Life in Jesus’ Name PART IV: The Body and The Head

 “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him and he with me. The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as  also I conquered and sat down with my Father on his  throne.” –Revelation 3:20-21.

The first verse, above, is well known and often used to encourage  people to enter into God’s grace, opening their hearts to the Lord Jesus.  Our Lord obviously uses it to speak to us in this way.  Notice, the verse says“anyone” who hears my voice.  But the context of these verses openswider doors for our understanding.

These verses are from the last letter written to the seven churches. It is written to the Body of Christ in Laodicea. The Christianshere have a worldly disposition and need their eyes “anointed”to see God’s truth. But it’s not too late; Jesus is knocking at their door offering His time, His personal fellowship!

More than this, our Lord not only offers intimate,personal time but encourages them (us) to be overcomersthruthis relationship. He will reward them (us) with the prize of being with Him on His throne just as He over came,on earth, sitting down on His Father’s throne.  This is simply Amazing!

Our Lord Jesus,during His earthly ministry, was dependent upon His Father in heaven.  This relationship on earth to His Father in heaven is our model fordependency on Jesus who now is in heaven!

Nowhere is this relationship painted so clearly as in His upper room prayer to The Father soHis disciples would hear and learn:

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, that they may also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one  even as we are one,  I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly  one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”-John 17:20-23.

This passage contains much more than we can absorb,“Open the eyes of our hearts, Lord!”The meagerness of our tainted lives becomes anything but meager or tainted when entering into these riches of grace throughour Lord Christ Jesus. We are invited to be overcomers in the shadow of our Creator God, The Overcomer, who is the author of all that is, The Pre-Eminent  One who is the I AM of Life itself.He beckons us to take time for Him!!!  What is wrong with this picture?He is knocking at OUR door? We  should be knocking on His?

Turn to Colossians 1, verse 13 forward, and dwell in thisreality of what is actually happening. The One who has all power, created life and all the vast universes, this person is making provision for us, for you and me, to enter into His presence spending time with Him!!!  But more than this,Jesus in the above prayer suggests, no,not suggests, promises,  we will be joined into Him just as He is to His Father, ourCreator God!Are we getting the impact of what He is saying?  We are joined into Jesus as He is to God the Father! We are talking about an intimate connectionfor us  in the person who creates Life!

This speaks to what our relationship looks like both individually  and on a corporate“Body” basis.  We spend time focusing on our individual person, absorbed with advantagesof being “saved.” This is so short sighted! We need to be focused on Him, not on ourselves!We focus on ourrelationship, or what theologians call our position, in Christ.  This certainly merits our time since the scriptures speaks extensivelyto it. This is essential to know, but we are still missing the point! The purpose of John’s writing his gospel is: “…and believing, YOUMAY HAVE LIFE IN HIS NAME.” This is the issue, living the Life we have in Christ Jesus!He wants us to process His Life within us,depending on Him!

It is Jesus Christ that brings us salvation and it is  His grace directing us thru our salvation growing into it, becoming whom we are intended to be.

Look with me at Romans 12 verses 5 and 6, “so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them:” There are three things jumping out to us in this brief scripture.

The first thingis the size of our group. We are many yetwestill are in unity “in Christ.”  But notice we are also members of one another, no matter how large, how many thousands of people, we are members one of another.We are identified by relationship to Jesus but in this unitywith Jesus, we find relationshipswithin others like usat this high level.  We are joined together individually, with each other, regardless of church or denomination, withLove flowing from the Father thru Jesus into us. Love is permeating our inter-connectedness with each other, you and me, you and your brother across the aisle whom you don’t know. This is also stipulated in Jesus’ John 17 prayer,”that they may be one even as we are one.”Our ministry and love to each other is the same love we have to and in our Father God.

The second thing we notice is the intentional differences we experience with each other, “having gifts that differ according to grace.” Our Lord is intentional about our differences.  They are blessed and sanctioned in each of us according to His grace,to each of usseparately as individuals. In other words, our oneness includes differences invoking love, both ours and God’s.  Our individuality is purposeful in God’s plan of unity.

Paul asserts point three: “Let us use them.” We are called into  oneness with individual gifts. Now, let’s put them to work. Lets function in the Body with individual giftsgiven for use within the unity of His Body.

Look at Revelation 2:17. Here is hidden manna, a while stone and a new name! Three things are received by aperson who consumes God’s grace overcoming circumstanceswith faith in God.  The manna is the workof the Holy Spirit according to the person’s need. The white stone isacknowledged approval as an overcomer while the name given is so intimate only God and the person share the fellowship of this knowledge. This blessed experience is intentionalfor each of us by faith. We have already seen in Romans 8 how God’s Spirit is dwelling in us performing His work. He is calling us, knocking at our door, anxious for us to enter into His love and become who He has made us to be. It is of faith so that it may be of grace.

So, we are taught that the Body while in perfect unity is at the same timehighly individualized. Love at such high levels holds all these things together. In fact, it is this unique quality of diversity held by Love in unity that provides such a distinctive quality in our grace relationships. God’s grace is essential! We are bound to our Head and each otherbyGod’s Love!

He became poor so we become rich. This tells us something about love on His divine level. This is thelove we are given and asked to exercise growing in grace and being changed into His image.  Doing (loving) is itself a learning process. It is one thing to be rich, it is another to leverage our riches into life’s benefits. Being in the Body or being “in Christ” is one thing, but we are called to put fruit on our branch,ministering inand thru the Body.

When we speak about being created “in Christ Jesus” we are merely quoting the Word of God about what He does right now, not what we become in Heaven. He creates usso we can grow Spiritually into Him, now! Since He is a Spirit, our born again oneness is Spiritual taking place through our new creation. It takes place now so we canprove and test our loveSpiritually before we see Him face to face! We have the opportunity to grow, by choice, into His fullness,becoming Spiritually mature“in Him,” the Head of our Body.

