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© Daniel Yordy - 2012 - Our Path Home
14. A Heart Throne
We live boldly inside the Holy of Holies.
There is no sacrifice inside the Holy of Holies, only Blood. That Blood is splattered across the Mercy Seat. But before we can consider the Mercy Seat, we must deal with a claim I have made, a claim that, I suspect, is and will be a stumbling stone for many.
Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne set in heaven, and One sat on the throne. And He who sat there was like a jasper and a sardius stone in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, in appearance like an emerald . . . And from the throne proceeded lightnings, thunderings, and voices. Seven lamps of fire were burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God. Revelation 4:2-5
The claim I have made has two parts. The first part is this – this throne that John sees in His vision IS the hearts of God's elect walking upon this earth. The second part is this – that throne, our hearts, is God's throne and God's heart. We share heart with God.
I have no intention of “defending” this claim. Those Christians whose hearts have not yet been won by God cannot know this reality, and those whose hearts in which He sits enthroned, filling us with all of His Person, will see by the light of the Holiest what their own hearts really are.
But I do intend to explore this truth in this letter. We are looking, here, at things more Holy than we have ever known or considered. We are seeing the Holiest of All.
There was no basin to catch the Blood of the spotless Lamb of God as His body was pierced, over and over. Rather, that Blood, each drop more precious – of greater value – than the entire universe, fell down upon the ground, saturating the dirt, mixing totally with the earth.
We sit upon the Mercy Seat; we sit upon Blood. Read Hebrews 9 with the understanding of the Tabernacle of Moses as I have been teaching. I will insert here only a part of verse 12.
. . . with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained age-abiding redemption.
There was no basin. Jesus had to bring the Blood that had mixed with the dirt of the earth into the Most Holy Place to sprinkle there upon the Mercy Seat. Did He separate the dirt first? The Bible does not say.
But it does say that He sprinkled our very human hearts, made of dirt, with that same Blood.
The Mercy Seat IS the throne of heaven. Jesus sprinkled His blood ONCE for all. God says He sprinkled it upon the Mercy Seat. God says He sprinkled it upon our hearts. They are the same thing.
How does God win our hearts?
A heart can only be won. Bodies can be commanded, though God never employs force, minds can be trained, but hearts can only be won. How does God win our hearts?
We are looking, here,
at things more Holy
than we have ever known
or considered. We are seeing
the Holiest of All.
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings. Jeremiah 17:9-10
I want to get at the greatest evil in Christianity, the open rejection of the Covenant that fills Christian theology and practice. Yes, I repeat myself, but I see it afresh and the fire of His indignation burns bright again in me.
That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:17-19 – Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Romans 5:5
The old covenant versus the New Covenant.
The law of sin and death versus the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus.
Death versus Life.
God on the outside versus God on the inside.
An old heart of iniquity versus a new heart sprinkled from all consciousness of sin.
You can live in one or you can live in the other but you CANNOT live in both, not even a little bit.
I want to get at the greatest evil in Christianity, the open rejection of the Covenant that fills Christian theology and practice.
Where you choose to live, one side or the other, is 100% your own personal choice, by your own desire. Those who want to stay far away from God wrap themselves in Jeremiah 17:9; those who want to live inside of God and God inside of them wrap themselves in Ephesians 3:17-19. It's as simple as that.
What you believe about your own heart IS where you live.
You can do anything with Christ, the word God speaks, anything you want. It is your own, personal decision.
(I usually don't say “you,” but on this issue, we need the bony-finger-between-the-eyeballs kind of experience.)
The Mercy Seat
IS the throne
of heaven.
You are free to believe that your heart is evil, deceitful, desperately wicked, and filled with trickery and selfishness. You are perfectly free to believe that all the way through. But if you do, you need to be prepared for the consequences of your choice.
You will never, not in a million years, give a deceitful heart to God; God will never, He cannot, win your heart.
Christ CANNOT dwell in your heart by visible, outward sight. You will never “SEE” Him there unless you choose to cast down the sight of your eyes. Never!
