God's Heart Ripped Open for All to See(Part 2)
By Daniel Yordy

"And I will give to my two witnesses and they shall prophecy . . ." The angel speaking to John - Revelation 11:3

"In that day you shall know that I am in the Father and you are in Me and I am in you." Jesus - in John 14.

We must learn to see all things out of the tree of life. We have never done that before. (And many who think they do, do so only a little, little bit if not at all.)

All my sharing (and the sharing of others of like minds) with you has been to switch us (myself included) out of the thinking of the tree of knowledge where almost all Christianity dwells, including almost all that is charismatic and 'endtime' or third feast, and into the thinking of the tree of life. Yet we ourselves have never seen the world or the things of God out from the tree of life, and so this is all brand new for us. If you think, after reading this piece, that I am rambling around a bit, you are correct.

It takes a miracle of God from the inside out for us to see and understand anything out from the tree of life, yet this is Christ and it is the normal Christian life.

How do you get into the Tree of Life? It's really quite simple. Open your eyes, you're already there. "In that day you shall know." Today is that day, if we will hear His voice.

It is here in the garden, before sin has entered, that God begins to write the story that will pierce His own heart wide open for all creation to see.

I heard someone recently give the standard line that the Garden of Eden shows us how much God loved man by putting him into such a wonderful place.

Hogwash! (the "wonderful place" part.)

The Garden of Eden was the most evil place in the universe. It was the center of all contention and rebellion against God. It was a den of vipers; it was a snake pit. It was a battleground, a theater of open war.

God could have confined Satan to anywhere in the universe. Satan is not omnipresent. He was in the garden because God wanted him there; and all of his demons were there with him.

God set him up for God's own purposes and for the fulfillment of His determination. None of this story is about man. All of it is about God. And God Himself chose to reveal the breaking open of His own heart through man.

In the same way, none of Mary's story was about Mary, and she knew that. All of it was about God, and God Himself chose to reveal the breaking open of Himself through Mary.

"And a sword shall pierce through your own heart also, that the thoughts of many hearts might be revealed." Luke 2: 35

These words were spoken to Mary, but they were not about Mary, they were about the God who was breaking forth through Mary - God becoming visible, pressing Himself against the wall, tearing His own heart open for all to see, as incomprehensible as that is. Just exactly who is this character who claims to be our Creator? What does He do when the chips are down, when He has lost everything, when His enemies are triumphant over Him? Who is He, from the inside out, hanging naked and exposed for all to see? Who is He, really?

Yet we do not think for one minute that it was not also Mary's heart that would be pierced. It was not just God's Son, hanging from that cross. It was Mary's son as well, as much Mary's as God's. Every tear God wept, Mary wept; and every tear Mary wept, God wept.

The piercing of Mary's heart and the piercing of God's heart was the same thing. Today, you and I are Mary. We are the woman clothed with the Sun and we cry out in pain to be delivered of the wondrous revelation of Christ inside of us.

I want to share again one of the Annie visions that I shared with you in Letter 13, Practicing the Presence of God (Part 1). You can find it on www.dyordy.com, click on "Christ Our Life" archives.

First, I will share a preceding vision.

The Place of a Beginning
. . . Today, when He took me into . . . a place of beginnings, it made a tremendous impact on my spirit. He showed me a certain beginning that was already in process and was coming forth upon the earth, and said, "This is the place of a beginning." It seemed as though the glorious drama of Mary were about to take place all over again, although I know that the thought is absurd (Annie's limited reaction at the time - DY).

. . . It seemed as though God, dwelling in His Cloud of excellent glory, was bringing Himself forth into a far more natural, tangible, approachable and understandable form - God Himself becoming far more reachable by man. (Again, we understand this to be through man, not just by man. DY)

That Holy Thing
"As I entered His presence, He showed me something so impressive and frightening that I feared greatly. Although He specifically told me not to fear, even so, I could not feel completely at ease, for in almost unbearable pain and in great love, He tore open, as it were, His own spiritual form or body. Even though He had told me to look at it, I feared to and wanted to hide my eyes, for after this great tearing open of Himself I could see within. There I beheld something so terribly perfect in its holiness, that even the word perfection seems to sully it in my memory. This living something was very much a part of Himself, yet it seemed as though He were bringing forth, in a tremendous beginning, a new being from His own person. It was the same beginning in God that He had shown me several days before, in "The Place of a Beginning." For long eons He has waited to manifest this most Holy Thing which He is about to bring forth.

