Do Not Be Afraid

 

“Darkness had fallen, and Jesus had not yet come to them” (John 6:17b).

 

O yes, O yes, I remember that night. I was thinking about it when I was on the Isle of Patmos receiving the revelation of Jesus Christ. Considering all the darkness I witnessed in the Revelation, up close and personal, it was, I suppose, inevitable that I’d think about that night on the Sea of Galilee.

 

It was after Jesus had fed the multitude and withdrawn to the mountain by Himself. As evening came, leaving Jesus behind we got into a boat to sail to Capernaum. Sailing at night was normal for us fishermen, I’m not sure how the others felt about it, but Peter, James, Andrew, and I had fished many a night in our business – some nights the catch was great, other nights meagre.

 

You may have noticed that I wrote, “Darkness had fallen, and Jesus had not yet come to them.” You see, we expected Jesus to show up – He had that way about Him; He has that way about Him. O my, how He showed up on Patmos…He showed up in a way I never expected, in a way I wasn’t looking for. But then, isn’t that the way He is?

 

Anyway, the thing is that the sea became agitated, the wind was blowing, we couldn’t use the sail and so we rowed, and it was hard going to put muscle to oar. The waves were rising and falling and tossing the boat, and the brothers that weren’t fishermen were wishing they’d stayed behind. We were asking one another, “Where is Jesus? Where is Jesus when we need Him? Why did He send us by ourselves? Why couldn’t we have waited for Him?”

 

That’s another thing about Jesus. Sometimes He says, “Wait for Me.” Other times He says, “Go on ahead.” That’s crazy isn’t it? After all this time I still don’t understand it, I still don’t understand Him. O there is a lot I know, but it doesn’t seem there is a lot I understand.

 

I know He loves you and me. I know He never leaves us or forsakes us. I know He is our Good Shepherd. I know His mercy and grace are without measure. I know His peace passes my comprehension. I know His perfect love casts out all fear.

 

I know all of these things, but I sure don’t understand them. I know Him, O how I know Him, but I can’t say I understand Him.

 

Well, darkness had fallen and the sea was throwing us up and down and there were times we thought our boat might capsize. Then we saw Him, walking on the tempestuous water – and we were scared, just plain frightened.

 

Now go figure, if you can. On the one hand we are asking each other, “Where is Jesus?” Then when we see Him we are frightened. What sense does that make? I don’t know if we were more afraid of the storm or of Jesus. I’m shaking my head as I write this.

 

Storms can be disorienting. Storms in darkness can be especially disorienting and cause you to lose your equilibrium.

 

Notice that Jesus was “drawing near to the boat.” Do you think that lessened our fear of Him? No indeed! The closer He came the more we trembled!

 

Yes, as I was experiencing His revelation on Patmos, I truly was thinking about that night on the Sea of Galilee when darkness fell and Jesus had not yet come. I was indeed thinking of the churning of the sea, the howling of the wind, the boat being tossed about like a child’s toy. I saw much darkness on Patmos, I saw churning waters and felt howling winds, and the thunder, the thunder and lightning in Revelation was deafening and blinding – Revelation was, at times, like being in an amphitheater filled with kettle drums whose vibrations shake your very soul.

 

On Patmos, when I first saw and heard Him “I fell at His feet like a dead man” (Rev. 1:17).

 

Then what did Jesus do? Why He touched and said, “Do not be afraid.”

 

That also reminds me of that night on the sea, for He said, “It is I; do not be afraid.”

 

Isn’t He always saying that to us? “It is I; do not be afraid”?

 

When darkness falls but Jesus has not yet come, when the storms howl about us and toss our boats, filling them with water, stretching their seams; when we see images on the ocean that we do not understand, when those around us are panicking, when we wonder what in the world we are doing and how in the world we got where we are…we can be sure that Jesus is coming to us, we can be sure that through the gale force winds and the uncertainty of every moment, when our hearts want to leap out of our chests and we are chasing our breath – we can be sure, we can be certain, we can be confident that Jesus is speaking to us, that Jesus is saying, “It is I; do not be afraid.”

The Holy of Holies (6)

 

 

“O righteous Father, although the world has not known You, yet I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me; and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them” (John 17:25 – 26).

 

Is this the conclusion of the Upper Room? Is it the conclusion of the Holy of Holies? Or is it the Beginning?

 

There are those who read these words of Jesus to the Father and move on with life, or with what they think is life. They turn the page and go to the next thing they read. Page after page they turn of the Bible, perhaps even memorizing verses, perhaps quoting long passages; but their knowledge is like that of someone who reads a travel guide over and over again but never visits the actual place, never lives in the actual country.

 

In a sense all that Jesus says in John 17:25 – 26 is a recapitulation of what we’ve experienced in John chapters 13 – 17, it is what we’ve seen in Chapter 17. But it is more than a recapitulation, it is an affirmation of God’s love for us and our calling as His sons and daughters in Jesus Christ. Verses 25 – 26 are Christ’s affirmation to us that we are to live in unbroken eternal koinonia with the Trinity – today, tomorrow, and forever.

 

We see that the Father is righteous, He is our righteous Father. The world does not know our righteous Father, but Jesus Christ knows Him and we know that the Father sent the Son. In 17:11 we see that He is our holy Father, keeping us in the Name that He has given Jesus Christ.

 

In the beginning of His ministry Jesus teaches us to pray, “Our Father” (Matthew 6:9). Perhaps all of the Gospel can be encapsulated into these words, “Our Father,” for the Gospel is the Good News that our Father has redeemed us back to Himself in and through Jesus Christ. Jesus came so that we might say, “Our Father.”

 

Jesus came declaring the Name of His Father to us. Jesus came so that the Father, our Father, might bring many sons and daughters to glory (Hebrews 2:10 – 13). Jesus the Elder Son leaves the Father’s House to rescue His brethren from the pigpen and brings them back Home rejoicing to His Father and their Father, to His God and their God (John 20:17; 1 John 3:1 – 3).