If God has not won your heart, you will never pass through the veil into the Holiest. Deceitful and wicked hearts never do. Only those whose hearts are pure, sprinkled always by the Blood, filled with a mighty boldness, who know that what God says in the New Covenant concerning Christ our only life is true, who disregard with all abandonment what their human eyes “see” or their human feelings “feel,” will ever enter into the Holiest of All.
To overcome is our faith. Faith is to overcome. Faith is not blind; I hate that whole muttering about “blind faith that just can't understand God, oh poo.” Faith sees what is not seen – because faith regards only what God says concerning Christ our only life. Faith is bold with all the audacity of which the human heart, the heart of God, is capable. Faith sits upon the throne of God; faith knows nothing less.
I have found Me a man after My own heart.
If you believe that your heart is wrong, God will never win your heart; He cannot. You have placed your heart outside of where He goes. He does not know the place where you keep your heart.
You must know that your heart is pure and holy, that it is good, that you have a good heart and no shadow lies upon it, before you will ever give your heart to God.
And if you think that you will “make your deceitful heart pure” by your own “obedience” to something outside your own person, you are as deluded as every human being from Adam till now is deluded.
Enough with “you,” let's get back to the revelation of Christ our only life. Our hearts are pure and they are good, for He has made them so, and we regard Christ alone. We see Him in glory, especially when we look at our hearts, especially when we look in the mirror when we get up in the middle of the night.
Faith sees what is not seen – because faith regards only what God says concerning Christ our only life. Faith is bold with all the audacity of which the human heart, the heart of God, is capable. Faith sits upon the throne of God; faith knows nothing less.
We simply are unable to see anything else but Jesus.
Much of my pondering over the last few days that has produced the thoughts in this letter comes out of two questions that Bonnie Morris asked me. I want to attempt an answer to both of those questions inside the same narrative. The questions are closely related. Let me share both of her questions first, and then I will begin my random comments that came out of my pondering these things before the Lord.
Let me throw in this first. Last Thursday evening, Thanksgiving, November 22, 2012, as I lay in bed before sleep, I did something I have never before done. What I did opened a door I had never known existed in God. I was filled with wonder and fear, both at the same time. Yet I have entered that door without hesitation, though my trepidation continues. This is not a room in God for human foolishness; it is a Most Holy Place.
It is a room filled with the most dynamic and powerful activity in God beyond what I have ever heard. In this room inside of God inside of us – God fills us with ALL of Himself, is all the authority of Christ released now into this earth through us in the fullness of times. It is the Mercy Seat; it is the throne of heaven; it is our own hearts.
But the description of this incredible room in God I have never before heard or known – and what I did that opened the door to it, what I did, coming out of the present dealings of God in my life and the last two letters I have written, “Carry Your Cross,” and “Resurrection Life,” must wait until my next letter.
I do take my role as a mapmaker very seriously. I love maps. There are few things in this life that I love more than a good map and a path ahead and adventure beckoning, calling to me. I know what is my present calling in the body of Christ. My calling is to forge the trail, to make a straight path, a clear highway, so that all those who will most certainly come rushing up behind me very soon will see it all as so very obvious and clear and true as they connect in all ways with the God of Adventure who lives in their hearts.
Here are Bonnie's two questions, sent to me at different times.
I want to share with you something M__ said. He said... Tabernacles is where the law is written on our minds. At first I totally rejected what he said, but then I got to meditating it and am now musing over this.... Is it possible that the law (principles of God) was written only upon our hearts in Pentecost? We know that the tabernacle feast is where we find the resurrection of the body... but, could it be that the renewing of the mind to the law is now? Not speaking here of law as anything except the life principles flowing out of God. The Scripture says that He will write the law on our hearts and on our minds. I know in the past I never separated that as two different moments in time.
You mentioned biting the tree of life. Was that an actual manifestation for you... and did it cause a distinct difference such as being filled with the Holy Spirit? We were busy discussing it and realized we were looking for more info on that moment in your life...if there is any...
First, I will give my initial response to Bonnie's first question. I use different terminology, but we are speaking of the same thing.