"The tremendous, radiant perfection - the holy glory of this beginning that He showed me - was so far beyond expression and so filled with holiness and God-life, that I felt greatly perturbed, and trembled even though He told me over and over again not to fear. It was something too high, holy and perfect to look upon.

"When He said, 'The hour has now come,' it seemed that He was about to explode, not in an explosion of terrible destructive violence, but rather a pacific explosion. Then He came forth, as it were, in this explosion, and it was tremendously sweet. From this sweet, explosive breaking forth, He extended Himself over all; that is to say, He desired to manifest Himself, pouring this forth upon those of His own ones who were waiting upon Him. To me it seemed so imminent that it appeared to be right now, yet I know it was not at this moment of our time." (Annie saw this vision 40 years ago; it is now time. DY)

God begins His own story just as Charlotte Bronte began Jane's.

God sets the stage for the tearing open of His own heart before all that He had created. Just as a great writer begins the story that leads to the hero losing everything by weaving the background and the beginning, so God has done the same with His story.

God stands accused before all creation. Just as Jane Eyre was forced to stand upon a box for all her classmates to see her while the accuser explained to all of them that she, Jane Eyre, was a liar. So also God stood there, exposed in the same way and was accused of the very same thing. "God, You LIE."

And so His story begins.

God stood upon the box, just as Jane Eyre, exposed before all creation, head bowed, as the accuser pointed his bony finger at God and accused God of being a liar.

"DID GOD INDEED SAY?" The words scream across the ages.

It is these words that define the story.

A hero is great only if he has a worthy enemy.

The movie Gladiator with Russel Crowe won best picture award and rightly so. But Crowe's character, Maximus, was only half the equation. His enemy, Commodus, dominated the scene, winning victory after victory, insidious, cruel, filling all that was family with horror and terror.

If Commodus had not been so brilliantly awful, Maximus would never have been remembered and Gladiator would not have gotten the Academy Award's Best Picture.

One of the most piercing scenes in all literature (and the movie Gladiator is great literature) is the scene where one and all come forward to pick up the body of Maximus to carry him in honor from the arena. No one notices the corpse left behind, still dressed foolishly in white. No one notices; yet just the evening before all Rome was fixated in fear by that same man.

A mighty hero must have a worthy enemy. God is the greatest story writer in the universe, and God is the hero of His own story.

Without the enemy, the story does not exist. The enemy, the accusation, the opposition, these are what give definition and meaning and scope to every part of that which is story.

When I teach students to write a short story, they all come back with an enemy that is not worthy and a climax that offers no possibility of losing to the hero. They come back with words and descriptions and dialogue, but no story whatsoever. And so I make them create a worthy enemy and place their hero in mortal danger of losing everything, and those that succeed come back to me with really profound stories. This is true of all story, even children's stories; if the hero cannot lose, there is no story.

Any attempt to understand or explain what God is doing in the earth that does not take into full account this screaming accusation against God, an accusation that still stands and is hurled at Him from every side in screams and wails and horror. Out of the mouth of Satan, out of the mouth of the unregenerate, out of the mouth of the church, out of the mouth of those who call themselves Christians, the accusation is hurled.

"Did God indeed say?" "You don't really believe that, do you? - love just like God loves, walk, just as Jesus walked, overcome, just as Jesus overcame? Who do you think you are?"

And so they paint a picture of a God who runs away and hides in heaven because He cannot do what He says, in us, in our lives in this earth, right here and right now. And they define a very limited Jesus, One who cannot fulfill salvation in us here, nor extend salvation to anyone in the ages to come.

But this is God's story and to write His own story, to press Himself against the wall, to tear open His own heart for all to see who and what He truly is, He must have for Himself a worthy enemy.