 

God loves the world, He sends us into the world as He sent Jesus (John 17:18; 20:21), yet the world does not know the Father just as it did not know the Son and as it does not know us (as we’ve seen in previous reflections). We ought not to be surprised that the world does not know the Father, and we should not be surprised that the world (and religious systems) does not know Jesus or us, for we have been told that this is the way it is (John 15:18 – 16:4).

 

We can identify ourselves with our Father or with the world, we can be citizens of heaven or citizens of the world, we can live in Babylon or in the City of our God. This is fundamental to life, there is the City of God and the City of Man, which do we choose?

 

Jesus has made the Father’s Name known to us, and He continually makes it known. To know His Name is to know Him in intimate relationship, to know His love and acceptance, His care and warmth, His righteousness and holiness, His sacrificing heart. We can expect that Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit will reveal the Father Name in unfolding glory throughout our lives (John 16:12 – 15), leading us into that glorious Holy City of Revelation chapters 21 – 22 today, tomorrow and forever.

 

Jesus reveals the Father’s Name to us so that the Father’s love may live within us. “So that the love with which You loved Me may be in them.” Jesus reveals the Father Name so that He may live in us, “And I in them.”

 

We have seen these themes of God’s love for us and God’s indwelling us throughout the Upper Room. The Father loves us as He loves Jesus. We are to be one with one another in the Trinity just as the Trinity – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit – is One. The Trinity is within us and we are in the Trinity and in us and through us God desires to manifest His love to the world – even when the world rejects us.

 

Consider when you awake every morning that “the love with which the Father loves Jesus is the love with which He loves you!” Do not doubt God’s eternal love for you in Jesus Christ but respond to His call of love by accepting His love and by loving others as He loves you.

 

When you awake every morning remember that Jesus desires to live within you, that this is why He reveals the Father’s Name to you – to draw you into intimate union with Himself, His Father, and the Holy Spirit (and with the communion of the saints).

 

O dear friends, let us not be so foolish as to believe what the world teaches us, or what religious systems often teach us, but let us embrace what Jesus reveals to us of our Father, let us confess what Jesus teaches us about who we truly are in Him – the precious and loved daughters and sons of God. We are not accidents looking for a place to happen, we are loved and redeemed and have been brought home to the Father’s House on the shoulders and in the arms of our Good Shepherd Jesus Christ.

 

John 17:25 – 26 is not the end of the journey, it is the Beginning – for it opens eternity (and eternal living!) to us in our Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

 

The Holy of Holies (5)

 

 

“You loved Me, before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24).

 

“The glory which I had with You before the world was” (John 17:5).

 

There are those who speculate, then there are those who live. No one who ever has been touched by Jesus can explain how or why it happened, not really. We may have insight into our relationship with Him, we may have been given some insight of Him, but we cannot comprehend Him comprehensively. The deeper we know Him, the greater we are enveloped by His majesty and the less we know of some things and the more we know of other things. We lose sight that we may gain sight, and we gain sight so that we may lose sight – for the one sight we seek, the one vision we hunger for, is Jesus Christ the Lamb that we may follow Him wherever He goes.

 

To know Him and to be with Him where He is, brings us to the eternals, to the “heavenly places” of which Paul writes in Ephesians. It brings us to the Beginning (Christ) and to the End (Christ). In the heavenlies, in the eternals, we are blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ and have been chosen before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:3 – 4).  We can either respond, “Yeah but…” and chase our tails like puppies with speculation upon speculation, flaying with natural reason, questioning how these things can be; or we can embrace the koinonia of the Trinity and the assurance that God loves us and move on with life in Him.

 

Many (most?) of the things we think we need to know, we do not really need to know, life is a question of knowing Jesus, always knowing Jesus, for in Him are “hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). Why is it that we will eat of every tree of the garden except the Tree of Life? Why are we so infatuated with the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?

 

Well, here is the thing, when we eat of the Tree of Life we find ourselves in the eternals, participating in the life of Christ Jesus, experiencing the love which the Father had for Him before the foundation of the world, seeing the glory which the Father bestowed on the Son before the ages began. Here is why we might say that the grandest phrase in all the Bible is “in Christ.” For to be “in Christ” is to have everything, and to not be in Christ is to have nothing.

 

That which the world thinks is nothing is everything, and that which the world thinks is everything is nothing (1 Cor. 1:17 – 31; 2:14; 1 John 2:15 - 17). Remember this the next time you watch the news or listen to political and social pundits – no matter what “color” they wear. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil has many colors, including blue and red and purple – they all have poisonous dye in them.

 

When we read John 17:5 and 24 what do we experience? Do we read or do we hear? Do we see letters and words and sentences, or do we see Jesus? Is the passage simply words on paper or on an electronic reader, or is the passage a place of communion with the Trinity? Is the passage confined to the room or place in which we read? A living room, kitchen, bedroom, a deck, or an office? Or is Jesus coming to us and are we coming to Jesus in and through the passage?

 

Are we touching that which was before the ages and before the foundation of the world? Are we entering into the heavenlies and are the heavenlies entering into us?

 

O dear friends, the gravitational pull of earth, of the natural man, of politics and economics and nationalism and entertainment and pleasure and man’s religious tradition are all formidable; yet our Lord Jesus tells us that God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth (John 4:24). We are taught that as many as are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God (Romans 8:14). It should be clear to us that we are citizens of heaven (Phil. 3:30) and that we live by faith rather than by sight (2 Cor. 5:7).

 

Are we living as the adults in the room of popular Christianity? Or are we still children “tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming” (Ephesians 4:14)?

 

Unless we have some experience, some measure of experiential knowledge, of the Holy of Holies, of Christ before the ages, I am not certain we can escape and live above the toxicity of the world’s atmosphere, of its hatred, selfishness, cruelty, and blindness; I am not certain we can escape the seduction of man’s religion, including man’s caricature of Christianity, a Christianity without the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ. Is it possible that the more crosses we display, the less like Christ Jesus we become?