~~~
Interesting, at first I thought the same as you concerning M__'s comment, but then I also got to thinking about it in my own life. And I see that God did not begin changing my mind until after He had won my heart. All the years of God's dealings with me, He left my mind in holy place thinking while He first won my heart. But then – His final winning of my heart was when John Eldredge taught me to say, "My heart is good." Wow. God cannot win our hearts if we believe they are evil, for we will never let them come close to Him; we will never see Him living in a heart we think is false.
Then, as I started to write The Jesus Secret, I was seeing in the Holy of Holies, and that is when my thinking started to change, and continues to change.
I would not make it a law to impose on others, but it is likely true, that even though brethren may "see" things of the Holiest, they are still looking through Holy Place eyes until God wins their hearts for His own.
Then we go to the Altar of Incense. Moses clearly places it in the Holy Place, but the writer of Hebrews places it in the Holy of Holies. It is both (– on the Day of Atonement, the censer of burning incense is taken into the Holy of Holies). When we first engage with the Altar of Incense, God is out to win our hearts, but when He has done so, we look around, and guess what! We are now in the Holiest, and now we can see clearly, and now He can change the way we think. That transition is the passing through the veil. The veil is the winning of our hearts.
In all of His dealings over the last six years, none of them have had anything to do with my heart – that belongs to Him and He fills it without question. All of His dealings have been to change the way I think about everything.
~~~
Let's bring this question into the Covenant. The Covenant we signed with God is filled with “fine print.” That is, many provisions and requirements that are not obvious to the surface reader or to a heart that does not engage with God. A large part of that “fine print” is found in the steps of overcoming in Revelation Chapters 2 & 3. Now, we know these are “fine print” clauses to the Covenant because Jesus says, “to those who overcome.”
Everyone of these addenda to the Covenant is fulfilled inside the Holy of Holies experience in our lives and in the life of the church. “To those who overcome” MEANS “to those who pass through the veil into the Holiest of All.”
That “passing through the veil” takes place in Israel's religious year, in the Feasts of the Lord, at the center of the Day of Atonement. Here is the exact account from Leviticus 16:11-14.
And Aaron shall bring the bull of the sin offering, which is for himself, and make atonement for himself and for his house, and shall kill the bull as the sin offering which is for himself. Then he shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from the altar before the Lord, with his hands full of sweet incense beaten fine, and bring it inside the veil. And he shall put the incense on the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat that is on the Testimony, lest he die. He shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger on the mercy seat on the east side; and before the mercy seat he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times.
This is the same office Jesus performed as High Priest after the order of Melchizedek, when He appeared before the Father and sprinkled His blood upon the Mercy Seat in the heavenlies, just before He first appeared to His disciples after His resurrection.
That censer of burning coals, sweet incense beaten fine, the Battering of Desire, is from the Altar of Incense. Thus the Altar of Incense, on the Day of Atonement, passes from being a Holy Place furnishing to being a part of the Holy of Holies. The fire of incense is what passes through the veil. Let's focus on the first of those Covenant “addenda” found in Revelation 2: 7.
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.
Then, let's bring in the other side of this statement of Jesus from Genesis 3:21-24. The Covenant we signed is very specific and clear, but we must have its specificity front and center before our eyes.
Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
The cherubim of the Mercy Seat, between which the Blood of the Atonement is sprinkled symbolizes the same thing as these cherubim keeping the way to the tree of life. The passage into life is by the fire of the incense – the Battering of Desire.
Let me bring in two more verses before I begin to build my point.
Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on age-abiding life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 1 Timothy 6:24 – 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
The words “lay hold on” are the Greek word best translated “to seize.” Notice that seizing hold of LIFE is a fight of faith. Notice that it is faith, the confidence that we are, in fact, born of God, by which we overcome.
Before the fall, the “forbidden fruit” was the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Not so today. Today the “forbidden fruit” is the fruit of the tree of life. Non-Christians see the tree of knowledge as normal; Christians see the tree of knowledge as godly (it is entirely of God). It takes great audacity and boldness of presumption to turn one's back on the tree of knowledge, to seize hold of the fruit of the tree of life, and to sink one's teeth into it. Yet Paul told Timothy, a mature Spirit-filled Christian minister, that such is exactly what he ought to be doing.
