“Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”
The life of Jesus on earth is about finished. His disciples have been traveling with him for three years. They have witnessed miracle after miracle, healings, curses, they saw Lazarus raised from the dead and experienced Peter not walking on the water. Even the fig tree obeyed his command. Now it was all coming to an end … or so they feared.
Jesus is on earth as man. He lived as a man in submission to His Father. Everything Jesus did and said was from our Father. Jesus was the Son of Man. He was living in submission to His heavenly Father; He was in the Father and His Father was in Him. This relationship, with our Father, is Jesus’ secret to His earthly life. The difficulty with conveying this message to mere mortals is being mere mortals.
This was a problem for the disciples and for us now in 2018 but … no longer are we mere mortals. The disciples were … before receiving the Holy Spirit. But WE are now born from above by God and of God; we are in union with God! For in Him we live and move and have our being, for indeed, we are His offspring. We are in Christ Jesus.
Mortality is a problem! We are born to see and know with physical eyes reasoning in temporal reality. We are moms and dads with real time issues. These pressing distractions easily trump spiritual priorities and seem a higher urgency than religionist interests. The disciples shared this deception. It is the human flaw of flesh gone astray. But, this is a blessing in disguise!
The pressing issues of life’s daily responsibilities are a high priority but we are not dealing with religion, we are dealing with the seed of life itself, and it is spiritual! Rather than a distraction, it is in fact life’s solution provided by life’s author and creator. Jesus is Lord!
Being born from above, yet living in flesh, provides spiritual eyes to discern good and evil. In Christ, we see sin from within righteousness, we possess light, in our Lord Jesus, that discerns evil. This gives us awesome opportunities to make righteous choices and to be who God intends for us to be. Faith is God’s gift to discern good and evil.
This is grace! God provides access to the riches of Christ’s glory because we are now His offspring!! In Him, we now live and move and have our being. Our mortality reveals the beauty of Jesus and makes us desire His holiness. We can understand and choose righteousness and truth.
Jesus has turned our condemnation into a blessing. Our suffering is not our penance, it is our pathway to truth and glory. Trouble and difficulty is agape love creating growth in grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. May we grasp who we have become in Christ!!
Look at the choices and places Joseph traveled on his pathway to glory in Egypt. Look at the years of hiding and difficult choices David made before sitting on his ordained throne. It is God’s preparation for blessing.
Jesus loved His disciples making provisions for them to do a job. They were “rooted” in Jesus and knew He was going to reign as King, but not now! They had not yet experienced the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit but did experience the love and power of Jesus; they knew Jesus was from God. We love Him because He first loved us!
Jesus not only loved His 12 disciples, He loves disciples joined into Him, us! We are in Him just as He, on earth, in flesh, was in our Father. John tells us, as Jesus is in heaven so are we on earth. His love is constant and everlasting. It is much more real than any of us realize. He desires us to absorb our relationship, exploiting His grace, taking us deeper into His love. Just as with Joseph and David, He has chosen a task for us. Each of us is equipped in grace and resurrection power to do His will. Doing His Word drills us deeper into His love.
Faith cometh by hearing and hearing (spiritual hearing) by the Word of God. We need to be vulnerable to the Holy Spirit Who is joined to our spirit exposing truth to our soul. Exposing our inner self to God’s Word is essential! This is the “inner man” Paul speaks of in Ephesians. It is not the superficial self, relying on feelings and temporal reason. It is much deeper. It is our personal identity, our spirit joined to His Spirit.
Grasping our reality in Jesus is difficult because our old self still lingers in our culture. But this is why the Pharisees and Sadducees were hardened by the law, it was their form of self. Our former self did the same thing, it is who we were, but no longer; “You, however, are no longer in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.” We are receiving much more grace because we have received Jesus Christ who “became to us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification and redemption.”
We are born from above, created (ex nihilo – out of nothing) in Christ Jesus. In fact, we are no longer mortals, rather, we are just living in temporary housing.
Our old self is no longer in control, we are no longer slaves to sin. Jesus nailed our sins to His cross. Seems impossible, yes, but then look out the window. See how big is our God, mountains and oceans, delicately painted petals on Phlox, small creatures playing tag in the trees, or just the sweet whiff of something in the air. We cannot rely on feelings, we must believe and accept God’s revelation of truth given in His word!
Our relationship with Jesus is the same as Jesus’ earthly relationship with our Father, i.e., His Father. We are to walk as Jesus walked. This is what love and grace are all about. We are created in Christ spiritually, so that we can grow into spiritual maturity, that is, Christ like. His resurrected life is in us. Peter tells us we have everything we need, all things that pertain to life and godliness. No, not impossible, it is our calling and our Father’s expectation. Mere mortals? Not any longer!!
Christ is “in us.” We are learning to give up our cultural self and circumstantial life. We are in transition growing spiritual capacity while wrapped in flesh. What a blessing this is, but time is disappearing as God’s clock continues to tick. Consume God’s grace with your faith!