the physical body. Yes, we have been fully saved from the death that came upon Adam's spirit - when God created a new spirit inside of us. We are being saved from the death of separation that has sat upon our minds as we cast down the accuser who tempts us to see ourselves in any way separate from Christ. But we are fully saved, that is, the full and final Salvation described by Peter comes only when the final death that still sits upon our physical bodies is forever broken. And that Salvation awaits all who are with the Lord in heaven just as much as it awaits us on this earth.
The death of the physical body is 100% evil and utterly opposed to God. To tolerate its continuance in any way comes from not knowing the passion that fills the breast of the One who is our life. He is the One who has abolished that death and brought life and immortality, that means the physical body never dying, to light through the gospel.
I shall live and not die. I shall see God IN my flesh upon this earth with my physical eyes. I shall see God, and I shall live.
This is the Kingdom in its birthing.
And so to develop our understanding of that Kingdom in its birthing, I want to explore three things a bit more. (All of my writing has been about casting down the accuser, so we can jump over that reality here.) First, I want to explore the meaning of Abundance and Increase as the nature of the God who fills us full to overflowing. Second, I must explore the meaning of "the world" and its defeat and overthrow. Finally, I want to discover, how, exactly, do we cast off death, the final enemy to be defeated.
For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory." 1 Cor. 15:53-54
So if I, a corruptible man, MUST put on incorruption, and if I, a mortal man, MUST put on immortality, then I want to know how, exactly, I do that.
This is not a performance word; this is glory beyond our conception.
The purpose of God for us is as big as God and as full of glory as Himself. How could we even look at such a thing? Yet that largeness is fully counterbalanced by the other side of God - that He reveals Himself as He is through weakness - Christ AS US.
On the one hand, God created us as His image - that's the thing that seems too much for us, but on the other hand, He created us as His likeness - and that is the puzzle, that we are more like God than we can comprehend. Not outwardly, but inwardly. One of the most extraordinary verses in the Bible is God saying of David: "There is a man after My own heart." That statement is more than just in the center of the Bible; it is also at the center of God.
In closing this letter I want to look back at this journey God took me on inserted into this series on the Kingdom of God. This journey began with the email sent to me by a brother that brought me such pain, mostly because it re-stirred up years of hopelessness and confusion and loss. And so from the article, "Christ Versus Superman I" through "The Foolishness of God," God took me through a grappling with two very different and opposing definitions of God. On the one hand God says that Jesus is the definition, the express image, of Himself. On the other hand, Augustine says that his teaching and the Nicene Creed are the definition of God.
All of Christianity breathes and thinks and lives by Augustine.
We must break utterly with Augustine and the Nicene Council in order to breathe and think and live by the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, I am fully aware that the Bible is filled with descriptions of God that place Him as "High," "Mighty," "Above," and "Over all." Yet when we look at the human definitions of those things inside the world/beast order of the kingdoms of men, we see only the very opposite of the Lord Jesus Christ - UNLESS Jesus in human form was only an aberration as Augustine said, and God is the psychopath that most Christians cast Him to be.
But what if "high and mighty" to God are the opposite of what man means when he says, "High and mighty" inside the hierarchy of humans pushing other humans around? If that were true, then so many things God says suddenly make perfect sense. "The GREATEST in the Kingdom of God is the servant of all."
Jesus turned away from every human and angelic attempt to make Him "king" in the human sense. Yet, when He, the King of heaven, demonstrated His high Kingliness by serving His disciples as the lowest of servants, in washing their feet, tell me, was that an aberration? Was that a one-time act coming out of some "mysterious" purpose of God that was for that one moment only, but that cannot be showing us the eternal nature of our Father?
Does God serve as the lowest of the low? Is that what "high and mighty" really mean?
If that is true, it is easy to see why Lucifer rebelled, and why he inserted his definition of himself as THE definition of God into the church of Jesus Christ.
And so, as I said in the article, "Rambling Back," knowing now that God IS the becoming and ascending One has changed everything for me.
God is always coming up from beneath of me, embracing into Himself ALL that is me, and carrying ME inside Himself, stumbling and falling with me along my way, He arises into life and ascends on high, and I in Him.
That is God.
When I look inside myself, God is.
Even when I "feel" far away from Him, depressed and cast down, all that I know is that God is.
I know Him. And in knowing Him, I know that He is meek and lowly of heart. And I know that all I could ever be is just like Him.
And thus the Kingdom of God MUST flow out of me, not as an individual, but as a member of a simple-hearted and quiet people, a people who know their God, a people who are doing and will do exploits.