Now, Bonnie was referring to a discussion of mine concerning how the Kingdom of God swallows up into itself all things, conveying everything out of darkness and into life. I talked about the “proto-universe” that existed before Adam made his decision, and that everything we know in the present universe, the “old” creation, comes out of the very moment that Adam's teeth bit into the fruit of knowledge.
Then I insinuated, without seeing all the implications, the opposing reality – the moment our teeth sink into the fruit of the tree of life given to us by Jesus.
It is clear to me that we did not eat of the tree of life when we were born again. It is clear from the verses I included here, that we did not eat of the tree of life when we were Baptized in the Holy Spirit.
Jesus offers the fruit of the tree of life ONLY to those who have “overcome,” that is, who believe what God says, who see by faith fully that which is not visible to the outward sight. Those who believe ALL that God says concerning Christ our only life inside the Covenant. Jesus offers the fruit of the tree of life only to those who have passed through the veil by the fire of incense, hearts won wholly by God, and who live utterly and only in the Holy of Holies, in the glory of heaven, right here and right now.
That happens to be us. Listen, whatever is true of Christ Jesus is most certainly true of us, for He is our only life!
I want you to see the clear picture given to us by God.
Adam and Eve were nowhere near the tree of knowledge all the way through the garden. They were busy laughing and talking and eating fruit from this tree and that. Yet they followed the deep yearning in their heart for completion, for LIFE. They had many experiences together with God all the way along their journey. God walked with them in the cool of the garden. Yet, as they approached the very tree of life, the very life of Almighty God, God became quiet, seemingly withdrawing Himself into the background. At the very moment that Adam saw, for the very first time, the tree of LIVING LIFE, at that same moment, all the power of the tree of knowledge bore down upon him overwhelmingly. Adam crumpled under the power of separation just steps away from the glory of Life.
The power of the tree of separation does not bear down on those living in the outer court, rejoicing that Jesus is their Savior. The power of the tree of separation does not bear down on those living in the Holy Place, rejoicing in the healing and anointing and understanding of the Spirit they find there.
No, it is only those who, rejoicing in Jesus as Savior, rejoicing in the Spirit as the light of their seeing, who sense the call to enter into LIFE and who move over to the visible Altar of Incense to begin the process by which they pass through the veil and thus come into the place where Jesus offers to them the fruit of the tree of life – it is only those who come under the overwhelming power of the knowledge of separation.
Why? Why? Why? I will tell you exactly why.
God does not trust you and He does not trust me. Jesus will never offer us life until He has won our heart.
If you believe your heart is evil, you will never give your heart to Jesus; He will never win it for Himself. Shame is never appropriate to your heart. If you imagine that it is, your heart cannot belong wholly to Him.
And thus you will find the tree of separation, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, only in “deeper truth” circles, Christians who draw close to the tree of life, Christians who engage God with Gethsemane, with the Altar of Incense, and thus have come into the face of the serpent. They are the ones who eat the fruit of separation, not so much the Christians in the outer court or the Holy Place.
Thus you will find Christian groups and ministries whose hearts long for the tree of life, who have drawn close to the power of God, who have embraced what they call “the message of the cross,” which is really the fruit of separation, “I am bad, and bad me must die,” the rebellion of Adam. They preach separation as if it is godliness and they decry union as if it is ungodly deception.
Now, understand this, God is filled with contradictions – He is really an odd One.
Almost all Christians are convinced of a belief that is complete malarkey. Almost all Christians imagine that someone cannot be “deceived” and “close to God,” both at the same time. They are convinced, first, that they themselves know most all things as they really are, that their own beliefs are the only clearly true and logical beliefs one should have, they are convinced that by those beliefs they are as “close to God” as anyone can be in this life, and they are convinced that anyone who sees things entirely differently from them is clearly “deceived,” and therefore, at the same time, of necessity, “far away from God.”
They preach separation
as if it is godliness
and they decry union
as if it is ungodly deception.
A God who would draw His beloved close to Himself, and then thrust her under the power of deception for a season, even while she is but one step away from eating of the tree of life, this God just doesn't fit anyone's thinking.
Because we see the patterns, we understand exactly what God is doing.
