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19. The Bond of the Covenant
Final Observations:
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19. The Bond of the Covenant
First, thanksgiving brings all things to rest in submission to Jesus, but the expectation of God arising is always current and primary.
We never give thanks for that which is difficult without also, to greater measure, expecting God to arise within that thing, transforming it and turning it into wondrous good. Giving thanks brings all things into God's sphere of redemption; expecting God to arise sees Him always doing all that He speaks.
Do you see how strongly Theistic this way of walking really is? Bring all things into God, see God arising in transformation making all things brand new in the new creation.
The extraordinary difference for us is the Blood. By bringing “cancer” by name into the Mercy Seat, we are not “honoring” cancer. Nor are we dumbly submitting to any powerful continuing of “cancer.” You see, the one with cancer does NOT want healing first. They want God first. What good is healing if there is no knowledge of God arising from within into the new creation?
The purpose of vanity is that the sons of God would transform the old into the new by glorious liberty. Healing taking place inside the perimeters of the old may be convenient for the moment, but if the full inner knowing of the Pillar of Fire inside of us is not the thing that brings the healing, then all of it is just one big waste of time. People get sick; people get well; everything stays the same.
More than that, it is easy to see that the practice of not saying, “Cancer” because then it will be “more powerful than Jesus,” actually makes that thing something big in the eyes of the one frightened by the horror gripping his or her body. It becomes just one more form of a(no)-Theism. Giving thanks for the cancer by name brings it into the Mercy Seat, into the sphere of Jesus living as us in this world. Suddenly our weakness is the dwelling place of His strength.
Having brought the cancer, the autism, the difficult circumstances, the hurt, the loss, into the sphere of the Lamb-Having-Been-Slain, into thankfulness, into love for ourselves as we find ourselves to be in the present moment, now we see only the Lord Jesus Christ arising on high as the Pillar of Fire inside of us, carrying ever part of that which was once “wrong” up into goodness, into the new creation, into resurrection Life.
Giving thanks for Asperger's causes me to expect God like I have never expected God, in spite of any present weakness. Yet it is God alone that I expect, arising within me. All outward things and circumstances are perfectly in His hand, and I am at total rest in Him. I will not be driven by any biting whip of “Get healed, brother.” Yet I expect God always arising within me with healing in His wings. I expect only what must be real. Pretending for healing is a terrible hell in which to live, a way of living I banished some years ago.
Second, every piece of furniture in the Tabernacle comes forward with us and is found fully in the final three, the Ark of the Covenant, the Mercy Seat, and the Pillar of Fire. The Lamb-Slain is the Brass Altar, the Altar of Sacrifice, yes, but He is also the Mercy Seat. Every element of the Brass Altar, as it truly is, is found now within the Mercy Seat. God caused us to see those things as the Brass Altar at first, yes, because it was necessary for us to see the Lamb-Slain for our own redemption. Now, sitting upon the Mercy Seat, we have no need to see any element of redemption for ourselves. We are redeemed. Rather, we see that same redemption, now, for all creation.
Thus the Brass Altar, the Brass Washbasin, the Table of Showbread, the seven-branched Lampstand, the Altar of Incense, all things that were once our path into the full knowledge of God are now revealed as the Mercy Seat/Ark of the Covenant, through us to all.
That's why, even though the Ark returned to the Holy of Holies in Solomon's temple, it really is David's Tent that God restores in the church – the Holy of Holies, by itself alone, with the Ark of the Covenant covered by the Mercy Seat, and surrounded by many worshipers, Jew and Gentile (that is, neither Jew nor Gentile, but one new man in Christ), all worshiping God with all abandon together.
“After this I will return and will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will set it up; so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who are called by My name,” says the Lord who does all these things. Acts 15:16-17
Third, we see ourselves seated on the throne of grace, looking out upon creation.
The purpose of looking at the Path of the Atonement, at the progression of the furniture of the Tabernacle into the Holiest is so that the Spirit of God can cause us to understand, to know, and thus to move in all confidence in the throne of God upon which we presently sit.
This is the power of metaphor and why God uses metaphors and symbols all through the Bible. You can go back and find everything I say in these last few letters all through the three volumes of Our Path Home. But I never saw then what I see now. I never had the confidence then in the truth I was writing that I have now.
By draping the truth of Christ across the structure of the symbols God gives us, we know Him far beyond how we could have known Him otherwise. This picture of drawing all things into the Mercy Seat upon the Blood where all things might be caught up into the Pillar of an always arising God is the most powerful picture of our present reality that I have ever known.
Yet here upon the Mercy Seat, here in the Tabernacle of David, in the Holiest of All cast wide to include all things freely to enter in, we are looking out from God to all creation.