Satan is not at war with God - in any kind of equality. There is no battle between "good and evil." God places the enemy into the story to serve God's purposes, not as some independent actor.

Romans 9:16-18 "So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, 'For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.' Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens. God has set them all up."

Satan's role in the story is to attack that which is the most precious thing inside Himself to God.

Psalm 138:2 ". . . For You have magnified Your word above all Your name."

God loves His Word more than He loves Himself. God has placed His own Word above every other part of His being. To dishonor in any way the Word God speaks, is to blacken the heart of God beyond what you or I can possibly comprehend.

And the Word God speaks is Jesus.

"Let there be Light." - "Did God indeed say?"

Any attempt to understand Revelation 11 & 12, or to comprehend the great story of God, or the salvation wrought by Jesus, or the fulfillment of the New Covenant at the end of this age, without knowing the central conflict of the story God has written is to engage in the foolishness and the ridiculousness that so often passes as Christianity in today's world.

"Indeed, let God be true but every man a liar. As it is written: 'That You may be justified in Your words, and may overcome when You are judged.'" Romans 3:4

The serpent in the garden and most of Christianity today judges God to be a liar, that His word might be fulfilled in heaven all right, but it certainly cannot be fulfilled in the earth, in this age, in our lives, right here and right now.

And so they paint a picture of a God who runs away and hides in heaven because He cannot do what He says, in us, in our lives in this earth.

"He that lives and believes in Me SHALL NEVER DIE. Martha, do you believe what I say?"

"Did God indeed say, 'Shall never die'? He didn't mean you; He didn't mean die; He didn't mean now. You shall not surely live, you shall die. Everybody dies. And if you believe what He says, you are obviously a weirdo kook."

God is bound by Himself, by His Word, by all that is Story, to prove that accusation false. And you and I are caught in the grip of this mighty determination of God.

Romans 12:1-2 "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."

- "Present your dying, physical, mortal bodies to God that you may PROVE His will in this earth." -

"For this mortal must put on immortality, and this corruptible must put on incorruptibility." 1 Corinthians 15

The defeat of death and the casting off of the curse is the will of God.

And God is determined to fulfill His will in us and to do it through faith. There is not one ounce of faith found in "Jesus will do it all at some point in the future." To hold to such a thought is to treat God like dirt.

But that is getting ahead of the story.

Upon the cross of Christ, God tore Himself open, pressed beyond measure, revealed for all to see, His heart, exposed and naked. This is your Creator. Know Him. The cross is absolute, and it is finished in you.

But here is the part of the story that we cannot comprehend.

2 Corinthians 13: 1 ". . . By the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established." Deuteronomy 19:15

The witness of Jesus is not sufficient for God. In the writing of His story, God requires a second witness that His word is true, a second revelation of the heart of God in man.

You and I are that second witness.

The revelation of Jesus Christ, the apokalupsis, the casting off of all that hides the heart of God from His creation, by the appointment and determination of God is found in a second ministry of Christ, a second rejection, a second death, a second resurrection from the dead.

The second witness is the vindication of God, that His Word is faithful and true.

This is not our doing, it is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. All that He is, He is in us, and all that He does, He does through us.

We are His image, His tender hands, His gentle heart. Out of our belly flows the river of life from the throne of God. We are bone of His bones and flesh of His flesh; we are the flesh of God. It is through us that God makes Himself real.

All authors reveal themselves through the hero in the story they write. The story of Jane Eyre gives us a glimpse into the heart of a brilliant woman, Charlotte Bronte, reaching for an understanding of love and life through the heroine of her story, reaching for the meaning of this thing called the image of God.

And so God has chosen you and me as the hero of His story, and God works in our own lives the awakening to who we are, the loss of all things, and the answering of heart to the call of our Beloved.

And how do you know that you are the hero of God's story?

Men call it presumption; God calls it faith.

Do we dare to place ourselves in God and to never ever leave that place again?

Hebrews 3: 6 "But Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end."

Hebrews 10:19-23 "Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful."

Place yourself there, squarely in the center of the tree of life, with all presumption, with all boldness, and with all finality of decision, and don't ever leave your place again.