The New Covenant, in its fulfillment, engages with the heart FIRST. God could care less what silly ideas bounce around in our heads BEFORE He has won our hearts. God does not care how deceived anyone is, He cares about winning our hearts – FIRST! The Altar of Incense, as it sits in the Holy Place, is entirely an engagement of the heart. Once God has won our hearts and we are willing to call them GOOD, the throne of God, then, and only then, can He work on the way we think.
The final win of our hearts and passing through the veil are the same thing. It is the overcoming of faith.
Look at the two sides of Gethsemane; the contrast is beyond comprehension.
Take this Cup away from Me! – Who, for the Joy set before Him. . .
The first phrase is the last thought of Jesus on His knees in Gethsemane, the second phrase is the first and only thought in Jesus mind as He stood to face His betrayer. They are the SAME THING. The CUP and the JOY are the same thing! The Cup Jesus drank and the Joy set before Him are you and me, His prize and His glory.
The passage from the Holy Place to the Holy of Holies, the fire of incense, happened in the Pattern Son, the Head of the body, at the moment He rose to His feet the third time in Gethsemane. God had won the heart of the entire body of Christ. At that very moment, God transformed Jesus' mind from Cup to Joy.
Yet that WIN must be proven out in each of our lives. God requires of Jesus to prove Himself inside of each one of us; God requires proof of Himself in the earth. That is the Cup Jesus drank, the Joy set before Him, to become us, to carry us all the way into Life.
Here is the funny thing about God – He always gets the last laugh. The firebrand “deeper truth” preacher, who teaches that “union with Christ,” “Christ becoming us,” is deception, that our hearts are, in fact, deceitful and wicked, that our flesh is “filthy and cursed,” and that “the death of the cross,” is something we must “come to,” before we will ever know God (separation) is, in fact, carried by the very One who has already become them, though they know it not, all the way into life.
They are one step away from life, and when they finally eat of it, they will go very quiet. It will be someone else who does the talking at that point.
Here is the obvious logic of the first moment one eats of the fruit of the tree of life. You've never eaten of it before. Which means that everything you think is true before that moment is just pure deception, but that's okay, because He carried you all the way through.
It is only after we have eaten of LIFE that our seeing changes, that our thinking changes, that everything now makes sense as God means it, and not as we ever understood in our pre-tree-of-life theology. Our definition of God, of Christ, of ourselves, of salvation, of EVERYTHING MUST change from the moment we eat of life!
Let me paint another picture. Here are two people standing side by side, in full agreement on all “Christian theology.” Yet both of them believe, fully, (and accurately) that they have not yet experienced this moment here, in Revelation 2:7, eating of the Tree of Life. Now, here's what happens next. You see, the work God does inside the Altar of Incense when it is positioned in the Holy Place, is entirely an inner work. God is hammering away at the heart. And what He is doing in a man or woman's heart CANNOT be seen or known by anyone else. The person whose heart God is working on hardly knows themselves what God is doing.
You see, when God spoke to me, after I had failed utterly in my own sight and in the sight of all others, elders and apostles, when He said, “Son, you passed the test.” Once I got over the shock of the unreality of His words, I began to rethink the whole arena of the work of God in a man's heart – that God is after something that is definitely not visible outwardly. When God works on a heart, He is not interested in either outward performance or the thinking of the mind. He ignores those two things absolutely.
God simply does not consider changing our thinking before He has won our hearts. Then, and only then, it is eating of the tree of life by which our minds are transformed. And He simply does not consider the transformation of our outer persons until He has changed utterly the way we think by our eating of the tree of life. That's why attempting to “transform ourselves” is a really bad idea; the only image we can produce ourselves must be false.
Back to the two brothers standing side by side in the Altar of Incense, looking forward to the fulfillment of the third feast and the Holy of Holies in their lives. What happens when Jesus offers to one only to eat of the tree of life, what happens in that moment?
That's simple. The one who just ate of life turns to his friend and says, “Wow, I just ate of life; it's so exciting and simple. You also may freely eat.” And the one who has not eaten says, “That is heresy. You are pushing darkness. You cannot eat of life because your heart cannot be pure.” The theology of the one who ate of life MUST change drastically; the theology of the one who has not eaten of life CANNOT change. Thus the one who has not eaten of life casts out the one who has, convinced that his friend is now imbibing deception. That's just the way it works.