Greater Love Hath No Man - Daniel Yordy

This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. John 15:12-14

These things I have spoken to you in figurative language; but the time is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language, but I will tell you plainly about the Father. John 16:25

This is the first of a series of letters called The Kingdom of God. I have not completed the series The Gathering Together, and thus hope to complete that series also, as the Lord leads. The truth is, my topic has slowly shifted, and in fact, over the last few letters, I have seen the foundation of the very thing I devoted my life to at the age of twenty-one - the birthing of the Kingdom of God upon this earth.

Neither I nor Jesus offer you a "key" to "figure out" the deep, hidden truth. We offer you, simply, God Himself, revealing Himself as you - His image, the branch through which the Life of the vine shows Himself. Right after these words in John 16, Jesus said: "This is eternal life, to know You, the only true God."

I have long been interested in the nature of this kingdom, what it is and how it operates. Yet God has kept it at arm's length from me, and rightly so. There is no way I could have known the nature of God's kingdom when I did not know His nature. Worse than that, I interpreted the kingdom of God by the hierarchy and order of the kingdoms of this world. And in so doing I would have (as most who teach on the kingdom do) twisted and perverted that kingdom, taking Bible verses and concepts and tacking them onto a "God" created in the likeness and image of man.

My article "God is Beneath Your Feet" is a revolutionary understanding of God, that is, an understanding that turns everything "upside down." (Please understand that I gave a very specific definition for the phrase "beneath your feet," that is, we are upside down. When we are right side up, that is, when we know God as He really is, all that God speaks about our enemies being "under our feet" becomes our reality.)

http://youtu.be/ngwAn-V0bDQ

 

We cannot know the kingdom of God until we first know the King. Knowing the King begins with these words:

I am meek and lowly of heart.

Consider Jesus' words in John 16:25. He said that everything He had spoken until then, not only John 14-16, but everything else in all the gospels was spoken in a "figurative" language. That is, the words and symbols that He used mean something far beyond their surface meaning or, rather, far beyond normal human knowledge of these things. Then Jesus says, "I will tell you plainly about," - another figurative statement.

The phrase, "I will tell you plainly about," is figurative.

Now, I received an email that is sent occasionally by a group - I did not sign up for it. This email made the claim that they had discovered the "key" that unlocks the gospels. The problem, of course, is that this "key" was mental, to be used by the human mind to "figure out" the hidden secrets.

Neither I nor Jesus offer you a "key" to "figure out" the deep, hidden truth. We offer you, simply, God Himself, revealing Himself as you - His image, the branch through which the Life of the vine shows Himself. Right after these words in John 16, Jesus said: "This is eternal life, to know You, the only true God."

If Jesus' words, "I will tell you plainly about," were literal and not figurative, then He "talks," we listen, and then we learn some things "about" God, who remains, then, a mental construct. Ideas "about" God cannot ever be anything other than "God" created in the image and likeness of man. God is not ideas; God is Spirit. Spirit is pervasive and personal, ideas are definitive: two very different things. We can know Spirit; we can talk about ideas. We cannot talk about Spirit, and we cannot know ideas intimately and personally.

Those who would argue in great protestation for the definition of God found in the Nicene Creed are really, deeply, desperately concerned about human ideas only. God Himself they would despise if they saw Him. When God shows up in the earth, He looks nothing like the Nicene Creed.

"Know God" is the only thing not found inside the matrix of human ideas and nonsense.

We cannot know the "God" of historical Christianity because the definition given to that "God" is not just inaccurate, but, rather, in certain crucial ways, the opposite of God as He really is.

