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
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.
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' 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 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.What is the kingdom of God?
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.
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 17:1-5Jesus' 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.
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