Look briefly with me again in Romans 12 to see how we  take our new spiritual identity, created new in Christ Jesus, applying it on a personal level to be overcomers, growing and producing fruit in and thru the Body.

First, notice, we are to present our bodies. Immediately,we realize our bodies are not who we are, they are separated from our will to choose or to present.  Weare to present our self - body.  The “we” is our new spiritual creation in Christ Jesus.  We were one with our self – bodybefore being born new in Christ Jesus. Now, being new in Christ Jesus we possess a different reality; we now have a new identity! We have now received the circumcision of Christ.The putting off of the flesh was completed on the cross and we now walk in the resurrected presence of our Lord Christ. We are now aSpiritual person operating in a new Life source, Jesus Himself.We now have Christ’s resurrection power to manage our self  - body with a new self who isrighteous in Christ Jesus.

And because of this in Christ-ness we can exercise control over our “old self” and placeit on the alter of sacrifice, which is our reasonable Spiritual service.  We are now Spiritual in essence, at our core, no longer slaves, freed from our bondage!  Since we now are in reality, Spiritually in Christ, we begin to sense and see things from a Spiritual point of view.  This is challenging because our heart and mind have learned corporeal and temporal habits. This is now changing since we have been born new by God.We have been taken out of darkness and place into Light. Now we have eternal orientationstotally different than our old corporeal references.  We have to learn aneternal culture for living. It is called grace. Grace is our spiritual culture of living in Christ.

One way we do this is to “renew” our mind. Our mind isconditioned into the ways of man, dependent upon reason, giving priority to the values of our old self –body. Now, we need to retrain our mind and heart to the Spiritual Life flowing out of God, given to us in His wordand through His Spirit who is dwelling in us.  The Bible is God’s revelation of truth to our minds and hearts. This is why we need to “hide it in our hearts.”Now, lets take this  personal application back into thecontext of our verses. Jesus is at our door offering personal fellowshipso that we become “overcomers.”He is giving us His personal attention in this process of overcoming or “conquering.”

Being an overcomer is learning to trust God even when it goes against our reason. Being an overcomer is training ourselves in the love that “bought”into being a complete person, able to rest in peace and enjoy life. Being an overcomer is seeing things from God’s point of view, walking in faith and not by sight.  Being an overcomer is opening the door of our heart and spending time in communion with the God-Man knocking on our heart’s door.

He has already become our atonement for sin, He has already redeemed us, He has already justified or made us righteous, He has already sealed us with His Spirit. His Spirit is dwelling within us and we are about to become His bride! He expects us to depend upon Him to be our Spiritual Head.

We are focused on this relationship with Jesus on a personal level. And it is well that we are, we should be,but our personal focus distracts from seeing a second, bigger picture. One of the major changes in our perspective, when we are created new in Jesus, is seeingthings from His point of view. We normally see things through the eyes of self-interest.  We look for things having impact on our own person. But we now belong to Jesus; we are His possession. This changes our reference for being, we no longer need to be dependent upon self. We no longer are dependent on self to make Romans 12 work because in a grace relationship with Jesus, He is faithfully working in us as we work. So, as we consent to putting ourselves on the alter, we have within us the Holy Spirit of God working and giving us light for this journey of submission and love.

Faith is a condition where we trust completely upon God, seeing the flaws more clearly in ourselves, realizing the wisdom of depending in God to do what we can’t, but at the same time, we can because God is at work in us. It sounds like a contradiction but it is not! It’s an eternal thing!

One aspect of this change is in outlook.  We no longer are standing alone. Not only are we  God’s purchased possession, but we are a member of others who also are God’s purchased possessions.We are collectively membersof this larger group which God has shown us to be His Body.

The “Body” is not the same thing as the church. We think of the church as the group that meets in a building. The word “church” comes from two Greek words which are combined to mean “the called out ones.” The local meeting in the “church building” may or may not be part of Christ’s Body. Those “in Christ” are all members of Jesus’ Body, He is their Head regardless of what local church they may or may not attend. Remember Peter tells us to “grow” in grace and knowledge of Jesus.  If the local church distracts us from knowing our Head, perhaps we need to minister to the local church.

With this background in mind, we can see what is goingon. Christ is the Head of the Body of which we are a part.  Our Lord Jesus is caring for His Body. He is making provision for us to be who we need to be because Jesus has a righteous holy standard for His Own Personal Body, us.  You and I are functioning members of His Living Body. We are to be in sync with Him because we are One with Him joined by our faith in His Spirit ….  and He is knocking on our heart’s door!

Elijah, AW Pink

 “'He that believeth  shall not make haste,’ Isa. 28:16. This is a rule which it is both our wisdom and welfare to heed in all the varied details of our lives - never more needed by God’s people than in this mad age of speed and hurry. Most profitably may we apply it to our reading and study of God’s word.  It is no so much the amount of time we spin upon the scriptures, as the measure in which we prayerfully meditate upon that which is immediately before, that so largely determines the degree of benefit the soul receive.  By passing too quickly from one verse to another, by failing to picture vividly before our minds the details before us, and by not taking pains to discover the practical lessons which may be drawn from historical events, we are greatly the losers. It is by putting ourselves in the position of the one we are reading about and thinking what we most likely have done in such circumstances, that we receive the most help.” Elijah, p. 51.

Pink does a great job of telling the story of Elijah into our personal circumstances. Reading it once a year is a good reminder of fundamental truths our minds need for refreshing.  I know some of you have already read this little paperback. If not, give it a try for your soul’s sake!