It is impossible to define God by human ideas and definitions. This is God's problem from the beginning. God cannot be defined, He can only be known. Thus the only thing that could possibly show us God is the Man, Christ Jesus, particularly in His passage from Gethsemane to the Ascension. And the only way we ourselves could know God is to be just like Jesus, that is, God showing Himself as us - His image, the branch and fruit that are the Life of God made visible.

The only thing that can "define" God is story; the only words we could use are action verbs.

Greater love hath no man than this,

that a man lay down his life for his friends.

This IS God.

Let me repeat the "definition" of God I gave in my letter, "The Weakness of God."

- God always reveals Himself through weakness, swallowing up into Himself all that we are including our sin and rebellion, becoming us in our present state. Thus, carrying us inside Himself, stumbling and falling along the way, He arises out of death into life, ascending on high, and we in Him. - 

Thus the Man, Christ Jesus, is God revealed.

If we have miss-defined God all our Christian lives, then we must also have miss-defined Christ and Spirit and power and holiness and salvation and man and everything else. There is only one thing I know that we cannot miss-define under the vanity of separation from God: a man laying down His life for His friends.

Anyone who can successfully divert our eyes from this only knowing of God onto the human arguments of God the Father - God the Son - God the Holy Spirit, co-equal in substance, etc., etc., etc., has successfully separated us from ever knowing God.

God did not present to us the conundrum, the mystery, of the "Trinity" etc., etc., as any mystery that reveals Him. He presented us with a Man laying down His life for His friends as the mystery that reveals Him. The moment you insert human argument into that picture, God Himself vanishes and all that's left is a "God" created in the image and likeness of man. God is completely other than human argument and definition.

When we know God, then we know Jesus Christ whom He has sent, that we are just like Him, and we know the Spirit who reveals Christ as us.

In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 1 John 4:9-11

Notice the words, "that we might live through Him." Notice the words, "in this is love - that He sent His Son to be the propitiation," that is, to become us in our weakness, then to ascend and we in Him. Notice the words, "we also."

The kingdom of God in all reality is found first in these two words: "we also." It is found nowhere else. Yes, the kingdom of God grows from these two words to include all the works of God's hands, but everything found in that larger picture is rooted entirely in "we also."

God is revealed, the mystery of Christ is known, the fullness of the Spirit is found only out from these two words: "we also."

By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 1 John 3:16

John confirms this definition of God. God is Love - by this we know Love - Jesus laying down His life for us - AND we also. There is no other way to know God.

You see, as humans, we are able to hold mutually opposing views in our minds all at the same time. We can switch from arguing for one to arguing for its opposite without missing a beat or even knowing what we're doing. In this way, American Christians can worship Jesus as the One who laid down His life for them and then hiss and boo when a politician suggests that American foreign policy should be based on doing unto others what we would have them do unto us.

In a similar fashion, we can talk all about Christ living as us, about the grace and love of God, but then, in an instant, revert back to definitions of God and Christian theology without even realizing that we cannot have both. We can say, over and over, that we know love because He laid down His life for us - and we also, and then turn and say that we "know" that God is Three in One, Omnipresent Spirit, Eternal, Infinite, etc., etc.

I am actually very serious. The "God" of historic Christianity is a God we know all kinds of things about, a God we can define - and to define is to control. We receive revelation about this "God" concerning His life and grace and love, but always, we must revert back to the "God" of definition whenever argument comes our way.

Knowing about God is the opposite of knowing God. To the extent that we know about God, to that same extent we do not know God. To know God we must stop, that is, turn from, that is, repent of knowing definitions about Him.

And thus, God can speak through us by the words He says, first in the revelation of Christ spoken by Paul and John - Christ in you the hope of glory / As He is so are we in this world, and then out from that revelation to all things God Himself says.

A sister recently asked me a series of questions which I answered. She replied with more questions, all of which I was also happy to answer. But in her second email to me she said these words, "As I've said I know the Christian side and what God's word says, but I don't have a lot of answers to continue inspiring my son to be 'more like Jesus' (although we never will on this earth, but He expects us to strive for.....)"

