As told by Cliff Dyrud, September 2006.

What I am about to tell you is a story of love from your Creator.

As I was talking with God about some longings in my heart, I sensed Him asking me if I would join with His heart and feel His longings — even His pain.  I then wrote down the words and understandings that came to me.

– Although the message that came to me in this way is greatly expanded and personalized, I believe it is the same message that is found in the Bible, in seed form, in John 1:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.'” From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.”  John 1:1-18(NIV)

– The following are the words and understandings that I wrote down as they came to me:

The focus of life was not meant to be struggling to make a living: to be able to have enough income to provide for yourself and your family; wishing for things — to be able to have a few things; struggling against evil forces that are so difficult to overcome; trying to avoid ill health or serious injury or calamity or disaster of various kinds.

The focus of life was meant to be on powerfully joy filled relationships: first with God, who is present with us and who really loves us, who enjoys us, and whom we enjoy very much; then close personal relationships with loved ones and other family and friends, neighbors, coworkers, and others from our community and country and beyond.  It was meant to be a life characterized the most by love, joy and peace with only happy longings and expectations of good things.

But Evil came and enticed us by looking desirable, and offering a better way.  It was a trap — but it seemed so desirable.

We fell for it.  And now there is a struggle, always a struggle, either just to survive or to find and keep some happiness in a harsh, sometimes very cruel world.

Evil abounds.  There is a knife piercing our hearts because of the separation we feel deep inside, the loss of a beautiful love relationship with our Creator who loved us.  And it affects all our relationships too.  The evil one has claimed His wages.  We were lured into his trap.  It looked so good.  Now we experience the bitterness of it and long to get back to joy and peace and happiness.

We long for love, but have lost the knowledge of it.  We have a deep longing and hunger and thirst for real love.  What is it?

And why is there so much evil all around?  The world has so much of it.  Yes, it is even there inside us.  There is so much of it in our hearts.  Evil all but drowns out our knowledge of the good.  At times it overwhelms us and takes away even hope.

Yet our longings and glimpses of hope are not just there to mock us and taunt us, to steal all joy in life, to bring us to despair and leave us in hopelessness.  These longings are glimpses of what we once had and what we still would want — if it is not too late.

My friends, I bring words of hope and joy, and peace and love to you.  Hope is here, in you and around you; but it has been so darkened that it is so hard to find.  Even the land, the soil, the trees and plants and animals, the rocks and hills and ocean know there is more.  These things even know there once was more; they too, long for it to be restored.

What I am about to share are not just words about hope and joy and love they are words full of hope and joy and love and peace because your Creator loves you.  He is not satisfied to leave you in a world darkened by the evil one.  He is not satisfied to leave us where our own evil will lead us.   He too, knows hurting and longing.  He too was hurt.  The beautiful love relationship He had with us in the beginning was brutally taken away.

He made us on purpose to know Him and love Him like He loved us.  When He created us, the beauty of love and joy and life filled the whole earth.  The people he made so lovingly knew only His love and a plentiful garden of beauty and light and love — until the evil one came and enticed them with lies of something more.

Was there any truth to what the evil one offered?  The answer is only “yes”, if knowing what evil was like was gaining something more!

We didn’t know that allowing ourselves to know evil would destroy our life of love, joy, peace and happiness.  God knew and He had warned Adam not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  But God also could not force us to do, or not do, anything.

Have you ever felt like you were forced to do something you didn’t want to do; that you really didn’t want to do?  Our Creator’s love is perfect.  God would not make us do only what He wanted us to do.  For then we wouldn’t be free.  The love God has for us was not that of a master toward his slave or that of the owner of animals toward his animals, that He would make us do only what He wanted us to do.  God, made us to be free to choose to enjoy His love, and love Him back out of free and joyful hearts.

He made us with love, that kind of love in His heart.  There was great risk in it.  In making us with the ability to choose like that.  But He did it.  He did it knowing that we might choose to go away from Him.

He put His heart into the creation of man.  He knew it would hurt if we didn’t love Him back.  He had wanted us only to enjoy Him and this whole world He created for us:  where making a living was not a struggle; where enjoying each other and loving each other was not a struggle.  His heart was forever bound up together with our hearts for He had made us to walk with Him and talk with Him.

