Eating of Christ II

By Daniel Yordy – May 8, 2011
PDF Version for printing and distribution

In my first letter on eating of the tree of life, that is eating of Christ, as Jesus said, "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has the life of the age to come," I layed out the five parts to eating. Here they are again.

1.    Giving Thanks

2.    Helping one's self to whatever dishes one wants and however much or little one chooses.

3.    Dividing the food on one's plate into bite-sized portions (here's where the knife and fork come in) and transferring the food to one's mouth.

4.    Chewing the food.

5.    Swallowing the food.

I also raised the question, "What and who is Christ?" In answer to that question, I used the analogy of a great potluck dinner.

Christ is four things, four great tables of food, each table itself filled with many different kinds of food, many different mixtures and combinations.

1.    Christ is every Word God speaks.

2.    Christ is a Spirit of Power.

3.    Christ is a Corporate Body.

4.    Christ is the One who lives as Me.

I continue here with #'s 4 and 5, chewing and swallowing Christ.

4. Chew Christ.

Faith gets ever bolder in each stop of this process. The faith involved in chewing Christ is more audacious than any faith yet.  You see, everything on the (four banquet) Tables is Christ in His own person. But when you chew Christ, the first part of yourself, your saliva, begins to mix together with that which is purely Christ.

Christ is now between your teeth.

Chewing is the very first part of the digestive process. The food we eat will do us good only as our body is able to digest it. Food that is unmixed with saliva more easily goes right out the other end. For our allegory, let's put it this way. If we will not chew of Christ, we cannot swallow.

To chew is to meditate, yes. But that is only part of chewing.

To chew is every part of practicing Christ.

Now, here is the wonderful thing. We, ourselves, as an outer vessel, are not Christ, per se. When we say, "Christ," we mean the person of the Lord Jesus. But this is the thing. He fills us. We don't have to produce a thing. I'm sitting here contemplating the reality of "being" Christ in this world as we see unending disaster unfold before our eyes. All I can see is the overwhelming sense that "I" don't have to do a thing. Christ is Himself. The closeness between the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and me is absolute. There is no distinction - yet it is He. One thing I can say about the Lord, He is very good at being Himself.

You see, Jesus walked in the consciousness of certainty that the Father filled Him. When He was threatened with violence, He did not perform any antics whatsoever, inside or out. He simply continued walking in the consciousness of certainty that nothing could touch Him except by the will of His Father - and He knew His own times and seasons.

The Lord has begun to lay upon my heart the passion of the revelation of Jesus Christ in His people. Up until now, I have carried a desire to know the revelation of Jesus Christ in understanding. Now, I see the Lord placing before me a devotion and commitment to what is truly the passion of His heart - His revelation in the midst of a people, young and old, children, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, great and small. In contemplating this commitment, I ask Him, "Lord, how?"

He answered me, several times. "Just be yourself."

All my Christian life, "being like Christ" has been presented to me in every possible way as something other than myself. "To be like Christ" meant to step aside from whatever it was I happened to be. "To be like Christ," in the end meant pretending. But I'm not very good at pretending so I was never able to be like Christ.

But if I move forward simply as myself, expecting God through me in power at all times, some people won't like me. In fact, most people won't like me. But that is not my problem. God did not place me in this world for people to "like" me.

[I'm not talking, here, about being rude and crude. Being rude and crude and then telling people, "Tough, I'm just being 'myself,'" is the practice of those who don't really know the Lord and who dislike other people.]

What I mean is being myself in simplicity of heart, but never having to account for myself or produce anything of myself. This is the first time I have found the freedom actually to commit myself to the revelation of Jesus Christ in His people. You see, I no longer have to explain "me."

This change in our thinking is the practice of "chewing" Christ.

Chewing Christ includes the actions of speaking what God speaks, of asking for all that God reveals to us is ours, believing that we have received what we ask for, and of giving thanks in and for all things, with joy.

Chewing Christ includes praying in tongues, in the Holy Spirit, with groanings that cannot be uttered. But that prayer is not what we thought in the past, "Oh, somehow, I must make something happen." No. It is a prayer of intercession, yes, but always in the confidence of joy and expectation in the goodness and favor of God. To pray, expecting God in favor, is the true prayer of faith.

I find that I can illustrate what I mean best by talking about my own present experience. I am shooting videos of myself reading from my book, The Path Home, posting those videos on YouTube, and embedding them in my website, Our Path Home. I am 54 years old. Never in my life could I have withstood the winds assailing inside of me by such a bold public presentation of myself until the last few weeks. I can do it now, based on two specific things. First, the experience of God that happened inside of me a couple of weeks ago, inside of which God spoke, "Just be yourself." Second because of the level at which my practice of "chewing Christ" has come.

Let me explain.

I awake in the middle of the night and all the raging accusation of stupidity is right there, wailing the horror of, "They will find you out now - they will see how ridiculous you are." It's right there, but it does not enter. Not even a little bit. (I share specifically the thing I face; you face something different, most likely - yet what you face is what God has given you, both to overcome and to know Christ as you overcome it.)

I recognize that thing on the outside of me only because it is so familiar and has cast me down innumerable times in the past. But it does not penetrate because of my continual practice of seeing myself in Christ and Christ in me. Only now, it is the joy of giving thanks, the certainty of confidence and boldness in His life in me, the closeness of my Beloved that fills me all the way through. And those raging wailing cries must remain on the far outside of me unseen and unheard.

Now, for those who like to analyze, I no longer see those "cries" as demons, though evil spirits are always taking advantage of anything at hand to poke and hurt. No, those "feelings" are the normal neurological "lameness" of autism, no different than someone who has lost their sight or their arm. This is the wonder that God has given to me personally to walk out of, leaning upon my Beloved. He has crafted for you your own personal weakness for the same purpose.