 

A few years ago I did a series on this blog in which we explored Geerhardus Vos’s sermon, preached at Princeton Chapel, Heavenly Mindedness, based on Hebrews 11:9- 10. One of the things that struck me as I was working through Vos’s message was the communion of saints. Vos saw that the Patriarchs were experiencing this communion, Vos himself was experiencing it, and Vos was inviting his hearers to experience it. That is, Vos wasn’t simply reading words on a page as he preached Hebrews 11, and he wasn’t asking his listeners to simply exegete the text with him, he was living Hebrews 11, he was inviting others to live in Hebrews 11 with Noah and Abraham and Sarah and Isaac and Jacob and Jesus and with one another. Hebrews 11 was a transcendent experience for Geerhardus Vos, as it ought to be with us, as the Upper Room of the Gospel ought to be.

 

As Bonhoeffer writes in The Cost of Discipleship, God has established a holy realm on earth and it is called Christ and the Body of Christ – the Holy of Holies is within His People, within His Son. As with the Stable in Lewis’s The Last Battle, the inside is far greater than the outside, it is immeasurable. We live in the Holy of Holies and the Holy of Holies lives within us…therefore, why do we have anything to do with the unclean?

 

Somewhere Francis Schaffer wrote about us having two rooms, and I think this can be a helpful image. We tend to live on the first floor; the second floor, the upper level, is something we may hear about, we may theorize about, but it is essentially off limits. We don’t think it practical to explore it. Perhaps we have a quick visit once in a while, but it is better to leave it alone and remain on the first floor, after all, we don’t want folks to talk…do we?

 

Yet, when we come to Ephesians, Paul begins on the second floor, in the heavenlies and before the foundation of the world in Chapter One. He begins in the Upper Room and then, in Chapter Four, he answers the question, “The Upper Room is great, but how do we live on the first floor with one another and with the world?”

 

In the Gospel of John the answer to this question of how we should live is answered again and again, we live in the Upper Room, and out from the Upper Room we live in the world as Christ, for He lives in us and we live in Him; He is the Vine and we are the branches, He is our source of life….our only source of life. Our fellowship and friendship with Him is unbroken, for the Word is being made flesh and is living in us and among us, and we are being perfected into one in Him.

 

What does your participation in this mystery look like today?

 

 

The Holy of Holies (5)

 

 

“Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am” (John 17:24).

 

“If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:3).

 

“If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also” (John 12:26).

 

What does Jesus mean, that we should be with Him where He is?

 

Does He mean that we should all find ourselves with Him in the Upper Room? In Gethsemane?

 

What is it that we should be with Him where He is so that we may see the glory which the Father has given Him, a glory given in love before the foundation of the world (John 17:24)?

 

In John 12:26 we see that if we follow Jesus that we will be with Him where He is. Where is Jesus?

 

We may recall that in previous reflections we pondered the theme of Jesus going and coming, of Jesus hiding and revealing Himself; of us seeing Jesus, not seeing Jesus, and then seeing Jesus again.

 

What does it mean for us to be with Jesus where He is?

 

Certainly we are indeed to be with Jesus in the Upper Room, in Gethsemane, on the Cross, in the Resurrection, in the Ascension, sitting with Him in the heavenlies. Yes, we are to be with Jesus as He teaches, casts out unclean spirits, heals, feeds the hungry, touches the untouchable, loves the unlovable, and has compassion on humanity. We are to know a transcendence in this koinonia with Jesus, a fellowship with Him and in the communion of saints as we live in Jesus and He lives in us.

 

And this brings us to what it means that we be with Him where He is, for He is in koinonia with the Father, in unity with Him. We see His glory when we join that Divine fellowship and unity, when our biosphere is the Trinity, as we are being “perfected into one” (Jn. 17:23). As we live in the Holy of Holies, as we discover the ground of our being in God the Trinity, as we realize that Jesus Christ is truly our Author and Perfecter, that He is truly our Alpha and Omega, our Beginning and our End, our First and our Last – then we are with Him where He is, beholding the Father, beholding the incomparable glory of Jesus Christ, which the Father has bestowed upon Him, and which He (mystery indeed!) bestows upon us (Jn. 17:22).

 

And here, my friends, is the dance of the ages, the song of the ages; hidden from ages and generations but now revealed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that the Father should bring many sons to glory through the glorious Firstborn Son Jesus Christ, and that He should bestow His inheritance in the Father upon His brothers and sisters, and that we should all, in Him, give ourselves for the life of the world.

 

To be with Jesus where He is, is to live in intimacy with the Father, in loving communion with the Father, in sweet adoration of the Father. To be with Jesus where He is, is to keep our eyes on Jesus, fixing our minds and hearts and souls on Jesus, and in so doing to be transformed into His image as our way of life, as our source of life, and as our destiny in life.

 

To be with Jesus where He is, is to look upon one another as the saints of God, purchased and washed by the blood of the Lamb, perfected in Christ Jesus, made complete in Him. We no longer bring accusation against one another, we do not expose one another, but as Christ’s holy priesthood we cover one another in the confession of the Cross, the Atonement, the New Creation in Christ. The priesthood of Christ covers, we are mediators in Him, we sing the song of the redeemed and teach others to sing it. We baptize in water and the Spirit, not in sewage and the flesh.

 

To be with Jesus is not to wait for another day, though we do anticipate a glorious Day beyond comprehension, but it is to live with Him where He is today, right now. He comes to us every day, He brings us to Himself every day, He draws us deeper into the Trinity every day – we do not wait to participate in the Trinity – the Trinity is our very life today!

 

This is to live in the Holy of Holies; to know the love of God with one another, the unity of God with one another, the glory of God with one another, to experience the joy of God with one another. John Chapter 17, the Holy of Holies, is ineffable for the veil has been rent and we now have free and complete access to intimacy with God in Jesus Christ…always in Jesus Christ.

 

There are holy things and places in John Chapter 17 that cannot be spoken of in human language, but they can be experienced in Jesus Christ and with one another.