But when we chose to try what the enemy told us would be desirable, His heart was pierced with the pain.  His pain was the loss of all that mattered to Him in all His creation that He had so lovingly created.  His pain was in knowing that we would now hurt each other too.  Even parents and children would hurt each other.  Even friends would hurt each other.  Neighbors would hurt each other.  Acquaintances would hurt each other.  Strangers would hurt each other.

The land and soil and air and all created things would now be affected too.  It would mean we would live lives of struggling.  That is not what He had planned; not what He had wanted us to have.

Now we knew good and evil and eventually He would have to let the full extent of how bad evil can be, come to us.  He had to because we asked to know good and evil and He had made us able to choose.  He had done this so that it would be possible for us to truly know love.  Not the love of a pet for its master.  Not the love of someone who has to be in a relationship they didn’t want.  But the love of being completely free to choose, and yet choosing that relationship freely because we wanted it.

The pain in His heart was all the pain of all of us added together because that is what He felt.  Only God could stand that much pain as well as His own pain of His own loss. He loved us and we were the most precious thing to him of all He had made.  We were all He ever longed for, and now His heart was torn apart.  The enemy had managed to get us to choose to know evil.  And He, our perfectly loving Creator, would have to let us go the way we asked to go.

He cried out in His anguish: “I’ll do whatever it takes.  I’ll pay the full price of perfect love.  I’ll pay the full price for all so that if any will choose to come back to Me it will be made possible.”

– This was all I could write at the time.  Later I asked, “Lord, is there more to complete this message You have given me to speak to the people?”  This is what I sensed He said to me:

“Tell them I paid the whole price.  When I died in their place it was more than that.  That death was a tearing apart of God Himself.  I had always been one with the Father; there had never been a separation.  Why would there be?

“Yet the darkness, the deep darkness of evil now touched all of mankind.  None could escape.  None could be righteous, pure, holy and good.  What would life ever be like if that was the end of the story forever, for all?

“There was a way. There was only one way.  I had to pay the price — if I was willing to.

“What would it be?  What would it cost?

“I would have to take all the sin of every person and call it My sin, My very own.  Not that I would take your punishment for your sin.  No.  The question was, ‘would I be willing to take your sin as if it were My very own, as if it was Me who did it?’  That was the price, the only price that could undo what the enemy had done in My creation, to My creation, to My loved ones.

“I did not take long to answer.  I knew the cost, the horrible price.  I didn’t wait for the question.  I offered Myself right away.   I said to the Father, ‘I will do whatever it takes.’  That is how it came to be that I died for your sin.  I died for your sin.

“But I didn’t just die for your sin.  I became sin.  I, who knew no sin, I took your sin, not just your punishment.  Your sin was placed on Me.  The Father could see it on Me as My sin.  As if it had been Me who did it. And He could not see it on you any more!  He considered that it was Me who did it.  That cut His heart beyond anything you can imagine.  I who was always pure and holy and righteous and just, I who was one with Him, as a very part of Him: was now cut off from Him.

“He looked and he could see Me as I hung on the cross, that cross that was made by the very ones I would die for, the very ones I would rescue from the darkest fate of being lost to Him forever.  As He looked on Me His only Son He would see only one who was full of all sin.  All the evil that ever any human being has ever done was given to Me as Mine, as if it was done by Me: as My own sin!  You cannot imagine that hour, those moments in time that spanned eternity.”

–  Then as He spoke these words it helped me to try to grasp what that really meant:

“Was I the one who lied, who planned how to hurt another, who wanted to be the most important, who hated and killed?  — Who hurt an innocent child in an evil way, who beat those closest to me, who wanted revenge, who took what I could that wasn’t mine to take?  — Who said cutting hurtful words, who tried to make myself feel good even if it meant saying things that would deeply hurt another?  Was it I who was selfish and cruel?  Was I the one who wanted my brother or sister to get in trouble?  Was it I who felt slighted and wanted to hurt back?  Was it I who said unkind words about another? — Who was unfaithful to my husband or wife?  Was it I who thought lustful thoughts, or jealous or envious thoughts, who judged and cursed others, who took what wasn’t mine?