[Last evening (before I sent this out) it was an enemy spirit coming at me through my weakness. I wrapped myself in Christ and endured the assault, an assault that was entirely on the outside of me. In the morning, refreshed in the Lord, I understood this reality. "The prince of this world came and found nothing in me." This is where we stand.] 

- And what we "look like" as we walk out of our weakness is His business and no one else's.

The key for me is this. I no longer see myself in any way separate from Christ. If there is any problem with me, He carries all of it inside Himself, and every part of ME, HE fills with all of Himself. This statement is theologically sound, based entirely in the blood, cross, and resurrection of Christ and is, in fact, the gospel.

Yes, I have known all about "giving thanks in all things" since I was 15 years old. And whenever I tried really hard to do it, it always helped. But giving thanks was always difficult because of the FALSE theology I carried, that I was separate from God and that "my sin" and "my sinfulness" displeased Him. In actuality it was believing such nonsense that displeased God, since it was a lack of faith in what He says.

Now I give thanks all the time in simple and confident joy. I can do that because I no longer see God standing there as the WILL, requiring me to kill my own will and to submit to His. Yes, I do believe there is a time in one's life where God takes you through just such a thing. God accepts no posers into Christ. But having passed through that deepest of decisions, we now walk in Christ.

I am no longer afraid of God, not in that way. To be afraid of God is to be afraid of myself, how silly. God and I are one spirit.

Chewing Christ is the continual mental practice I engage in of seeing all of myself in Christ and seeing Christ in all that is me. This is the practice of faith.

5. Swallow Christ

Swallowing Christ is by far the greatest boldness and audacity of faith that there is. Swallowing Christ is what will get us in trouble with our brethren more than anything.

But Jesus said that unless we eat of Him, we cannot know life. Everything I have described up till now, in the end, is all a waste of time unless we swallow the food. You see, we can heap our plate with everything of Christ we can find. We can chew and chew, enjoying the full flavor of every morsel - and all that is good. But the food cannot become our life unless we actually swallow it.

To swallow Christ is to stand forth in the boldness that whatever Christ is, I am.

To swallow Christ is to declare that all that is Christ is 100% PERSONAL in, as, and through me.

Let me reach for the furthest declarations of Christ.

Christ is every Word God speaks. (Read these declarations as yourself.)

When John saw his vision of the two witnesses, he was speaking of me.

When John saw a manchild caught up to God and to His throne, he saw me.

When Paul spoke of the sons of God revealed and setting creation free, he was speaking directly of me, here and now.

When Moses spoke of the Prophet that was to come, he was referring to me.

You see, all these were speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ - He is the only life I have - therefore, in all fullness, they are speaking of me.

And I can move forward, just being myself, in the full confidence and position of these prophetic words of Christ.

Jesus said, "Except you eat of me, you cannot live."

Swallow Him, and move forward in the full meaning of these things, as God gives you each step to take.

Christ is a Spirit of Power.

I am a spirit of power. Power fills me - the same power that raised Christ from the dead. Listen, the power in which Jesus walked in His ministry was a thimbleful compared to the power that raised Him from the dead.

My spirit is one spirit with Christ. The Spirit that fills the universe and sustains all things IS my spirit and my spirit is that Spirit. We are one. My spirit goes out from me and touches all things, bringing life and healing and joy.

Swallow Christ.

This is not a difficult thing, once we give up trying to be a self separate from God, always trying to put our self life to death. Nothing exalts "self" more than always "trying to put it to death." Once we accept that Christ is our life, that we have no other life, since Christ is all these things, we simply swallow and accept the reality of who we are.

He is the Life; we are the vessel at all times and in every way.  But understand that our spirit is something we know little about and have rarely used, our body remains under the curse and therefore extremely limited, and our soul is not released in joy, not yet.

We do not know who we are.

Christ is a Corporate Body.

You belong to me and I belong to you. That's the way it is. When we understand what that really means, in the Spirit of liberty and of Love, the world will fall on their face before God, the age of human folly will cease, and the glory of God will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.

Christ is the One who lives as Me.

And when all things are said and done, no matter how astonishing and impossible to believe the things God says about Christ and about Christ in us, there is no obligation whatsoever upon me to "perform" anything. God has made me the way He wants me to be; He can be Himself in me ONLY as I am free in Him to be myself.

Now, here's something to keep in mind. Christ really is in us, and Christ really is a fantastic and wonderful person. Once we stop pretending. Once we stop seeing ourselves as separate from Him. Once we enter into the certainty that He is our life, we have no other life, then we discover an incredible transformation taking place inside of us.

We discover a kindness, a gentleness, a tenderness, as we give the little bit God has given us to give. We discover a certainty of God's favor, a boldness as we walk. We discover faith we didn't know we had. We hear a sure word in difficult places. Comfort arises in our hearts when we would not have expected it. We pray and things happen, people get healed. The right word to share to a hurting heart just chances to be on our lips.

BUT - never do we "try" to make these things happen. They just happen as we stop all shades of pretending.  We can stop all shades of pretending only when we know that we know that we know that our flesh IS His flesh. And that He nourishes and cherishes His flesh, as Paul said.

Jesus said, "Except you eat my flesh"; Paul said that we are His flesh.

The Spirit is speaking of this intimate oneness with the Lord Jesus Christ, we in Him, and He in us. By losing any claim to our own "self" identity, we have found who we truly are. As we eat of Christ we know that all that Christ is we are, and we find ourselves. We have lost a "life" worth losing, and we have found ourselves, a life that is incomparably sweet.