 

To “see” John 17 in some measure, to enter into the Holy of Holies, is not to arrive at the end of the Gospel, but rather at the purpose of the Beginning. The rending of the veil was not so that we should enter the Holy of Holies and arrive at the conclusion of our journey, but rather that we might finally get to the Beginning (or perhaps the End of the Beginning?) of our journey, of our glorious eternity in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit…with one another.

 

Right now, this very moment, are we with Jesus where He is?

 

 

 

The Holy of Holies (4)

 

O How He Loves Us!

 

“So that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me” (Jn. 17:23).

 

“So that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them” (Jn. 17:26).

 

“Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love” (Jn. 15:9).

 

The overriding theme of the Upper Room is the love of God; God’s love for us, God’s love living in us, God’s love flowing from us to Him and to one another.

 

“We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:16).

 

The Upper Room begins with love. “Jesus, knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end” (John 13:1).

 

The Upper Room concludes in love, “So that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them” (Jn. 17:26). We have an inclusio of love, and indeed, not only do we have a literary inclusio, but we see that our life in the Trinity is to be an inclusio of love, that our life with one another in the Trinity is to be an inclusio of love. Our biosphere is to be the essence of God, the love of God, the heart of God.

 

Our love for one another is to be our distinctive witness, the mark of the Christian, the mark of the Church – but it is not just any love, it is the very love of God, “That you should love one another even as I have loved you” (John 13:34 – 35).

 

Jesus reiterates this again when He says, “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:12 – 13).

 

Have we considered the possibility that the best training course on witnessing to the world is a course on loving one another? How can the world possibly see Jesus Christ without seeing His love living in His People? Arguments do not win hearts, love wins hearts. You may intellectually convince me of an argument, but unless my heart follows in love and commitment to Christ, I will not know eternal life. Arguments may draw me to a certain degree, but only love will keep me.

 

Love is the animating force in our life in the Trinity. “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to hm and make our abode with him” (John 14:23).

 

O dear friends, the Father loves us as He loves Jesus, Jesus loves us as the Father loves Him, we are to love one another as Jesus loves us, our love for one another (along with our unity in the Trinity, John 17:21 – 23) is our distinguishing mark, our identifying characteristic, our primary witness to the world.

 

As Paul writes, we can have all spiritual gifts and can engage in all kinds of service, but if we do not have love we have nothing (1 Cor. Chapter 13). Consider that this chapter lies between two chapters that explore our life in community, consider that it is prelude to the great chapter on the Resurrection; Chapter 13 is the animating and motivating life of the Holy Spirit, the love of God, within the Body of Christ (chapters 12 and 14), the Body which participates in the Resurrection, the Second Man, of Chapter 15.

 

No wonder Paul writes, “Beyond all these things put on love, which is the uniting bond of perfection” (Colossians 3:14).

 

To enter the Holy of Holies is to enter the depths of the love of God in Christ, to be plunged into the ineffable depths of the Divine shekinah, to be enveloped in the cloud of glory in which we behold Him and in which we realize that since He laid down His life for us, that “we ought to lay down our lives for one another” (1 John 3:16). When we “see” this, we truly “see” the love of God.

 

How are we to know the fulness of God?

 

“That you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:17 – 19).

 

To know the love of Christ is to know the fulness of God, to know the fulness of God is to know the love of Christ.

 

But we cannot know the love of Christ without one another!

 

We “know we have passed from death to life because we love one another”!

 

Once again, “If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:11 – 12).

 

And let us not forget, “The one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20).

 

We need one another so that we may love and be loved.

 

When we approach our Father, whether as individuals, as marriages, as families, or as congregations, it may be that our dear Father has a question, and that question is, “Where are your brothers and sisters? Have you come alone?”

 

As I write this, I am sure that some readers will be saying, “Yes, but…” Some readers will seek exceptions to loving others, some readers will want to maintain barriers with others, will want to find a doctrine, a practice, a teaching, to exempt them from loving others sacrificially, from laying down their lives for certain others.

 

Allow me please to simply point to our Savior, who leads us into the Holy of Holies by washing the feet of the Twelve, including Judas Iscariot. Our Savior, our Lord, instructs us, “If I then, the Lord and Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14).

May I also remind us that within the Twelve were Matthew (Levi) the tax collector and Simon the Zealot, two men on opposite ends of the political spectrum, two men with opposing worldviews; one aligning himself with the oppressive Romans, the other committed to the armed overthrow of Rome – yet Jesus chose them both and their division dissolved in the love of Jesus and they became messengers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ – not a gospel of man or a kingdom of man. (Can you imagine what their first meeting looked like?)

 

Our calling is to love and serve, we can trust Jesus to take care of what follows – even if what follows is betrayal and crucifixion…for most certainly there is also resurrection.

 

O if we only knew how much our Father loves us!

 

Your Father loves you just as He loves Jesus!

 

“Could we with ink the ocean fill,

  And were the skies of parchment made;

Were every stalk on earth a quill,

  And every man a scribe by trade;

To write the love of God above

  Would drain the ocean dry;

Nor could the scroll contain the whole,

  Though stretched from sky to sky.”

 

By Frederick Martin Lehman

 

The Holy of Holies (3)

 

 

“That they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me” (John 17:22 – 23).

 

“My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him” (John 14:23).

 

“Abide in Me, and I in you” (John 15:4).

 

This is the Way we are to live, in the Trinity, by the Life of God. We live in God and God lives in us. As the Trinity is One, just as the Trinity is One, so are we to be One. We live in the Trinity as individuals, and we live in the Trinity as the Body of Christ.

 

If we are indeed the Body of Christ, we must live in the Trinity, for wherever the Head lives, the entire Body lives.

 

While the Holy Spirit lives within each of us who are in Christ, the Holy Spirit also lives in us as the Temple of God – on Pentecost the Holy Spirit filled the true Temple of God, He filled “us.” He made us the “dwelling place of God in the Spirit (Eph. 2:21 – 22).

 

Jesus Christ is our Bread of Life, we live by His body and blood, we partake of the Divine Nature (John 6:53; 2 Peter 1:4).

