As a kid I used to love playing ‘Connect the dots’. I would rush from number to number because I couldn’t wait to see the big picture.
The Big Picture
You and I serve a big picture God. We look at the little snapshot of our lives and everything we do and everything we think about revolves around this little snapshot. This one life. We are always looking for the next dot… wondering…
But God, He knows what the picture looks like. He already drew the whole thing. It is complete. When He looks at the big picture and He knows how all the little snapshots fit together and not just for this moment but He understands the strategic purpose of how all of our lives are essential to the picture that He has designed. It is the eternal plan of God for creating us.
Right from the very beginning, when He said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image”, He saw and still sees the big picture.
- He knew that in this big picture…by giving man his own will that man would sin.
- He knew that the only way to redeem a sinful people to a Holy God would be for the Holy God to take on the full judgment of all sin and to pay the righteous and just punishment Himself so that sin no longer had the power to separate man from God.
- He knew that man, once redeemed would need to have the Holy Spirit dwelling within SO THAT… He could create man in His image.
- He knew that this work of transformation by the Holy Spirit was going to take time and He also knows who will surrender for this work of transformation.
- He continues to draw us ever deeper by strategically giving us the signs we need to navigate along this pathway. He never leaves nor forsakes us and is actively participating all along the way.
- Your life matters to Him. Your existence matters to Him. Completing your full potential matters to Him. He is God Almighty and in His relentless pursuit of you there is an unveiling of His great love for you.
Following the signs
In 2006, the Holy Spirit announced through revelation that the preparation of the bride had begun. Ever since then, He has led us continuously deeper and deeper into this revelation and the various steps we need to follow in order to prepare.
- Being Rapture ready is big on the agenda and to this end the Holy Spirit has turned our attention to the warnings that Jesus gave to the seven churches of Revelations.
- The importance of returning to our ‘First Love’ and doing the ‘first works’.
- The Secret Place of His Presence – Awe, reverence, intimacy and learning to know Him.
- You abiding in Christ and also, Christ in you. The New Jerusalem – the habitation, the dwelling place of God the Father and the Lamb.
- The Secret Place – the place of abiding, of surrender, of transformation – birthing Christ in you.
- I am the Vine, you are the branches – producing His fruit – beginning with Love.
Today we continue discussing this important point, the very essence of God – Love…flowing in us and through us.
Christ in us, the hope of glory.
Jesus became the Son of Man to be our representative.
He, the Son of Man is the second Adam
1 Cor. 15:20-22 – But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.
V45 And so it is written, the first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
Jesus, as the Son of Man, is the express image of God:
Heb. 1:1-3 – God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers and the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
We, the church and the Lord Jesus Christ have become one. Christ in us, the mystery that was hidden from the ages.
Eph. 5:23 – For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Saviour of the body
V 25-27 – Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the Word that He might present her to Himself a glorious church.
V 31-32 – For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
Eph. 3:8 -11 – To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; V10 (why was it hidden?) to the intent that NOW the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. (2 Cor. 5:19)
In these verses, Paul says that Jesus created all things for this eternal purpose, this reason – that the manifold (many various forms) wisdom of God might be made known (by who?) by the church.
So clearly, the Lord Jesus Christ and the church have become one flesh. It stands to reason that the Head of the church and the body are one. Therefore Eph.3:10 speaks of the manifold wisdom of God being made known by the church (which has become one flesh with Jesus) to the principalities and powers in heavenly places.
This eternal purpose of God has been accomplished through Jesus Christ, who has restored to us the very reason for our existence. Which is God’s purpose for us, ‘Let Us make man in Our image. Let them have dominion over the things of the earth…’
Paul says exactly the same thing in Col. 1:24-27 – “…for the sake of His body, which is the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God, the mystery which was hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints. To them God willed to make known what are the riches of this glory among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Becoming rooted and grounded in love
Paul goes on to say:
Eph. 3:14-19 – For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know (Ginosko) the love of Christ which passes all knowledge (Gnosis); that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
What is Paul saying here? I pray to the Father that He would strengthen you in your spirit – by His Holy Spirit – so that Christ (the express image of God) may dwell in your hearts by faith (becoming one flesh).
It is when Christ dwells in our hearts (through faith) that Jesus’ instruction to us in John 15:4 becomes a reality.
John 15:4 – Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.
John 15:5-6 – I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.
If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered.