I answered the sister's questions, but when I got to the words in parenthesis, I said, "Whoa there. Look at your words. Nowhere does God say anything like what you say here, on either side of the comma." I do not speak to criticize this sister; we are all coming out of darkness and miss-conception.

There are no words in human expression or the history of man upon this earth that are more anti-Christ, more contrary to knowing God, more offensive to the heart of God than these words: "to be more like Jesus, (although we never will on this earth, but He expects us to strive for it.)" These are not this sister's words, they are words she has heard inside "Christianity" all her life; she is simply repeating them. These words began in the garden, "Did God really say that? You shall be like Him for you shall see Him as He is? What a joke! Not here, not now, no way."

The words "never will on this earth," permeate Christianity and are anti-Christ. Not only are they a denial of the One who reveals God in the flesh, but they are a denial of the nature and being of God Himself.

The Father of the Lord Jesus Christ revealed to us only by the picture of Christ, the One who lays down His life for His friends, is the God of the Bible. The definitions of God in Christian theology are a human construct, attempting to create a "lofty" God who is thus unknowable by lowly man. - NOT ON THIS EARTH!

Now, the kingdom of God is found on the contention of this point. God defines the kingdom all the way through the New Testament as the opposite of the kingdoms of this world. God shows who and what He is by contrast. Consider these words of Jesus.

The thief comes to steal, to kill, and to destroy; I am come that you might have life and that more abundantly.

Jesus positions Himself as the opposite of the evil one. In a similar way, God's kingdom is shown all through the New Testament by first pointing us to its opposite. "The Gentiles - - -, but it shall not be so among you."

"We never will on this earth." I cannot tell you how horrifically anti-Christ, opposed to everything that is God, these words are. Yet it is here, by the purpose of God, that God births His kingdom in the earth.

Here are God's words: "And we also."

What, then, do we do with the word "ought?" It is there in the Greek words penned by John. We simply believe it. It is not a performance word; it is a creative word of the Father. In the same way that God said, "Let there be light," and there was light, that is, Christ shining forth, making the Father visible, in that same way, God speaks into our hearts, "And you also ought to love one another in the same way that Christ loved you." Thus there is love, always abounding in our hearts, that is, Christ shining forth through us, making the Father visible.

You see, God forbade us the tree of knowledge, which is the tree of performance. To "perform" a word like this is to eat of that tree, "I can do what God says." In complete contrast, we believe that Christ is our life and that He fulfills the love of God through us.

Here is the point of everything. If Jesus filling our hearts with Himself is not real, then how can we imagine that the Bible and God and salvation could possibly be real? But Christ does fill our hearts and as He reveals Himself through us, we are His image. This love is real and by it we lay down our lives for our brethren.

This "and we also" is part of the "just as" commandments of the New Testament: "Be just like God."

Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. Ephesians 5:1-2

Wow!

One of the great arguments of Christianity is that we cannot be just like Christ because that would be robbery. We would be "stealing" what belongs to Him alone. But they are unable to cut verses like this out of the Bible, so they say, "Well, God just means 'try.' But He also wants you to know that you can't really be what He says. The moment you think a word like this can be fulfilled in your life, then we know you have departed from God."

It is an amazing thing that a theology that would call God a liar in this way would be capable, at the same time, of giving us an accurate definition of God!

How did Christ give Himself for us? By taking us into Himself, that is, by becoming us. When did that happen? It is clear to me that the moment of time when Jesus took us into Himself as the atonement was the completion of His prayer in John 17. That prayer of faith must have been fulfilled in the moment of His speaking it. As Jesus walked down the steps from the upper room on His way to the garden, from that moment we were in Him.

More than that, Jesus took us into Himself by a deliberate act of His will specifically by speaking the words of John chapter 17. These are words of faith; thus they are God.