One who believes that Jeremiah 17:9 applies to themselves in spite of the Salvation of Christ, cannot ever accept a new heart from God BECAUSE saying “My heart is good; my heart is pure; my heart is entirely brand new,” would defy their theology and the theology of all those before whom they hope to put up a good appearance.
Most “deeper truth” Christians simply do not have the permission of the ministries under which they sit to eat of the Tree of Life, should Jesus offer its fruit to them. Those Altar of Incense Holy Place ministries, very close to life themselves, but not quite there, warn them over and over that “union with God” is darkness, and separation from God is the only true “godliness.” That they will never know God until their outward performance is perfected first.
So have I eaten of the fruit of the tree of life offered to me by Jesus? I actually believe that I have. And if so, when did I have that experience and how has it affected my life? I'm so glad Bonnie asked this of me because it is good that I delineate these things as clearly as I can.
First, I share about God initially winning my heart at the age of 21 in the article, “Cutting the Covenant.” Yet, as in all things, God must prove to us what is already true, and thus it took the next 20 years for Him to convince me that yes, my heart did belong to Him. But when I left the move communities, my heart was frozen; I believed there was something terribly wrong with me.
Thus, I could not fully give my heart to God until John Eldredge (from 2001-2004) had taught me to say, and to completely believe, that my heart is good. That God prizes my heart above all things. Understand that God's changing of our psychology takes time. God can change our bodies, our outer form, in the twinkling of an eye, but winning our hearts and changing our minds simply takes time.
Then, in the fall of 2006, after hearing the thought, “Speak what God says you are,” I wrote out all the New Testament verses that were pertinent as confessions of faith concerning Christ our only life. It is when I arrived at Colossians 3:11 and wrote these words, “Christ is all there is in me,” at that moment, I do believe, I ate of the tree of life. At that moment, my teeth pierced its skin. I believed with all my heart that it was true. At that moment, for the first time in my Christian experience, God could begin to transform my thinking.
But, as I said, the changing of our minds is a progressive experience. Yes, I believed without wavering, but it took five years, five years of speaking Christ to myself every single time the question came at me, from the fall of 2006 to the fall of 2011, in order to completely change my mind. I no longer “fight” to know that Christ is my only life. I fought to know that for five years; that passage is completed. During the first couple of years of that passage, the accuser assailed me more ferociously than I have ever known – yet my heart stayed firm. At no point did I waver.
That doesn't mean I didn't get angry with God and utterly discouraged from time to time. That is normal, and it speaks nothing of the fixed nature of the heart. Such times never lasted very long.
But then God used the email sent by the brother in the early fall of 2011 to drive me further into the knowledge of Him than I had ever gone. Writing three articles in particular, “God Is Beneath Your Feet,” “The Weakness of God,” and “Filled with All Fulness,” over a several month period, changed something in a big way on the inside of me, altered my SEEING.
Now, I do not boast or make “claims” of myself. It should not surprise us at all that Jesus would grant us to eat of the Tree of Life. It is the normal Christian Life; it is what the gospel always was about. The veil has always been wide open; the invitation to enter boldly into the Holiest of All has always been there.
The difference for me is very simple. I know God so differently from how I ever knew Him. I know Him as the One who carries me, arising from beneath of me, catching me up always in Himself, stumbling with me along my way, limiting Himself by my weakness, carrying me into Life, ascending on high, and I in Him.
He fills me FULL in Person. I see myself now as a thin shell of acacia wood, beloved of God, soft to His hand, filled full with God on the inside – as if my heart all the way out to my ribs has been replaced by God Himself, surrounded by God on the outside, always flowing out of me. I am never tempted to “see” myself by outward sight. God is my life; He fills me full; I know nothing else.
I'm still me. Still a silly man bumbling along through life. But I will not back down; I will not stop speaking Christ; I go out from His throne with His purposes flowing out from me.
But I do NOT have to be SOMEBODY! I don't have to present myself as some great man of power and faith. What a burden of vanity! The One who is Somebody fills me full. His glory shines through my weakness.
And the same with you.
– And the same with you.
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