My Joy

        Jesus My Joy        Feb 11 1999

Never a man walked the face of the earth like Jesus.
My heart is charged with the earnest of His love,
And the guard over it is fixed.

Long ago, before everything,
God had a picture in His mind’s eye.
He saw us
Perfect, as He created us in love.

And before all, God gave us His very best;
He gave us to the apple of His eye
Oh, I was all in love.

Then He spoke, and it all began to happen.
In the manifesting, everything had to happen
Because anything that could happen had to be covered
So He would sift and find us again.

Over time I have realized what I have always known.
God is one.  He is holy.  Pure light.
But in the manifesting of His wisdom, everything appeared--
All shades of color, even the dark, and the unholy...
And the multitudes, all separated and claiming their own apart from Him.
Creating their sad little gods in their minds’ eyes
But powerless to manifest anything in the clay.

Our enemy rose up, as well.
In fact, it was his dark glory that made the others flinch at the light.

Him I hate. 
He is old, and cunning, and alone I can never outwit him.
He argues me to death because he’s jealous of the one I love
But I gave myself heart and soul to my Beloved,
His love is a seal upon me that none other shall ever break
So I wait

And in the manifesting, all things happen
One by one they happen and pass; they fall away like autumn leaves,
But Jesus remains.
And my eyes are for Him; I only know I love Him
He saw me perfect in love, and His desire was for me.

When He stepped into the manifesting, 
He was disdained as a bastard son.

He was the virgin's son
In Spirit, He was conceived all clean. 
He never inherited the blood of man.
And though angels lay trembling face down before God
We didn’t recognize Him then. 
His disguise worked God's purpose.

My enemy parades himself as some kind of king in the manifesting;
He clothes himself in rich array and commands the air.

My King came wrapped in homespun, and took His measured time
Never hurrying, never hustling me along
Just speaking my name
Probing my heart with His eyes when I turned to look
Sending His words like rays of light;
Like keys into the lock of my dark soul
Offering me the strength of His arm over and over--
So many times, in fact, that in the end
My enemy nailed them up.
He nailed them up, thinking that certainly now
He had beaten me
I would bend my knee
That he would at last savor my degradation.
But I am sealed.

My Beloved came for me. 
He slipped in and took my place in the part where I am defeated,
And my enemy wins.

Then He went down further
Into the stomach of the darkest stronghold
He went down into the place my enemy counts on
And sprang it open to the light!

And when Hades' lock yielded to the word He fit into it,
Then the Ancient of Days took liberty
To open the eternal back up
To call up the One whose love disarmed all things.
Lift up your heads, ye gates, for the King of Glory comes in!


There, now, enemy of my soul! 
You sought to bathe your hands in my blood
But the blood that flowed instead of mine, dissolved your clay
And your crown and your kingdom
And your imaginations and your memory

I will surely sing of Jesus--He is my Beloved
And I am His.
Sealed and set apart
None other will I follow
This is the voice I trust

Behold       
There is no created thing which is not bare to the eye of God.
The Eternal Spirit looks into all
They are clear as glass to Him
When He looks, He looks for what God saw in His mind’s eye
For that which was created perfect in love
For the apple of His eye
And when He sees that, He calls to it, and it awakens.
Can you hear?

At first
There was nothing but the nature of God.
And in the manifesting
There is in His Spirit nothing but the nature of God
That is what He searches in us all
The nature He knows; the apple of His eye.

My Beloved placed it in me like an heirloom
And so I recognized Him when the eye of the Spirit fell upon me
I knew Jesus, Love of my life
My True Companion;
My Redeemer Kinsman
My Friend indeed
My King, and my God.

It is written  “Deep calls unto deep”
And they are voices much deeper than the language of the clay
Their words dissolve the mirey clay

In all whom He chose,
He is calling up the nature He knows
Can you hear?