If you follow my work and writing, I hope that you see an effort to paint a picture of the Fullness and Glory of Jesus Christ. I hope that it would be difficult to read my words, and not come away with an expanded appreciation, and desire for Him.
In my book, The Path of Freedom, and here on the blog, we have discussed Him as both The Gate, and The Path. He is The Gate into Life, and The Path toward Life. He is in fact, The Life Himself. He is The Way. He is The Truth. He is the Summation of The Eternal Purpose. He is The Fulfillment. He is The Tree of Life. He is The Bridegroom, The Cornerstone, The Head, The Firstborn. He is Salvation and Grace (mercy), and He is The Kingdom and Grace (power). He is The Identity. He is Rest, and He is Good. He is The Source and The Supply of faith. He is Faith. He is The Vine. He is The Leader. He is The Law of Life. He is our Habitat, our Garden. He is Light, and He is Love.
We could go on and on – because He does.
If I have failed to make it abundantly clear, let me try as explicitly as I can:
Jesus is Freedom. Freedom is Jesus.
There can be no other way, because He is The Way.
Oh, what a Christ! We can hardly fathom in ourselves the depth of Him – He that is simultaneously the Way in, the Way on, and the Faith and Grace to move into it all.
The Pre-eminent One is alive and at work, friends. And mind-blowingly, He is alive and at work – in you. In me. In us. “Not I, but Christ.” This is the key, the Truth, whether you believe It, and Live It – or not. Freedom is realized in the Belief and the Living. Bondage is at work in the absence of these.
While Jesus is Present and Real in us, today, welcome and waiting to be received as Life – it is also true that we have preserved for us a record of Jesus Himself Living by an Indwelling Life, also. Our Path of Freedom is not a maiden voyage. This Path has been walked before – by none other than He who walks It with us now. Jesus.
The Tree of Life, the Highest Life, was in Jesus as He walked the earth incarnate. Not only was God’s Life in Jesus, but also Jesus was the very embodiment of God’s Life.
“This is the Testimony. God has given us Eternal Life, and this Life is in His Son.”
Jesus Christ, “He is the true God and Eternal Life.” Christ, though man, carried Divine Life inside of Him. He didn’t just come to offer forgiveness for our sins – He came to offer us the Life He had inside. He did not just speak to life after death – but to an abundance of enjoyment of Eternal Life as a present reality.
Eternal Life was God, and it dwelled in Jesus, and He Lived by It. Eternal Life became a Person in Christ, visible, One to be tasted, touched, eaten of and drank from. In His Resurrection, He awakens those who would Believe, to the reality of this already dispensed Life, and His residence in them as “a Life-Giving Spirit.” It is by this Spirit we “Live and move and find our being.” It is by this Spirit we are Free.
Even before that Resurrection, as Jesus was human, He Lived and moved and found His being by Another Life too.
“By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear…for I seek not to please myself but Him who sent me.”
“My teaching is not my own. It comes from Him who sent me.”
“I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.”
“I did not speak on my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it.”
“I am in the Father, and the Father is in me. The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing His work.”
What do these sound like to you, now? Faith, Belief, Trust, Abiding, Denying Self, Decreasing that Another might Increase? Jesus, fully human, remember, was utterly Free, and His Freedom’s key was this:
“Not I, but the Father.” “It is not I who lives, but God who lives in me. And this Life I live in the flesh, I live by Faith in the Father, who loves me.”
Let Freedom ring.
Jesus Lived by an indwelling Lord, His Father. He Lived His Father’s Life, from a place of abiding and trusting in Him. He had every opportunity to feed Self, to turn to sin, to listen to the satan – and He did not. He continually ate of the Tree of Life within Him, rejecting other trees. His Vine was God, and He had His Source and Supply. As He was decreased, the Father was increased, and the Life and Freedom were evidenced by Fruit – the greatest Fruit – Freedom’s Fruit.
His Reality is our destiny in Him (do yourself a favor and go read my friend Jamal Jivanjee’s beautiful post from yesterday, on this subject). He took a Hill, with a Cross, to die and be buried – to then be raised, ascended and seated. Blessedly, this Reality can be our destiny in the area of Life by Indwelling too (This Reality is, actually, Reality already. It is your Living by Indwelling Life that comes into agreement with what Is).
“As the living Father has sent me, and I Live by the Father, so he who consumes me shall Live by me.”
As Jesus Lived by His Father’s Life, so too we may Live by Christ’s Life in us. It’s the same Life – Divine, Uncreated, Superlative, Highest Life. Gloriously, we get the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, all – in this Life. The Gate has granted us access; The Path removes the veil to receiving It.
It is there, on the Table. The Feast is set. We have a place there. All we “have to do” is consume. Eat.
Friend, you are in possession of the greatest Gift of all: Life. Further, you can freely Live by this Life. Let me say that another way… You are in possession of Freedom. Further, you can Freely Live Free.
Freedom is about “seeing.” When you see, you Overcome. “Seeing” is about looking in faith with eyes of the heart. It is Spiritual Sight. With this Sight, life is not a matter of “What should I do here?” or even, “WWJD?” Instead, Life is about “seeing” what Jesus is doing, and joining Him in that. Life and Freedom are “found” in seeing Christ, Oneness, within.
Can you see Him? Can you see Freedom?
What do you “see?” Comment below:
