Date: December 7th 2008

A Video Recording of this Letter

Two Sides to the Exchange
Daniel Yordy

"At that day you will know that I am in My Father and you in Me, and I in you." Jesus (John 14:20)

This is that day.

Always before, we held the idea that this statement of Jesus is fulfilled in a geographic way. Somewhere inside of me, over there, maybe, in my "spirit," is Jesus. From this geographic view, we get statements such as, "Jesus wants to move into every part of your life, if you will let Him."

Or, we create a theology that says, "That may be our 'position,' but it is not our 'experience.' So we have to make our position our experience."

Both of these concepts are convenient ways of calling God a liar, and calling ourselves "believers" at the same time. We look at ourselves and we judge God's claims about us to be wrong. God says "You are dead." I look at myself and see things with my natural view that tell me that God cannot be correct. So I cook up a way of thinking (theology) that allows me to be wiser than God while imagining that I am humbly seeking Him at the same time (death to self.)

[I have made this observation. Often, those who practice "death to self" the hardest, take on a flavor of harshness and religious arrogance that is not the sweet Spirit of Jesus. Those who walk down this path of unbelief can never overcome, they can never be 'dead.' Those who cannot believe that they are already dead cannot ever 'die.']

Jesus says, "I am in you." But we look at ourselves and see very un-Christ-like qualities. So we judge both ourselves and the words Jesus speaks by our carnal judgment, by what we see with our eyes. I lived for many years under the teaching, "See Christ in your brother." But our unbelief led us to ignore that teaching in practice and pretty much see 'the flesh' instead.

When Jesus said, "You are in Me." He meant all of me. He meant my human self, my flesh, my sin, my aspirations, my hopes, my dreams, all of me - I am in Him, organically, personally, really.

And when Jesus said, "I am in you." He meant He, Jesus, is in every part of who and what I am, organically, personally, and totally.

I dare not ever to judge myself by what I see with my eyes or feel with my emotions. I will only know anything about myself by what God says. God says that Christ is my life. He says that old things are passed away and that all things (in me) are made brand new.

But now let me come to the truth that God has made so real to me, once again, as He does over and over. Yes, we will overcome sin and the flesh and this world and Satan and death. And we will do so in this age and on this earth. The question is how!

Here is the secret. The One who fills me in all that I am has already overcome all things. But Jesus does not live in me as a mystical 'force.'

[New Age teaching is a clever counterfeit of the truth. As such it serves more to keep Christians out of the truth than to deceive them with the false. The counterfeit looks so much like the truth that most Christians avoid the truth in order to avoid the counterfeit.]

No, the One who fills me is Jesus, the person, Jesus. He is the One living His life in me, in all of me.

"At that day. . ." We are in the day of the revelation of Jesus Christ; He is fulfilling all things spoken by God, inside of us. Satan knows those who are marked by the election of God. We understand that the demonic realm assaults us because they are terrified. Never do we overemphasize the assault, but we bear it in faith, holding to Jesus, holding to Jesus.

The other night, I was hit with all the discouragement and despair that is so familiar to me. In my mind, I had every reason to quit. Who was I kidding? I am alone, cut off from fellowship, maybe because God has cast me off. I'm a jerk, a loser. I decided to wrap myself in despair. I did not call on Jesus.

I tried, but I could not. Jesus laughed out of my heart, throwing off the darkness, "You silly boy, you belong to Me." Joy and faith and hope flooded me, filling me full. The darkness vanished as if it had never been.

I did not desperately cry out; I did not need to.

Listen, it is Jesus who lives in us. He is the Savior. He is the One who overcomes all things.

My part is to believe in Jesus, who lives in me.

This is what I mean by "Two Parts to the Exchange." I give myself to Jesus in weakness; He gives Himself to me in power. The Jesus who lives in my humanity, lives there in power. I am so very weak. I cast myself in all of my weakness fully into Him and He carries me.

But He is so very strong. And He pours Himself, at all times, in all ways, in all of His mighty power into every part of me. It is Jesus who wills to fill me. I did not choose Him; He chose me. And He chooses to be Himself in me.

I know those who have walked with all commitment and zeal for 40 years or more, believing that they must obey, overcome, die to self, before Jesus will fill them in all of His fullness. They can never, ever believe that that moment is come. If they persisted in their faithful pursuit of a Jesus who is separate from their weakness for ten thousand years, at the end of that time, you would find them as they are now, hoping that some day, some day, they will overcome and then, Jesus will reveal Himself in them.

Of all unbelief on this planet, Christian unbelief, pursued with all zeal and faithfulness, is the very saddest of all.

I will never become like Jesus until I know that Jesus has become me. Then, as I delight in the pure joy that the simplicity of faith in my complete and utter oneness with Jesus, my Savior, gives, I discover what I know to be true.

Jesus is power. And that power changes me, from the inside out. He changes me to be like He is, not because I try, but because He is.

But never do I worry when I imagine that I don't look like Jesus. Jesus is living His life in my life, in both the utterly human and the inconceivably divine.

All that I am as a man, I am utterly in Jesus. And all that Jesus is, as both human and God, He is utterly in me.

As Jesus said, He and I are one.