Hi Everyone
Here’s last Friday’s notes and link to audio.
As we had mentioned last Friday, do have a listen to the audio again and ponder over the gravity of this thought – that God has chosen to be with us, to be One with us for all of eternity. Meditate on that and think about how this would impact our lives today as the Word becomes reality in our lives.
Blessings.
Chris
One with God Through Jesus Christ
Jesus and the Father are One
John 14:8 Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
The Father is like the Son. Jesus loves us and so does the Father. Whatever we see of Jesus, we see the Father.
10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.
Jesus operated only as He saw the Father do. He told us in John 20:21 that as the Father sent Him, He was sending us. We need to do what He did in seeing what the Father is doing, His will, and do likewise.
We can do this, because like Jesus, we operate in the power of the Holy Spirit. This increasingly becomes true as we learn to walk by faith and not by sight.
11 Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.
Jesus exhortation to the disciples was that we should believe in His words that He is in the Father and the Father in Him. This is a very significant thing, which is why we need to believe this. If we don’t believe this, then Jesus is just another man.
Jesus said that in lieu of our lack of belief in this truth, we should believe the works that He did. His works, the power of the things He did as a man, speaks for this fact clearly.
We Can Do as He Did (And More!)
12 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.
In a similar vein, we need to believe that the Father is today in us, by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are His temple. If we believe otherwise, we too shall see ourselves only as being regular humans, “mere men” (1 Cor 3:3). We are powered by His Holy Spirit and Jesus makes it clear here that we the Church should expect to do greater things than what He did, because of this. There was one Jesus here on earth, but when the Holy Spirit had come, everyone who believes in Jesus is enabled, a “Christ”-ian.
13 And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.
If we believe in Him, the works He does and the works He has enabled us to do, we can ask in His name, for the glory of the Father in the Son.
We Can Because…
15 “If you love Me, keep My commandments. 16 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. 19 “A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also.
Those who love the Lord will keep His commandments. We will receive the Helper, the encourager who will be our life-coach. We need to be in the Word first, for His Words are Spirit and Truth (John 6:63) and then we are open to be guided by the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said that the World would have no knowledge of the Spirit, but we would for He dwells in us (post- Pentecost).
…We Are One
20 At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. 21 He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” (NKJV)
We will be in a deep, intimate relationship when the Holy Spirit comes to be in us. Those who love the Lord will keep His commandments and we will be loved by the Father and Jesus will manifest Himself to us!
Unprofitable Things
1 Corinthians 6:12 All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. 13 Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods, but God will destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
Not everything we do is profitable to us. The key here is the Lordship of Jesus – we will not be brought under the power of any.
We are supposed to work in unison with the Lord, one with Him powering us
One With the Lord
14 And God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not! 16 Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For “the two,” He says, “shall become one flesh.” 17 But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him.
We are one spirit with the Lord, not two. God sees us in Christ as one!
We are Temples
18 Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. (NKJV)
We were bought at a price. What we need to realize is what has been purchased for us (1 Cor 2:12, Philemon 6, Ps 103:2). We glorify God when we live according to what has been purchased, reigning in life (Rom 5:17) in accepting His gifts of grace and righteousness, living out our kinghood and priesthood (1 Peter 2:9). When we deny this and revert our thinking to being “mere men” (1 Cor 3:3), we sell ourselves short of what we were purchased for.
Christ Sanctifies the Church
Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, 26 that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, 27 that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.
Christ loves the Church. He gave Himself for her. He wants to sanctify us, the Church, and He does this by washing of the water by the Word. There will come a day when the Church will be glorious, no spot, wrinkle and without blemish.
Christ Loves the Church As…
28 So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church.
Jesus loves us the same way a man loves his own body. He nourishes and cherishes the Church!
We are Members of His Body
30 For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. 31 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. 33 Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. (NKJV)
We are all members of His body. Christ and His Church are one. This is the concept represented to tell us how a man and his wife ought to be. If we don’t understand this part, it will be of little wonder if we cannot figure out this marriage thing.
Love Shows His Presence
1 John 4:12 No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world.
The evidence of God abiding in us is love. This is how we can know that we abide in Him and He in us. As we walk with Him in the Word, we become more and more like Him (2 Cor 3:18) and we manifest the fruit of the Spirit, loving those around us.
Abide in His Love
15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. (NKJV)
When we confess that Jesus is the Son of God, immediately God abides in us and we in God. Experientially, it takes place when we know and believe the love that God has for us. God’s love for us is manifested in His Word - what we don’t know, we cannot believe. And when we know it, we must believe it for the effect of God’s love to be full in our lives. This ties up with Eph 3:19, when we become filled with the fullness of God.
What Difference Does It Make?
Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. (NKJV)
The power that Paul lives from now is the life of Christ. Christ is never defeated, depressed, sick or poor. Christ loves unconditionally. Paul lived his life by faith in Christ, in the Word, because he knew that Christ loved him and died for him and was worthy of his trust, his faith. The more we know His love, the more we will trust His words and live walking by faith in them.
“Faith explores what revelation provides.”
- Bill Johnson
The Take Away
- Jesus and the Father are one – He did as He saw the Father do
- Jesus and us are one – We can do as He did (and more) because of the Holy Spirit
- Holy Spirit dwells in us – we are God’s Temple
- We are the Bride of Christ – Christ and us are one
- What difference does that make?
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