 

This is not something we attain to, this is something that we believe, accept, submit to, and confess. We learn to live according to this understanding, we learn to live according to what Jesus is teaching us. We have been raised from the dead in Christ and we now sit with Jesus Christ in the heavenlies (Eph. 2:1 – 10) – He is the basis of our life, He is the sole source of life, and the oneness with one another to which He calls us is our mission in life (Eph. 4:14 – 16).

 

Since Jesus is clear that effective witness is dependent on our loving as He loves (John 13:34 – 35) and being one as the Trinity is One, how is it that we either ignore what Jesus teaches, or provide excuse after excuse why we should not obey what Jesus teaches?

 

In the Holy of Holies we not only find our source of Life (God the Trinity), we also find our mission; we not only find our mission, we find the means by which our mission is fulfilled. To live in the koinonia of the Trinity means that those who live in koinonia with us also come to live in the koinonia of the Trinity (1 John 1:3).

 

As we partake of the life of God, we share that very life of God with others. As we partake of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus, we offer that very same Body and Blood in Christ to others. We share His life with one another in the Body, and as His Body we share His Life with the people of the world.

 

Our calling in Christ is to say with Jesus, “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). The words we speak, the things we do, are not to be done on our own initiative, but are to be what we hear the Trinity speak and what we see the Trinity do (John 14:10). We are to live as Jesus lives, always, always, always. We are to know no other source of life than Jesus Christ.

 

Must this not begin in our congregations? (Phil. 2:1 – 16; Eph. 4:1 – 16; 1 Cor. 12; Rom 12).

 

Must this not begin Christian to Christian? In congregation to congregation?

 

Where is the congregation, the pastor, the movement, the denomination, with the faith and courage to say, “We will live according to the Word of Christ, we will live for the Temple of God (Haggai Chapter 1), we will live in the Oneness of the Trinity seeking the Divine Oneness of our brothers and sisters – no matter what others may do or say. We will give our lives up so that others may live. We will love as we are commanded.”

 

The “new and living Way” that we are called to live is in intimacy with God within the Holy of Holies, the veil has been rent once and for all (Hebrews 10:19 – 25). This is an experience best enjoyed together – there is nothing like unity in Christ (Psalm 133).

 

Yet, instead of moving in this direction, we move away from Him into our own little spheres of religion and practice and parochialism. We think we know better than God. We think God is impractical. We seek solutions in the natural, in the flesh, we do not think the Holy Spirit and the Word sufficient for life and ministry. Rather than living in the Light of the City (Rev. 21:23) we seek and produce lesser lights. Rather than living in the Temple of the City (Rev. 21:22) we build our own temples. How foolish we are and how unfaithful are our shepherds!

 

We do not need to live like this.

 

You, dear pastor, can teach your people to live in the Holy of Holies…as you live in the Holy of Holies.

 

You, dear Christian, can learn to abide in the Vine and allow the Life of Christ to live in you and through you.

 

We all can cry out to Jesus to have mercy on us and restore His Temple, renew His Body, draw us to Himself in the Oneness of the Trinity. We can cry out to God to use us as broken bread and poured out wine to bring others to know Him through Jesus Christ.

 

If we are truly the Flock of the Good Shepherd, then we are already One in Him, why have we been taught to deny who we are? To deny our Oneness? To assume false identities?

 

Ah, what a foolish people we are…how loving our Good Shepherd is.

 

 

The Holy of Holies (2)

 

 

“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one” (John 17:22).

 

How is it that Jesus says that He is giving His glory to us, and yet in Isaiah 42:8 God says, “I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, nor My praise to graven images [idols]”?

 

For sure our God does not give His glory to idols, but do we really believe that He doesn’t? Are we asking God to give His glory to the idols we have made in life and in religion? Do we not have household idols (as ancient peoples did), community idols, national idols, professional and vocational idols? Are we honest enough to consider that we just might have religious idols, Christianized idols? Have we crafted our brand of Christianity into an idol?

 

 Does our speech and teaching reveal our idols?

 

As to the idea that God does not give His glory to another, this can help us understand what Jesus says about giving His glory to us – for in giving His glory to us He does not give His glory to another for we are One in the Father and the Son and in the Holy Spirit. We have no oneness apart from the Oneness of the Trinity. There are not two onenesses.

 

That is, we do not look at the Trinty and see Oneness and then look at ourselves and see oneness; for we cannot have oneness with a lower case “o,” such oneness is impossible. Hence, in Christ we know koinonia in the Trinity, and knowing koinonia in the Trinity is knowing the Oneness of the Trinity; this is ineffable, it is the Holy of Holies.  

 

Recall that Jesus says, “Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was” (17:5).

 

Jesus also prays, “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me” (17:24).

 

As the Father gives His glory to Jesus, so Jesus gives His glory to us; so that the world may know that the Father sent the Son and that the Father loves us even as He loves Jesus.

 

O dear friends, let us not forget that we “are all from one Father” (Hebrews 2:11) and that our Father is “bringing many sons to glory” (Heb. 2:10).

 

As Jesus comes to us, as He comes into the world, He comes “to be glorified in His saints,” He comes that “the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified in you, and you in Him” (2 Thess. 1:10 – 12).

 

Let us remind one another that we are “heirs of God and coheirs with Christ,” that there is a glory “being revealed in us,” and that we are in the process of glorification in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:17, 18, 30).

 

We are the Body of Christ, we are the Bride of Christ; one with Him. Being one with Him, when He gives His glory to us He does not give His glory to another, for we are in the Us of John 17:21.

 

We have seen this coming in our approach to John 17. Jesus gives us a glimpse in John 14:23 in the Upper Room, “My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.”

 

Jesus emphasizes our unity in Him with the Vine and the branches, “Abide in Me, and I in you…apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:1 – 5). The Vine, Jesus Christ, is our sole source of life.

 

There is only one person who can live the Christian life, that Person is God.

