John 14:18-21
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. 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.
- The Gospel message is fundamentally about the Son of God coming in His
Spirit to share His life with us.
- The life that Christ reveals within us is the same eternal life He now
shares with His Father. "At that day"—the day He fills the temple of the body
with His glory, we "know" we are partaking in the divine life that is shared
in the Trinity.
- Jesus has only promised to manifest Himself to those who obey
Him.
Matt 16:24-25
24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let
him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 25 For whoever desires
to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find
it.
- The form of spiritual life that is developed from the temporal things of
this world is always dying. It is completely lost when the world passes away.
(1 John 2:15-17)
- We find the Son’s heavenly life by following Him through the cross. This
is the final test of faith. Do we believe we will find His life if we will die
to our self-life? "For if we have been united together in the likeness of His
death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection." (Rom.
6:5) Because He lives we can live in the same life.
John 15:11
11 These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that
your joy may be full.
John 14: 27-28
27 …My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not
your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. 28 You have heard Me say to
you, "I am going away and coming back to you."
John 17:20-21, 26
20 I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me
through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I
in You; 21 that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You
sent Me… 26…that the love with which You love Me may be in them, and I in
them.
- Jesus can share with us the love, joy and peace that resides within His
divine life.
- The fruit of His Spirit naturally flows out of our heart when He fills us
with His Spirit.
- Those who are partaking of His life reveal the holy love that He shares
with the Father.
John 16:16
A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you
will see Me, because I go to the Father.
- Jesus could not share His life with His disciples until after He was in a
glorified state at the right hand of the Father. "He who descended is also the
One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things."
(Eph. 4:10)
- Now that He is glorified, His "rivers of living water" can flow out of our
inner being and become a display of His "everlasting life." (John 4:14;
7:38-39)
John 14:6-7
6 I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except
through Me. 7 If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from
now on you know Him and have seen Him.
- The Father is the original source of the eternal life. The Son receives
this life from Him and then communicates the life to us through a supernatural
work of the Holy Spirit.
- He is the way, the truth and the life. It is by living through Him that we
become partakers of the divine nature.
1 John 4:9-10
9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His
only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.
- We remain filled with the life of the Son as we walk by His Spirit in
union with Him.
- Jesus set the example by living through His Father. He then instructed us
to follow Him. He said, "I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and
My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of
the Father who sent Me." (John 5:30)
John 12:20-26
20 Now there were certain Greeks among those who came up to worship at the
feast. 21 Then they came to Philip…and asked him, saying, "Sir, we wish to see
Jesus." 22 Philip came and told Andrew, and in turn Andrew and Philip told
Jesus. 23 But Jesus answered them, saying, "The hour has come that the Son of
Man should be glorified. 24 Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of
wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it
produces much grain. 25 He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his
life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves Me, let
him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves
Me, him My Father will honor.
- Jesus had to go through the cross to be in a position to share His life
with His disciples. He then instructed His disciples to follow Him through the
cross. According to His promise, everyone who loses their old form of life
will find His life. (Matt. 16:24-25)
- Christ expects us to share with Him in His heavenly life. He therefore
says, "Where I am, there My servant will be also."
- When we bring people to see Jesus we must tell them what Jesus told Andrew
and Philip. They too will need to pass through a death to the old flesh-life
if they hope to see Him and share with Him in His life in the heavenly realms.
Col. 3:1-4
1 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above,
where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on things
above, not on things on the earth. 3 For you died, and your life is hidden with
Christ in God.
- Those who are truly born of God are empowered to overcome the world. (1
John 5:4) They can begin to hear spiritual truths. It is then that they are
taken by the Lord through a time of testing where they must learn to walk by
His Spirit.
- The eternal life that Jesus revealed bodily is now available to everyone
who will take their minds off earthly things and begin looking to Him to do
what He has promised.
- The work of the church is to build Christians up in their faith so they
will learn to walk by the Spirit and begin looking to Christ to be the source
of their life. "And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life,
and this life is in His Son." (1 John 5:11)
Eph. 1:3-4
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us
with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He
chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and
without blame before Him in love.
- It has always been God’s purpose to have many children who manifest His
image of holy love in everything they do. This divine life is now available
from the Son.
- Those who have sufficient faith to die to the world and its things will
receive the promise. Every spiritual blessing in Christ’s heavenly life can
now be received through faith.
John 3:12-13
12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you
believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended to heaven but He
who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.
- Jesus lived as the Second Adam. He lived with His Father in the heavenly
realms as He walked by the Spirit in this world. Everything He did was a
manifestation of His Father.
- We are to walk as Jesus did by permitting Christ to live through us as the
Father lived through Him. We too can have our physical life in this world
while living through the Son’s life in the heavenly realms.
2 Cor 6:16-7:1
16 …For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will dwell
in them and walk among them. {KJV-"Walk in them"}… 17 Therefore "Come out from
among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I
will receive you…" 7:1 Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse
ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in
the fear of God.
- The Lord wants to "dwell in" us and "walk in" us today. This is a
description of how the life of God was able to dwell in both the first and the
Second Adam. Christ came to restore this way of life.
- The soul will remain separated from this life of promise while we are
still in possession of "unclean things." An unclean thing in God’s sight is
anything that is not fully devoted to Him and His use. These things prevent us
from seeing the Son’s heavenly life.
- The wilderness testing period is the time when every heart idol needs to
be removed from the heart. While the Lord will provides periodic wells of
refreshment as we pass through this arid land, we are to press forward in our
faith by seeking out the "rivers" of Living Water that are to rise up from
within into an endless display of His life of holy love.
Matt. 5:8
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
- This special privilege is granted when every idol has been removed from
the heart.
- To see God is to share with Him in His heavenly life and nature.
1 Cor 2:9-10
9 But as it is written: "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered
into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him." 10 But God has
revealed them to us through His Spirit.
- While man himself cannot grasp through his own reasoning power what God
has prepared for us in the heavenly realms, the Holy Spirit can now begin
revealing this life within our inner being.
- We must not limit God because of our own limited understanding. Christians
are required to believe what God’s Word teaches and then fully surrender to
the truth that is stated.