The first thing we see is our brethren laboring in the Altar of Incense on the other side of the veil, unable to enter in because they believe that their hearts are evil and that their flesh cannot be filled with God. They simply do not believe the 5th, 6th, and 7th Most Important Verses in the Bible.
Then we see our brethren locked into Holy Place or Outer Court mentality, seeing nothing more in God than their limited present knowledge. Then we see all humanity laboring under the curse, whether dead or alive. Then we see all angels and animals, fallen or unfallen, wandering or kept. Then we see all the substance and reality of both the physical side of creation and the heavenly side of creation.
We KNOW Jesus-Christ-Sent. And the knowing of the Sent One flows through us out to all. All creation is our mission field. You shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. Acts 1:8 – As Jesus said at the end of His sharing in the upper room, He speaks figuratively.
The brethren laboring in the Altar of Incense are Jerusalem, the mother of us all, the Jerusalem of God, the woman clothed with the Sun, laboring to give birth. Indeed, it is this Jerusalem alone that God sees and that we honor with all the honor of David. Those found in a lessening experience of the Holy Place and in the Outer Court are “Judea and Samaria,” and all the rest of creation are “to the end of the earth.”
This is our calling, our mission, our sending, our view. From out of us flow the rivers of living water that alone set creation free.
Fourth, the picture of the Pillar of Fire is how we see ourselves, all things caught up into God through us.
This image of myself as the tip point of the Pillar of Fire touching the earth upon the Mercy Seat, my heart, causing all things to pass across the Blood, becoming brand new in an always arising God is the most powerful knowing of the revelation of Jesus Christ I have ever known. What wonders will I come to know as I practice this way of seeing God revealed through me?
Let's find out together.
Finally, we must look, now, at the Covenant as one complete whole. I had thought at first to write this as an actual contract document. That would be powerful, yes. But then I could see such a thing taken by our fellow silly humans and turned into something outward that it cannot be. So I will not cast it quite in that way. Nevertheless, here is the Covenant. We do not call it “the New,” anymore because the old is gone and forgotten. It is –
The Covenant:
Party of the First Part:
God the Father, entering all creation as the Spirit of God in the heavens and the Son of God in the earth.
Party of the Second Part:
All human believers, first as individuals – whosoever will may freely enter in, and then as a corporate body of Christ. You and me.
Bond of the Covenant:
Blood, the Blood of the Lamb as God ripped open for all to see Him as He really is upon the cross of Christ. A Man laying down His life for His friends – God revealed as He truly is. Binding and forever.
Nature of the Covenant:
A Blood Covenant. That is, regardless of who and what God is, regardless of who and what man is, in the signing of the Covenant, both become equal in all things. Everything God is belongs to man; everything man is belongs to God. The two are made one, Person inside of person inside of Person. Back to back, looking out for each other in all ways. Shoulder to shoulder, walking together in all things as the closest of friends. Heart to heart, sharing unending intimacy. Eye to eye, in equality of heart in every way. Person inside of person.
The Signing of the Covenant:
On the first part, the Blood, written by the finger of God upon the dirt of this earth and found now upon the Mercy Seat, hearts of flesh. On the second part, the waters of baptism as an initial gesture, sealed by man in finality by abandoning himself utterly into the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ as the final act of passing through the Veil. Total surrender to the reality of Christ as us, becoming us, carrying us as we find ourselves to be all the way into Life.
Personal Goal of the Covenant:
On the first part – a body You have prepared for Me. The ability on God's part, finally, for the first time, to be seen and known and touched by His creation throughout all the heavens and throughout all the earth for all the ages to come through many sons, just like Jesus. On the second part – Glory. Man is HEART made to be filled at all times and in all ways with Omnipotence. Man must have glory. We cannot live any other way. Many sons to Glory.
Secondary Goal of the Covenant:
God and Man, together as One, set all creation free into the glorious liberty of the new creation. God and Man, together as One, search out every lost and hurting soul hiding in the darkness and coax them out into the Light and Love of God, translating each one from darkness into light, from the old creation into the New.
Long-Term Goal of the Covenant:
On the inside, God and Man share the unending intimacy of knowing one another in joy, in longsuffering, in Love. On the outside, God and Man, a corporate Man, the corporate Body of Christ, together as One, Guide and Shepherd all creation, as it flows in unending increase out of this God and Man who are always too much. God who is always thinking up new things, Man whose heart demands new worlds to conquer, new glories to unveil.
Adventure! and many, many “Unexpected Journeys,” yet always Home and Comfort and Peace.
The Central Point of the Covenant:
First: We KNOW that we ARE just like the Lord Jesus Christ, for we see Him AS HE IS.
Second: Romans 8:28-30 (my paraphrase).
And we know that God and we work all things together for good, we who love God and are the called according to His purpose. For from the very beginning, God determined to conform us to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Inside that original determination, we were called, we were justified, and we were glorified in all the glory of Jesus before God right now. We have never lived anywhere else.
We are the image of Jesus Christ revealed to all creation; we stand fully in the glory of Jesus before God in all ways right now, and we and God together cause all things to pass from evil to good, from death into life.
The Primary Terms of the Covenant:
One – We KNOW the love of God; God fills us with All the Fulness of Himself.
Two – We drink of all that is Christ; the Holy Spirit flows out of us as rivers of living water.
Three – We carry the Blood upon our hearts, the throne of God, we speak all that Christ our life is through us, and we abandon all former “sense of self” with all joy into the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ living as us in this world; all that speaks against the Word God speaks falls into silence and submission before Him.
The Central Challenge against the Covenant:
First by the serpent – “Did God really say that?”
Second by that body of people who exalt the law, the tree of knowledge, pretending by human performance to look like God, to be “gods” – “Come let us kill Him that the inheritance may be ours.”
The Lie against the Covenant:
“Do what God says,” and then you can be “like god,” with no need for God Himself in Person filling you full as your very and only life – and you can subdue the earth, get your own flesh underfoot, by your own smarts and ability without the need for rivers of living water to flow out of your belly.”
The Voice of that Lie:
“God, I hate the way You made me; if that be sin, then curse me.”
The Voice that Conquers the Lie:
Jesus, as He arises from Gethsemane: “Father, I will drink Your Cup – Oh, the Joy You have set before Me.”
Jesus, in the last moments of the Cross: “Here am I. I and the children whom You have given Me.”
The Path by which We Are Led to Conquer the Lie:
First – I AM already and fully crucified with Christ, but I am still alive – alive unto God, only it's not me, it's Christ, only it is me, the me brand-new alive unto God. And the life I live in this present body of flesh, flesh of God's flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who fills my heart full. Just as Jesus is IN the Father, so I am in Him and He is in me, every part of me in Him and Him in every part of me.
Second – I enter with all the daring boldness of God's heart filling mine right into the Holiest Place in heaven, the very throne of God, with my heart, the Mercy Seat, sprinkled always with Blood, and with my body, flesh of His flesh, washed with pure water. I have the right to be just like Jesus; I have the right to set all creation free.
Third – I declare with all confident boasting that I am just like Jesus before God right now. I partake of all that is Christ as my confidence stays high all the way through. I give thanks for all things, expecting God always to arise in me, carrying me on high, and I in Him. I exult boastfully in the full and final victory of Christ in me, though I see it not and though I remain forever in the perfect weakness God made me to be. God ALWAYS leads me in triumph.
Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Look at me, God. I belong to You.
Let every word You speak be fulfilled in me
in all that You mean and forever.
Let every word You speak be fulfilled in me
in all that You mean and forever.
The Proving of the Covenant:
– And the Glory of the Lord filled the House of God.
– Declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead; death is swallowed up in victory.
– All creation is set free into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.
– The Glory of the Lord covers the earth as the waters cover the sea.
The Everlasting Treasure of the Covenant:
I have found Me a Man after My own heart.
The Eternal Essence of the Covenant:
God in Person revealed through human flesh, you and me together, and flowing out of our bellies across the universe as rivers of living water. God manifest in the flesh.
~~~
If you would look back at letter one of this series, “The Covenant,” you would see that the proving of “my experiment” and the proving of the Covenant are the same.
And so you see, the “Most Important Verses” in the Bible are, in fact, the very terms of the Covenant – and that is as it must be.
We could add many addenda to the Covenant, things God does say, but to add much more here is to lessen the power and effectiveness of the central issues of God and man, of creation and eternity.
~~~
All good things must come to an end, and so I must close out what has been the most life-changing (for me anyway) series I have written yet.
The concern over the Mayan Calendar was much more widespread than I had realized. All across the world people were preparing. My only interest was to understand the basic facts behind it, otherwise I paid it no mind. The purpose of setting “dates” is to make money. It's a great scam because nothing ever happens as it is “supposed to” which means the scammers get to write another scenario and make more money as soon as everyone forgets.
Everyone has their eyes in the wrong place.
Everyone is convinced that nothing happened on December 21, 2012. We would be wrong to believe that.
When Mary said, “Behold I am the handmaiden of the Lord, let it be to me according to Your word,” she altered the universe; the former age came crashing into ruin. No one knew; she hardly knew. But growing inside of her was the new age that would transform everything.
And so it is today. No one knows that the age of human folly has ended. No one knows that the new age has begun. No one knows that the world is finished and that the Kingdom is rising upon the earth. They are all looking in the wrong place.