 

All of our little self-help idols which demand worship, all of our idols crafted into religious images (as Christianized as they may be), all of our pragmatic programs, lead us deeper and deeper into bondage and away from the liberty of Jesus Christ, away from the koinonia of the Trinity, away from glorious Oneness with one another in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

 

No wineskin can contain the glory of the Holy Trinity, no wineskin can contain God’s unfolding glory; how foolish to force others into straightjackets, how silly not to desire God’s glory rather than glory for our fiefdoms and images.

 

I heard a denominational leader saying that he hoped that 200 years from now his denomination would still be going strong. How much better to hope that 200 years from now God’s glory will be inhabiting His People who have been perfected into One in Jesus Christ? How much better to desire a creditable testimony to the world of the Father’s love for the Son?

 

Now for the dear reader who thinks I’m being a bit harsh, I only ask you to look around you. What do you see? Do you see Christians with a vision of the Church of Jesus Christ? Do you see Christians with an understanding of the Body of Christ? Do you see a People speaking of Jesus, speaking of Jesus to one another, to their coworkers, to their neighbors? Do you see a People whose hearts have been captured by a love for Jesus?

 

Do you see a People for whom the Body of Christ is more important than their denomination, their movement, their doctrinal distinctives? (Please understand, whether someone is in a denomination or is so-called nondenominational is irrelevant.) Do you see pastors in fellowship and in ministry and friendship across organizational lines?

 

Since we do not know who we are, we allow others to define who we are and to enslave us to their idols. Political idols, economic idols, national idols, sports idols, entertainment idols, racial idols, idols of pleasure, idols of possessions, worldview idols (including so-called “Christian” worldviews). We even craft idols from the Bible, such as “End Times” idols.

 

Revelation 11:2 speaks of the nations treading under foot the court outside the temple, the holy city. I wonder if “we” are the perpetrators, if “we” aren’t desecrating the holy city with our foolishness, with our pollution.

 

Are we not like the people in Haggai? These people were released from Babylon for the express purpose of rebuilding the Temple of God, and yet when they arrived in Jerusalem they were only concerned with their own houses (see Haggai).

 

We have been saved from sin and death to follow Jesus, to belong to Him, to be the Holy Temple in the Lord (Eph. 2:19 – 22; 4:1 – 16; 1 Peter 2:4 – 10), to be the Presence of God in the earth.

 

Now I realize that there are exceptions to our self-destructive behavior, but they are exceptions. Thank God for the exceptions, for I think they hold back a measure of the tsunami.

 

Only the Holy Spirit can bring us into the unity that Jesus prays for, we cannot organize this, we cannot program this, in fact, we must come to the end of ourselves, we must confess that “Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it” (Psalm 127:1).

 

To lay down our lives for one another (1 John 3:16; John 15:12 – 13), includes laying down our preferences, our little religious houses, our theological and religious idols…our self-interest.

 

Is this possible?

 

The measure of a man, a woman, a family, a local church, a movement or denomination, an institution, is the measure in which it gives itself for others, the measure in which it lays down its self-interest, it’s life. This is the measure of Jesus Christ.

The Holy of Holies (1)

 

 

This post is number 156 in our reflections on the Upper Room (John chapters 13 – 17). The first reflection was posted on June 24, 2023, now we are in 2026. By God’s grace, these posts contain around 140,000 words, all, I hope, focused on Jesus Christ; all, I hope, seeking to reveal His amazing love and grace for you, for us.

 

I still recall sitting at our computer in 2023 and wanting to write about John 17, a passage at the core of my heart, mind, and soul; a passage which has been capturing my life for decades, a passage which has been drawing me into the koinonia of the Trinity; a passage which has made me know that such koinonia is about “us,” not just about me; it can never be just about me.

 

I also recall the realization that I could not write about John 17, the Holy of Holies, without taking us on the journey to the Holy of Holies, from the Outer Court with its laver for washing, into the Holy Place, and then into the Holy of Holies.

 

I began with that first post, An Inclusio of Identity, which contains this paragraph:

 

If we fully enter into the Upper Room we will find ourselves before the foundation of the world, in the Incarnation, and in the transcendence of koinonia with the Triune God. We will see the unfolding of John12:24, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

 

Jesus took His disciples through John chapters 13 – 16 before He could lead them into Chapter 17, I could do no less.

 

Knowing that “unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it,” I’ve sought to submit myself to the Holy Spirit and the Word as we’ve been on pilgrimage. I’ve also endeavored to “take the adventure that Aslan gives us,” keeping in mind that “those who are being led by the Spirit of God are the sons and daughters of God.”

 

As Jesus draws us into the Holy of Holies, let us keep in mind that the veil is no more.

 

“And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom” (Matthew 27:51; see also Hebrews 9:1 – 14; 10:19 – 23). You and I now have a “new and living Way” in koinonia with our God, it is time for us to come Home, the Door is open.

 

“I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me” (John 17:20 – 21).

 

As we saw in our previous reflection, Jesus prays for you, He prays for me, He prays for us…Jesus is always praying for us (Hebrews 7:25).

 

What does Jesus pray for us?

 

That we may all be one even as He and the Father are one.

 

“That they may all be one” (17:21).

 

“That they may be one, just as We are one” (17:22).

 

“That they may be perfected into one” (17:23).

 

Let us read these words of Jesus to the Father over and over again, allowing them to sink deep into our souls, our hearts, our minds. Let us allow the Holy Spirit to create a vision of these words in our innermost beings. Let us allow the roots of these words to penetrate the essence of our who we are, forming us into the image of this Word, drawing us together in Christ into the Trinity.

 

Behold the beauty of “I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected into one.” This is a transforming beauty, a beauty that, once seen, can never be forgotten (let us hope). This is a beauty worth selling everything to purchase, a beauty worth a man's or a woman’s life.

 

This is a beauty that dwarfs our little religious fiefdoms, our parochial territories and attitudes, our doctrinal distinctives, our insistence on ownership of our religious franchises. This beauty is about more than “Jesus and me,” it is about more than “Jesus and our group,” it is about Jesus and us His Body, and then it is about us in the Us of John 17:21; that our “us” may be in the “Us” of the Trinity – “that they may be in Us.”