Paul goes on to say that when Christ is abiding in you – that, you are rooted and grounded in Love. (Eph. 3:17) Why? Because He is love.
If your heart, soul and mind are rooted in Love, in Him…then what will flow forth from you is love. If your heart, soul and mind are grounded in Love, then you will be immovable when the storms come.
You and I abiding (living, dwelling) in Him and Jesus dwelling in us is the only way that the nature and character of Christ, the fruits of the Spirit, can become our nature and our character.
It is His life coming forth in and through the branch – that produces the fruit.
He is Love and all fruit that comes forth from Him has a common root of Love.
Love is the language and culture of the Kingdom of God
1 Cor. 13:4-5 – Love suffers long (endures with patience) and is kind; love does not envy, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
V8-10 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect (maturity, completeness) has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
What is that which is perfect? Love – Love never fails. The love spoken of in V4-5. This is what is in the heart of the one who has been perfected, matured and complete.
Spiritual maturity and the fullness of God
How is this maturity going to become the reality of who we are?
Ezek. 36:26-27 – I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.
Two things the Father is going to do:
- He will take out the hardened heart (has grown callous, dull and blind, has lost sensitivity) and give us a new heart, a soft heart.
- Secondly, He will put His Spirit within us to cause us, to bring about the transformation needed to walk in His statutes (His commandments).
Whether He is disciplining us or pruning us – it is all done in an atmosphere of love.
This real love, the culture of heaven, is birthed in the secret place of His Presence.
The secret place is where I am broken, I don’t want to be envious, I don’t want to be puffed up, I don’t want to behave rudely, I don’t want to be easily provoked. I am not chasing after stuff or position. What I want is Him and His love.
I must come to the place where I have let go of the things that have held me captive. I have emptied myself of me and surrendered to the law of the Spirit. I no longer flow with the crowd. I flow with the Holy Spirit. – Robert Pears.
Andrew Murray, a South African writer, teacher and Pastor, who was born in 1828 and died in 1917, had this to share in one of his books, ‘The Inner Chamber and the Inner Life.’
In the South African country there are various diseases that affect our orange trees. One of them is popularly known by the common name, ‘the root disease’. The tree may still be bearing and an ordinary observer may not notice anything wrong while an expert sees the beginning of a slow death.
The ‘Phylloxera’ in the vineyards is nothing but a root disease. It has been found that there is no radical cure but by taking out the old roots and providing new ones. The old sort of grape is grafted on an American root and in the course of time, you have the same stem and branches as the root had before but the roots are new and able to resist the disease.
It is in the part of the plant that is hid from view that this disease comes and where healing must be sought.
How the church of Christ and thousands of its members suffer from the root disease. The neglect of the secret intercourse (communion, connection) with God.
It is the lack of secret prayer, the neglect of the maintenance of the secret life hidden in Christ, rooted and grounded in love, that explains the feebleness of the Christian life to resist the world, and its failure to bring forth fruit abundantly.
Nothing can change this but the restoration, in the life of the believer, of the inner chamber to the place that Christ meant it to have.
As Christians learn, instead of trusting their own efforts, what it is daily to strike their roots deeper into Christ, to make personal fellowship with God their chief care, true godliness will flourish.
If the root be holy, so are the branches. If the morning hour be holy to the Lord, the day with its duties will be so to. If the root be healthy, so are the branches.
How do you know whether you are rooted and grounded in Christ? You will be bearing fruits of the Spirit.
How do you know if you are not rooted and grounded in Christ? You won’t be bearing fruits of the Spirit. You’ll be dry, lacking life and hope, no vision, no ability to resist sin or the world.
It is the one who dwells in the secret place of His Presence that is the one who is rooted and grounded in Him who is love.
Eph. 3:17-19 – that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know (Ginosko) the love of Christ which passes all knowledge (Gnosis); (why?) that you may be filled with all the fullness (Play’ro-mah) of God.
Know – Strongs: Ginosko – to know absolutely. A Jewish idiom for sexual intercourse between a man and a woman. An intimate knowledge.
Knowledge – Thayers: Gnosis – general intelligence, understanding, general knowledge of Christian religion.
Fullness – Thayers: Pleroma – Completeness. In the NT, the body of believers, which is filled with presence, power, the riches of God and of Christ.
God wants to bring you to the place where you are rooted and grounded in love. His very essence.
Without Him, we can do nothing. He is the only reason that the love of God can be imparted to us and through us. He cleans us up and He births His fruit in us.
‘Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.’