On December 21, 2012, I wrote the majority of “The Pillar of Fire,” completing it the next morning. I didn't plan to write it on that date; that's just the morning that I was filled with the fire of that word. Yet that picture of the Pillar of Fire has changed me as much as the writing of “Filled with All Fulness” at the end of the Kingdom Rising series changed me.
In and of myself I am not anything. But I am not in and of myself. The Creator of heaven and earth fills me with all of His fulness and by Him the world HAS ended and by Him the Kingdom arises, swallowing up all things into Love.
For this concluding letter, I went through the entire series of the Covenant, listening to the audios and writing down those things that needed to be repeated in the final wrap-up. Rather than attempting something “brilliant,” I will simply write out those notes as they came through the series – in slightly expanded form.
One – the groaning travail of the creation, the hopes and fears of all are pinned on one thing alone, the fulfillment of this Covenant in all of its terms through you and me and others across this earth of like precious faith.
Two – by the Covenant, both God and us obtain all things that we desire. All things. God desires to be known, to be seen and touched and handled; we desire glory and adventure and utter HOME.
Three – This is a bloody, bloody Covenant, written in Blood, pressed through by Blood, seated upon Blood. By Blood, the Cup became Joy, by Blood, we stand fully in the light, by Blood, all things are translated out of the old and into the New.
Four – This third place of knowing God is the Holiest Place in the universe. No one can see what is found in this place, not as it really is, except they pass through the veil of Jesus' flesh. Except they eat of His flesh, allowing Jesus to be their flesh, allowing Jesus to become them, carrying them all the way through. Then, having entered in, we now, for the first time, see all things as they really are.
Five – the core point of the Covenant is that we shall be just like Jesus – bringing many sons to glory.
Six – from 3 AM at the beginning of Gethsemane to 3 PM, when Jesus released Himself from His body upon the cross, twelve hours of darkness, God walked between the bloody pieces of the Covenant, God as He really is, in Core, in Being, in Nature, God ripped open for all to see – the Bond of the Covenant. This Bond, this Covenant, is the most powerful thing in the Universe. This is not something God “did.” This is the only God; know Him.
Seven – glory is the end result of the Covenant for man. Glory is what we want.
Eight – we walk as Jesus walked, in the way of triumph, giving thanks for all things, expecting God to arise every moment. We draw all things into love upon the Mercy Seat, upon Blood, KNOWING that the God who fills us full is always arising on High as a Pillar of Fire, carrying all things into newness of life, carrying all things into Love.
Nine – Christ is revealed in our flesh.
Ten – the Word made flesh is what it's all about.
Eleven – the Inheritance and the contest over the Word God speaks, the conflict between the two trees, is central to the fulfillment of the Covenant. God requires a second witness of Christ, a second tearing open for all to see.
Twelve – the Covenant fulfilled is God in Person revealed in human flesh and flowing out of our bellies across the earth as rivers of living water.
Thirteen – God comes in Person to be Himself our insides and our outsides.
Fourteen – the turning of the Covenant was the moment Jesus rose to his feet the third time in Gethsemane and the Cup turned into Joy.
Fifteen – there is only One death, we cast ourselves into that One death with all abandon, only to discover that there is no death, only an everlasting arising into Life. God arises, and we arise in Him carrying all creation inside the God who fills us full.
Now – in my initial articles on Gethsemane, I presented the reality that, although we signed the Covenant initially in the waters of baptism, in truth, we have not yet fully signed the Blood Covenant with God. Yet by the end of this volume, I am speaking as if, yes, we have fully signed that Covenant and that it is sealed forever in us. You may well have the question, “But Daniel, just how, exactly, do we accomplish that final, real, forever signing of the Blood Covenant with God?” You may think that I did not spell it out in this book.
But that's just it. That final signing of the Covenant is a transaction hammered out between you and God, privately and personally.
Yet you will find the final signing of the Covenant in the last part of the letter “God of the Cup.” You will find it in the steps of Abraham ascending Mt. Moriah with Isaac at his side. You will find it in Jesus rising to His feet in Gethsemane, the bitter Cup turning into Joy. You will find it in the Battering of Desire as the Acacia Wood of the Ark is formed in the desert places, as David weeps alone in the caves. You will find it there, upon the Mercy Seat. You will find it in Blood.
You will find it when God teaches you to cry.
~~~
I have found Me a Man after My own Heart.
God Manifest in the Flesh.
Look at me, God. I belong to You.
Let every word You speak be fulfilled in me
in all that You mean and forever.
Beginning of Covenant Series
Let every word You speak be fulfilled in me
in all that You mean and forever.
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