 

We are to love one another just as Jesus loves us (John 13:34 – 35; 15:12 – 13). The Nature of our love for one another is to be the Nature of Jesus’ love for us, divinely cruciform. We are to live in unity, in oneness, just as the Trinity is One, the Nature of our unity is the Nature of the Trinity. We must desire no less, we must preach no less, we must live (by His grace) in no less than the Nature of God.

 

Let us note that there are two testimonies, two elements of witness, that are the result of our Oneness in the Trinity. The first is that the world may know that the Father sent the Son (John 17:21, 23), the second is that the world may know that the Father loves us as He loves Jesus (17:23)..

 

In other words, as the Father loves the Only Begotten Son, so the Father loves the corporate Son; as the Father loves the Head, so the Father loves the Body; but of course they are One.

 

How foolish we are to think that we can circumvent the prayer of Christ Jesus, that we can relegate it to the impractical, that we can find a method for witness that bypasses the heart of the Father, that we can impose our standards of acceptance on others, that we have warrant to build our own houses while the House of God lies desolate (Haggai 1:9).

 

We are also foolish to think that we can organize and create the Oneness for which Jesus prays. Let us be clear about this, only the work of the Holy Spirit and submission to the Word of God can fulfill the prayer of Jesus. “Except the LORD build the House, they labor in vain who build it” (Psalm 127).

 

As we as individuals experience the koinonia of the Trinity, it ignites a flame on the altar of our hearts that all our brothers and sisters may know this glorious fellowship, this sweet communion, our prayers rising to the heavenly altar as sweet incense to the Triune God. Our lives are transformed into a holocaust, an offering, on behalf of the Lamb for His People. As John writes, “We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 John 3:16).

 

Perhaps my 5^th great grandfather, Patrick Henry, expressed (on a lower level) what our attitude should be when he participated in the First Continental Congress. Henry said, “I am not a Virginian, but an American.”

 

We must be more than Baptists, more than Roman Catholics, more than Presbyterians, more than Lutherans; more than Reformed or Arminian or Pentecostal or Anglican; we must be first and foremost, first and last, Christians…followers of Jesus Christ…seeking to obtain and preserve “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3).

 

Must this not begin in my own heart and life?

 

Must this not begin from congregation to congregation in our respective locations?  

 

Must this not begin in pastor-to-pastor local relationships?

 

To think that Jesus is making the Name of the Father known to us, so that the “love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them” (John 17:26).

 

Isn’t this worth living for?

 

Jesus Asking for Us

 

“I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word” (John 17:20).

 

I take much comfort in these words of Jesus, to think that He prayed for me, He prayed for you, He prayed for us. In fact, not only did He pray for us, He continues to pray for us:

 

“Therefore He is able also to save completely those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25). This is amazing to me, that Jesus prays for me.

 

Everyone of us who know Jesus Christ today can trace our knowing Him back to that first generation of men and women who first knew Him while He walked the earth. We don’t know how many there were in that first generation. We tend to focus on the original Apostles, apostles with a capital “A”. We might also think of the 70 who Jesus sent out during His ministry (Luke 10:1). Then there were about 120 in the Upper Room (Acts 1:15) – were they all there on the Day of Pentecost? Were there more, were there less? Were there hundreds in that first generation just before Pentecost? Were there thousands? (They need not all have been in Jerusalem, though for sure Jerusalem was the epicenter).

 

We don’t know the specifics, but what we do know is that, compared to what was to come, relatively speaking, it was a small group from which we are descended…but is that not often the case? Most importantly, we are descended from Jesus Christ, for every man and woman of that first generation received their New Life from Jesus (we are no longer in “Adam” but in “Christ”; Romans 5:12 – 21; 1 Corinthians 15:35 – 49).

 

The point is that we are all children of the first generation in one way or another. Even those who have had the miracle of direct revelation can trace that revelation into the communion of saints, to the faithful testimony of that first generation…a generation of which Christ Jesus is the Firstborn; from Him we all descend (and ascend!)

 

My great-great Aunt Martha, who was born in the 19^th century, told me of her Aunt Rose. Her lasting memory of Rose was contained in the words, “Aunt Rose prayed.” When I first heard this from Aunt Martha in the 1960s my thought was, “Aunt Rose prayed for me.” You see, I am certain that Rose’s prayers included her family, her family as she then knew it, and her family as it would unfold in the future. Therefore, her prayers included me.

 

There is a historical record of one of my 5^th great grandfathers walking his property in the 18^th century and praying for his family. Since I’ve been on that very property it is easy for me to visualize him walking and praying, praying and walking. I am certain that he prayed for me, that I was included in his intercessory prayers for his family, his family which then was and his family which was to come.

 

A friend recently told me that he realized that the seed he was sowing in the lives of his family, of his children and grandchildren, might not bear fruit until after he had passed from this life. My friend saw beyond his own life…and yet what he saw was his own life in Christ, a life that doesn’t end with death, but continues both in heaven and still on earth. What I mean is that my friend’s prayers and words will live on in his children and grandchildren and great grandchildren and beyond.

 

This approaches what we mean when we speak of the “communion of the saints.” We can participate in a transcendent community (Hebrews 12:1; 12:22 – 24). As we meditate on John 17:20, we can sense the transcendence to which we belong, the numinosity of the Divine Family of God.

 

For some of us this is as natural as breathing, for most of us it may take a while for our bodies to become acclimated to the high elevations.

 

The vital thing is to know that not only did Jesus pray for us, for you and for me, but that He continues to pray for us. Jesus has never stopped praying for us. Jesus prayed for you 2,000 years ago and He continues praying for you.

 

When we are discouraged, when we have doubts, when we face challenges, let’s remind ourselves and others that Jesus is praying for us. If we are encouraged when others pray for us, how much more should we be encouraged to know that Jesus is praying for us. (And of course if Jesus is praying for us, then we most certainly ought to be praying for one another.)