“Was it I who turned my back on God?  Was it I who said God was wrong to do the things the way He did?  Was it I who even didn’t believe He loved me?  Was it I who cursed God as well as my brother or sister?”

– These words gripped my heart as I caught a glimpse of what it meant.  He went on:

“‘Yes, Father,’ I had known that is what it would take, ‘Yes, consider that it was I who did those things, I who tortured your children, I who lived in hate and who hurt others in unspeakable ways.  I can take all of the evil that ever any man or woman, boy or girl has ever done.  Count it as My sin.’

“Then I took your sin.  The Father could see it only as My sin.  Will you accept that?  I did this for you because of how strong and perfect My love is for you.  Is that good enough for you?  You can be completely saved now.  I paid the full price because I love you.  I was the only one who could do it.  I did it.  I survived.  When I rose again from the dead it proved that it was completely done.  That means all your sins are now taken away from you.  All that is left is for you to choose.

“I am here with you today.  I love you.  Many of you have already made the choice to accept Me and My love.  Because you have done that, My Father is extremely happy.  It is worth it for Him and it is worth it for Me to pay such a price so that you could choose.  Love is like that.  Love does not demand.  Love gives.  And it fills Me with joy.  I delight to see My children choose Me!

“When I hung on the cross, even then, it seemed like the price was so small.  Not because it wasn’t very very great, but because it was for you!  I saw you.  I saw each of you, and it filled my tired, weary, burdened, torn heart with so much joy that all the cost and all the pain seemed so small compared to this one thing.  This joy that I have to think that you can now choose to come back to Me.  You cannot imagine it; you can only catch a glimpse of how great this joy of Mine is!   Please come.  Please, all of you come.”

“Will you come to Me, all of you who have not yet come?  Will you accept Me?  Will you accept My love?  Will you turn back to Me and choose to walk with Me?  Are you willing to give up your right to choose to go away from Me?  — To choose to keep on knowing and walking in darkness and evil ways?

“It is true that you cannot stop yourself from doing sinful things and having sinful thoughts.  But if you will turn away from that way, toward Me, you can begin to walk with Me.  I am strong to change you.  If you are willing, I can do that in you.  But mostly, I just ask you today, ‘Will you come to Me?’  Or will you choose to keep walking away from Me?  I will not make you do what you do not want to do.  If you will come to Me it will only be because of love.

“Do you feel My love for you?    Do you want it in your heart?  The cost for you will also be great.  You know that.  But if you will choose Me, our joy will be greater than the cost and this joy shall have no end.

“I love you.  I long for you.  Come.  We will walk together again and this time it will never end.  I am preparing a place for you to be with Me forever in My Father’s house in heaven.

“Even now, I am here with you.  I am asking you to walk with me today and always.  Will you come to me?”
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– You will be able to tell in your heart if you want to come to Him.  Let yourself feel what is in your heart; do you need His love there?  Please consider responding to this message by choosing and praying (talking to God) something like one of the following:

____ Yes, Jesus, I choose to come to You now and to keep on walking with You forever.  I accept what You did for me in taking my sin as though it was Yours.  Thank You so much!  I am so sorry for what You had to go through because of my sin.  I invite You into my life.  I don’t want to keep walking in my old ways. Please change me as You said You can do.  Help me to submit to You and Your changing work in my life as we walk together.  Please reveal Yourself to me and show me how to walk in Your ways with You always.  Thank You, Jesus Christ, my Creator and my Savior.  I love You.  Amen.
– Or, if you are not ready to pray as written above, you may wish to pray: – Jesus, I want to believe You and trust You and receive Your love like You have talked about here.  Please help me.  Please work in my mind and heart to overcome the doubts and fears and anything else that may be in the way of trusting You and loving You.  Please have mercy on me and reveal Yourself to me or let me know anything I need to know to truly believe and trust You and not be afraid.  I want to know You and have Your love in my life.

If you responded with a “Yes” to this message, please contact:  yes@releasingdestinyworldwide.org