When Jesus crossed the brook Kidron, I crossed the brook Kidron. When He said, "Not My will but Thine be done," I said, "Not my will but Thine be done." That word was sealed forever in me in that moment. When He stood on trial, I stood on trial. When He was beaten and mocked, I was beaten and mocked. When He stumbled under my cross, I stumbled under His. When He was crucified, I was crucified. When He said, "Father, forgive them," I said, "Father forgive all who have offended me." When He died, I died. When He was buried, I was buried. When He descended into Hades, I descended into Hades. When He arose from the dead, I arose from the dead. When He ascended on high, I ascended on high.

None of this was symbolic or figurative. All of it was real and absolute. Look again at Jesus' words! These things I have spoken to you in figurative language; but the time is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language, but I will tell you plainly about the Father. John 16:25

He spoke the words, "the time is coming when I will tell you plainly about the Father" just five minutes before His inclusionary work of atonement began. In other words, from John 17 on, for the first time on this earth, we saw the Father's face openly and plainly. AND we were inside of Him!!!

Now, if this is how Christ loved us and gave Himself for us, then how did He do it? Simply this. God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself. The fullness of who and what God is dwelt in Christ bodily. Thus the Man, Christ Jesus, was God revealed. More than that, it is the essence and nature of God through all the fabric of His being to take even His enemies into Himself, to become them, to carry them, stumbling and falling into death, and to arise with them in Him into life ascending on high. If God was in Christ, then this nature and being was operating in fullness inside of every step Jesus took.

Here is the point at which the kingdom of God begins: "And we also - just as Christ - as I have loved you."

I am a man in the same way that Jesus was a Man, that is, I am God revealed. When I believe that, when I know that, then I know that every part of my life is God showing Himself as He is. That means that every part of my life is God becoming others, carrying them inside Himself, stumbling into death, and then arising with these precious dear ones inside Himself and ascending on High.

If God is in me, then God is Himself in me.

How could it be otherwise?

Thus we know that being just like Jesus, walking as He walked, is the only thing that makes sense; it is the only thing real.

And thus I know God, and in knowing God, all I wish to do is place my face on the floor in worship, for I know that He is meek and lowly of heart. I know that He is gentle and tender and kind.

In my series on Our Union with Christ, I stated that, although the life of Christ from His conception in Mary's womb to His seating at the right hand of the Father is the pattern of our lives, that is, Christ living as us, there is one part of His walk that is not ours, but rather, He carries us inside Himself through those steps. That part of His walk I referred to was the passage of the atonement, from Gethsemane to the Resurrection.

Now, it is most certainly true that He carries us inside Himself through that passage, and thus we know God by the only way God can be known. But then I am confronted here with the words, "and we also," and the words, "just as," and I am brought up short. Now I realize that something I had inherited from "Christianity" was working in my heart when I first made that distinction between us and Christ, a distinction God clearly does not make.

Christianity has instilled inside of us the idea that for us to be really like Jesus in all respects before God would be robbery; it would be "stealing" something that belongs to Jesus alone and is, thus, not ours to experience or to be. However, the very act of seeing Jesus as He is dispels from our hearts that false measurement. At the same time, a number of verses in the New Covenant come crowding into our minds confirming that it was, indeed, a false measurement.

"The Father has not left Me alone - I and the children whom You have given Me."

"That the glory I had with You might be in them, and I in them."

"Let this same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus our Lord, who thought it not robbery to be equal with God."

"He is not ashamed to call us, 'Brethren.'"

The kingdom of God birthed into this earth begins here. It begins with knowing the face of God revealed by Christ Jesus. That is: - God always reveals Himself through weakness, swallowing up into Himself all that we are including our sin and rebellion, becoming us in our present state. Thus, carrying us inside Himself, stumbling and falling along the way, He arises out of death into life, ascending on high, and we in Him. - 

And thus God is always becoming Himself in us.

Let me place the three verses together again here, and I defy any person in Christendom to argue that God does not mean what He says. Better for those to be silent who do not know Him.

In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 1 John 4:9-11

By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 1 John 3:16

Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. Ephesians 5:1-2

The "we also," the "just as" in these verses clearly points directly to the nature and being of God in the atonement. This is no "outward act," it is no "figurative language," it is simply God being Himself.