 

As we will see, the Lord willing, in our next reflection, Jesus is asking the Father that we all might live in the Holy of Holies, in unspeakable communion with one another in the Trinity. What Jesus is asking – for you and for me – is beyond comprehension, but not beyond what our experience can be.

Sent and Sanctified; Sanctified and Sent (3)

 

“We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 John 3:16).

 

What would the Church look like if we lived in 1 John 3:16? What would we look like if we lived as one Family, as one People? As Jesus says, “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). This love is the love of Jesus, “That you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13:34).

 

The standard and quality and nature and expression of our love for one another is the very love of Jesus Christ.

 

This must begin in me, and it must begin in you. It must begin in our marriages, our families, and our individual congregations and fellowships, it must begin in our friendships. And here is the thing, even if you never see it elsewhere, you must live it; I must live it. We must not wait to see it elsewhere, we must follow Jesus now, and in following Jesus we must live the love of Jesus, laying down our lives for the brethren, giving our lives for the people of the world.

 

You may come to the end of your life and not have much company, perhaps you will have no company, perhaps you will walk alone in faithfulness to Jesus Christ; but how could we possibly ever be truly alone knowing that Jesus assures us that He will never leave us or forsake us?

 

When Jesus says, “For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth,” (John 17:18), He calls us to that same commitment, that same life, for as the Father sent Jesus into the world, so Jesus sends us into the world (John 17:18).

 

This then means that neither you nor I can do what we want, it means that we must not take the easy way, the broad way, the popular way, the cotton-candy American Christian way. It means that we embrace the Cross and follow Jesus for the sake for others (Mark 8:34 – 38).

 

It means that neither you nor I can take the economic way (the way of money and possessions), the political way, the way of nationalism, the way of pleasure, the way of comfort, the way of entertainment, the popular “Christian” way which caters to the “self” and avoids the Cross. It means that we clearly confess that our kingdom, the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, is not of this world, that we are citizens of heaven, and that we are seeking the City whose Builder and Maker is God (John 18:33 – 38; Phil. 3:20; Hebrews 11:8 – 16). It means that we glory in Jesus Christ and are crucified to the world (1 Cor. 1:30 – 31; Gal. 2:20; 6:14).

 

We sanctify ourselves, by the grace of God, out of our love for Jesus and also because we love our brothers and sisters. If we truly love others, we will practice lives of dedication to Christ, of separation to Christ; we will live as sacrificial lambs, willing to be offered on the altar for others. When Christ our Good Shepherd chooses us from the flock as sacrifices, we will joyfully yield ourselves to His tender loving care, even in the midst of crucifixion, even as the fire of God descends upon us to consume us for His glory on the altar of the Cross.

 

This means, among other things, that we cannot look at many things others look at, we cannot listen to many things that others listen to, we cannot invest ourselves in many things that others are heavily invested in. It means, in the “Christian” realm, that we cannot join the crowds when they get excited about the latest and greatest teachings, lyrics, and practices, for it means that we must always be asking, “Where is the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ?” If we do not see Christ, if we do not see the Cross, then we must not join the crowds, we must not acquiesce in the nonsense.

 

This can be extremely lonely, let’s not gloss over this. The peer pressure to conform in the world and in the professing church is terrible. Yet, in another sense there is plenty of company, it is the “communion of the saints,” (Hebrews 12:1 – 3, 18 – 24). A welcoming crowd awaits us when we pass through the portal from this age into the age to come, from time into eternity. And dear friends, since eternity is indeed forever, is it not much better to pay a small price now to gain an endless future of joy unspeakable and full of glory? Jesus asks, “What does it profit a person, to gain the whole world yet lose his own soul?”

 

Do you know what it is to be with a group of professing Christians who are talking about popular television shows and not know what they are talking about? Do you know what it is to be with Christians who take their conversational cues from the media – of any persuasion – and find yourself listening to a strange language? Do you know the heartache of wanting Christians to speak of Jesus, of their relationship with Him, of what they are seeing in Hm, hearing from Him, of how they are sharing Jesus with others…and yet they seldom speak of Him?

 

“Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:1 – 2).

 

If we truly love others, if we love our brothers and sisters in Christ, if we love the people of the world, then we cannot, we must not, be conformed to the world – this includes the economic world and the political world, it includes the world of possessions and popular entertainment, it most certainly includes the values and priorities of the world. Our minds must not live in the realm in which the minds of the world live, in which the minds of much of the professing church live.

 

We are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

 

“Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:1 -3).

 

For the sake of others we must sanctify ourselves, setting ourselves apart unto Christ, seeking to be completely devoted to Him so that we may be His Presence in the lives of others. If we are not living in the peace of Jesus, we cannot help a church and a world in chaos. If we are not living in the joy of Jesus, we cannot share His joy with others. If we are not living in the assurance of His love, in the fulness of His redemption and salvation, we cannot offer the Gospel to others in word and deed.

 

“You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

 

The nation to which we belong is not of this world. The race to which we belong is not of this world. The world…in any of its forms…does not own us. We are to proclaim the glory of the excellencies of Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit – not the American Dream, nor any other dream or system of this present age, but rather the Age that is Coming in Christ.

 

We, with Jesus and as possessions of Jesus, confess that we are aliens, strangers, pilgrims; that we are “seeking a country of our own,” a “heavenly country,” a “better country,” a City “whose Architect and Builder is God,” (Hebrews 11:8 – 16).  We do this not simply for our own sake, but for the sake of others, that they might see Jesus.

 

If this seems strange, it is an indictment of the professing church, for it ought to be our way of life in Jesus Christ.

 

As we ponder John 17:17 – 19, I hope we will see that this is our calling, the Way we ought to be living, as individuals, as marriages, as families, as congregations, as the People of God. We are to live this way toward God, we are to live this way toward our brothers and sisters, and we are to live this way toward the people of the world. This is who we ought to be in Jesus Christ.

 

We are not our own, we have been bought with a price, with the blood of the Lamb; we are to no longer to live for ourselves, but for Him who loved us and gave Himself for us…and in living for Him, we also live for others.

“For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf” (2 Corinthians 5:14 – 15).