Thursday, May 12, 2005
Life Eternal
Eternal Life
Abiding in God’s love is the present experience of eternal life. In John 17:2-3 Jesus said, “Thou gavest Him authority over all mankind, that to all whom Thou hast given Him, He may give eternal life. [3] "And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.
In these verses we find that eternal life comes from Jesus and can be defined as knowing God the Father and Jesus the Messiah; in essence, eternal life is a relationship with God. Eternal life is knowing God by experience, not just knowing about God, or believing in God. The point of redemption, on our end, is that we may experientially know God.
If we want to know what “knowing God” looks like, we must look at the Messiah’s relationship with His Father. Nobody ever has or ever will know God better than Jesus! Looking at Jesus is the best way to see spiritual truth. Our hearts might rebel, saying, “No let’s look at my own experience…” But the Bible says “Let’s look at Jesus.” So, what was Jesus’ experience of knowing God like?
Looking at Jesus
“Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you. Abide in My love. If you keep My commandments you will abide in My love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” (John 15:9,10)
In these verses, Jesus is giving us instructions for our relationship with Himself, but He is also revealing some important things about His relationship with the Father (after all, His relationship is the pattern for ours!) Here we see that Jesus knew that the Father loved Him. (“…the Father has loved Me”) We also see that He understood what this love for Him was like; how else can He say “just as He… I have also…?” So, Jesus knew His Father loved Him, and He experienced this love. Not only that, but He goes on to tell us that He abided in (remained in, stayed in, experienced an ongoing awareness of) His Father’s love. Jesus’ relationship with God was filled with receiving the love of His Father! This foundation established His relationship with Father. It is the core of a spiritually mature relationship with God. It is the experience of eternal life.
Looking at Jesus’ description of His experience, we see that knowing God includes interacting with holy love. For Jesus this meant the awareness of the affection, devotion, commitment, and approval directed toward Him. If you think the only times Jesus ever heard “You’re my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” were when God spoke “publicly,” you are probably mistaken. After all, Jesus said He abided in His Father’s love; this was an ongoing experience. Jesus wants us to have this same experience. We too are to live in the awareness of His affection, devotion, commitment, and approval for us. Jesus graciously commanded us to abide in His love because He desires His disciples to have the same relationship with Him as He had with the Father. We are called to an unimpeded, unhindered, ongoing fellowship with the risen Messiah right now.
Religion Revolts Against Abiding
Looking at the record of Jesus’ life, we also see that Jesus’ relationship with His Father (abiding in the Father’s love) produced fruit. This fruit was manifest in the living river of love and power flowing through Him to others. Jesus’ knowing Father’s love resulted in other people’s deliverance and salvation. In the same way, through abiding in His love, we will manifest the fruit of love towards others and experience the power to set them free from hellish strongholds. As men and women of God we will be enabled to go into situations and have God’s love revealed through us because we experientially know the heart and love of God.
Bearing fruit is the result of an ongoing encounter of His love. It is a result of the experienced reality (not merely the idea) of His love. Yet, there are some who resist this emphasis. There’s something about being commanded to stay in a conscious awareness of God’s love that rankles the religious view of reality; religion just doesn’t like to receive.
Religious motivation seeks to increase the load of overburdened souls. Religion generally hates the justifying work of the Messiah. Religion’s pathetically helpless pride hates the gift of imputed righteousness. Religion demands that we labor to earn absolution or toil to purchase pardon.
Sometimes religion bows to Jesus’ justifying work only to rebel at a different level. It manifests in resistance to the very reason justification has taken place; the experience of God. It is possible to pursue apparently noble goals (such as spiritual disciplines, personal holiness, or effectiveness in ministry) and ignore the whole point of redemption! The prophetic principle, “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief corner stone” (Psalm 118:22) is constantly being fulfilled in our day. God is calling, “Come, get to know My love.” But religious scruples say, “Require me to do something burdensome.” Religion says, “Command me to flagellate myself. Obligate me to do something, anything, which is either unpleasant or punitive. Then I’ll feel better about myself. I can earn God’s love.”
This is whitewashed tomb language. This is the appearance of godliness rather than the heart of sanctity. The heart of sanctity is receiving. The heart of sanctity is loving God in response to the experience of abiding in His love. The heart of sanctity is grateful reciprocation to the act of love which brought about redemption. The heart of sanctity is a relationship with the God who is love. That is the heart of sanctity.
Jesus told us that there is one primary command. What does it say? Does it say, “You shall love the idea of God with all of your heart mind soul and strength. You shall love the information about Him.”? Does it say, “You shall love the ethical demands which proceed from Him with all of your heart mind soul and strength.”? Or perhaps, “You shall seek to serve Me and labor hard for Me with all of your heart, mind, soul, and strength.”?
No, it doesn’t say that. It says, “You shall love the Lord your God. You shall love the God Who has redeemed you, He with Whom you are in covenant.” Each redeemed believer is in covenant with God through the wounds and the blood and the death of His Son. “You shall love Him with all of your heart.” That’s the heart of sanctity.
There’s a reason the first commandment is the first. Jesus emphasized this as foremost because it is intrinsically the most important! How will we ever fulfill this commandment? Jesus gives us a secret. He says, “Receive.” You get saved by receiving. How do you grow? 6 Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, 7 having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude. (Colossians 2:6-7)
Jesus told us, “he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing..” (John 15:5). In the same passage, He also commanded us, “abide in My love.” Receive the command. Receive Jesus’ love. Don’t let religion fool you. If you abide, you will bear fruit.
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Abiding in God’s love is the present experience of eternal life. In John 17:2-3 Jesus said, “Thou gavest Him authority over all mankind, that to all whom Thou hast given Him, He may give eternal life. [3] "And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.
In these verses we find that eternal life comes from Jesus and can be defined as knowing God the Father and Jesus the Messiah; in essence, eternal life is a relationship with God. Eternal life is knowing God by experience, not just knowing about God, or believing in God. The point of redemption, on our end, is that we may experientially know God.
If we want to know what “knowing God” looks like, we must look at the Messiah’s relationship with His Father. Nobody ever has or ever will know God better than Jesus! Looking at Jesus is the best way to see spiritual truth. Our hearts might rebel, saying, “No let’s look at my own experience…” But the Bible says “Let’s look at Jesus.” So, what was Jesus’ experience of knowing God like?
Looking at Jesus
“Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you. Abide in My love. If you keep My commandments you will abide in My love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” (John 15:9,10)
In these verses, Jesus is giving us instructions for our relationship with Himself, but He is also revealing some important things about His relationship with the Father (after all, His relationship is the pattern for ours!) Here we see that Jesus knew that the Father loved Him. (“…the Father has loved Me”) We also see that He understood what this love for Him was like; how else can He say “just as He… I have also…?” So, Jesus knew His Father loved Him, and He experienced this love. Not only that, but He goes on to tell us that He abided in (remained in, stayed in, experienced an ongoing awareness of) His Father’s love. Jesus’ relationship with God was filled with receiving the love of His Father! This foundation established His relationship with Father. It is the core of a spiritually mature relationship with God. It is the experience of eternal life.
Looking at Jesus’ description of His experience, we see that knowing God includes interacting with holy love. For Jesus this meant the awareness of the affection, devotion, commitment, and approval directed toward Him. If you think the only times Jesus ever heard “You’re my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” were when God spoke “publicly,” you are probably mistaken. After all, Jesus said He abided in His Father’s love; this was an ongoing experience. Jesus wants us to have this same experience. We too are to live in the awareness of His affection, devotion, commitment, and approval for us. Jesus graciously commanded us to abide in His love because He desires His disciples to have the same relationship with Him as He had with the Father. We are called to an unimpeded, unhindered, ongoing fellowship with the risen Messiah right now.
Religion Revolts Against Abiding
Looking at the record of Jesus’ life, we also see that Jesus’ relationship with His Father (abiding in the Father’s love) produced fruit. This fruit was manifest in the living river of love and power flowing through Him to others. Jesus’ knowing Father’s love resulted in other people’s deliverance and salvation. In the same way, through abiding in His love, we will manifest the fruit of love towards others and experience the power to set them free from hellish strongholds. As men and women of God we will be enabled to go into situations and have God’s love revealed through us because we experientially know the heart and love of God.
Bearing fruit is the result of an ongoing encounter of His love. It is a result of the experienced reality (not merely the idea) of His love. Yet, there are some who resist this emphasis. There’s something about being commanded to stay in a conscious awareness of God’s love that rankles the religious view of reality; religion just doesn’t like to receive.
Religious motivation seeks to increase the load of overburdened souls. Religion generally hates the justifying work of the Messiah. Religion’s pathetically helpless pride hates the gift of imputed righteousness. Religion demands that we labor to earn absolution or toil to purchase pardon.
Sometimes religion bows to Jesus’ justifying work only to rebel at a different level. It manifests in resistance to the very reason justification has taken place; the experience of God. It is possible to pursue apparently noble goals (such as spiritual disciplines, personal holiness, or effectiveness in ministry) and ignore the whole point of redemption! The prophetic principle, “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief corner stone” (Psalm 118:22) is constantly being fulfilled in our day. God is calling, “Come, get to know My love.” But religious scruples say, “Require me to do something burdensome.” Religion says, “Command me to flagellate myself. Obligate me to do something, anything, which is either unpleasant or punitive. Then I’ll feel better about myself. I can earn God’s love.”
This is whitewashed tomb language. This is the appearance of godliness rather than the heart of sanctity. The heart of sanctity is receiving. The heart of sanctity is loving God in response to the experience of abiding in His love. The heart of sanctity is grateful reciprocation to the act of love which brought about redemption. The heart of sanctity is a relationship with the God who is love. That is the heart of sanctity.
Jesus told us that there is one primary command. What does it say? Does it say, “You shall love the idea of God with all of your heart mind soul and strength. You shall love the information about Him.”? Does it say, “You shall love the ethical demands which proceed from Him with all of your heart mind soul and strength.”? Or perhaps, “You shall seek to serve Me and labor hard for Me with all of your heart, mind, soul, and strength.”?
No, it doesn’t say that. It says, “You shall love the Lord your God. You shall love the God Who has redeemed you, He with Whom you are in covenant.” Each redeemed believer is in covenant with God through the wounds and the blood and the death of His Son. “You shall love Him with all of your heart.” That’s the heart of sanctity.
There’s a reason the first commandment is the first. Jesus emphasized this as foremost because it is intrinsically the most important! How will we ever fulfill this commandment? Jesus gives us a secret. He says, “Receive.” You get saved by receiving. How do you grow? 6 Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, 7 having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude. (Colossians 2:6-7)
Jesus told us, “he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing..” (John 15:5). In the same passage, He also commanded us, “abide in My love.” Receive the command. Receive Jesus’ love. Don’t let religion fool you. If you abide, you will bear fruit.