Do you understand what is taking place here? God is giving to us the key, the door, the power, the knowing to break the curse from off this earth and to see the fulfillment of rivers of living water bringing all creation into glorious liberty.

The key always was God Himself, revealing Himself as us in this world. We just did not know who He is.

"And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren."

"And we also - God."

You see, when we did not know God, we saw these words as referring to some outward act, something that the noblest and the best among us Christians might, on occasion, do. And we saw that "doing" as that person's following the "example" given to us by Jesus.

Certainly, the Love that is God Himself acts through us in this earth by outward doings of kindness and compassion for others, even to instances of actually dying in another's stead. And I also am convinced that Revelation Chapter 11 means that the fullness of times in the dispensation of God will see a second defeat of death in the same outward demonstration shown by Jesus 2000 years ago. That is, defeating death by swallowing up death and then rising again on high.

But now we know that both of those outer demonstrations of Love inside the realms of time and space and matter come only out of God as He is, in reality, in fabric and being, in His core and periphery, by His face - God, revealed by us, His image - man.

Remember, God revealed is not, never was, and never will be "Superman." God revealed is a man laying down his life for his friends.

God is the Reconciler, God is the Savior, God is the Becomer. God is the One who takes into Himself all sorrow and loss, all pain and grief, all sin and rebellion, taking it all into death, and then arising into life and ascending on high, and we in Him. This is God in His nature and being. God is and cannot be anything else.

We say that God is "all-powerful," and He is, but how? Take a plot of ground filled with plants and bushes and grasses and plow it, plow it, plow it, until not one shred of vegetative matter is left upon its surface. Then leave for two years and come back. What will you see on your return? Life sprung forth abundantly, greater, even, than before. That is the power of God, the power of resurrection.

God does not know force or compulsion.

God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself; the same God fills us with all of His fullness. It is God who reconciles; it is God who saves. What did Jesus do? He laid down His life; He revealed God.

You see, this incredible relationship we enjoy with the person of God inside of us and our persons inside of Him is the heart of the Father and His purpose in all creation. But God, though He fills us, though He lives as us, swallowing up all that we are inside Himself, yet God never ever violates our person, but highly respects and regards us at every step along the way. God counts us as His equal in person and in heart. And thus God will never ever act through us except within the confines of His mutual relationship with us. That mutual relationship the Bible calls faith. This faith is not the "faith" of human effort, "Oh, I forgot, I am bad"; it is the faith of Christ Himself. But that faith is our permission.

We let God be Himself through us; we allow God to show Himself outwardly as us in this world. We do that by the words of faith which we speak.

Look again at Jesus' words in John Chapter 17. Read it with this thought, that Jesus is speaking these words specifically as an act of faith, allowing God to be Himself through Christ during the next few days; that is, allowing God to gather us into Himself, and to carry us inside Himself inside of Jesus all the way into life.

This is the nature and being of God. He is no different now than He was then. He is the same in us as He was in Christ. You see, when we see Christ as He is, it's a no-brainer -- we are just like Him.

And so it is much more than our doing kind things for others, giving a tender touch, a cup of cold water to one who is thirsty. It is much more than our laying down our physical lives for our friends.

By the release our faith gives to the Father, through the words that we speak, God is free to be Himself in us. (Put your name on the line in place of mine.)

- God always reveals Himself through   Daniel Yordy , swallowing up into Himself the grief's and fears of others, including their sin and rebellion, becoming them in their present state. Thus, carrying them inside Himself, stumbling and falling along the way, He arises out of death into life, ascending on high, and they in Him. - 

It's not us, it's Him. He's just being Himself.

But by our words of faith, by kindness and tenderness and love, we draw all those whom God brings across our path into the dynamo, into the whirlwind, into the power and being of this God who fills us full.

By the nature of God inside of us, our whole life is laid down for our brethren, just as Jesus laid down His life for us.

This is the kingdom; this is its birthing in power upon the earth.

By this means the accuser is cast down; he has nothing more to say.

"And they loved not their lives unto the death."