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Posts Tagged ‘John 17’

The Glory That Makes Us One

Posted in Being One, tagged , , , on August 18, 2022| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: John 17:1-8, 22-26

In order to save man, Christ had to lay down the glory that He had with the Father before the world was. There was one time on the Mount of Transfiguration when Christ burst forth from the body of Jesus and the disciples saw the glory cloud as it shone through his body. They heard the Father speak from within the glory cloud that also enveloped Moses and Elias. But John 17:5 shows that even the great power we saw manifested in Jesus Christ while He was in His human body was not the power which He had with the Father before the world was, but much less.

Let us look at John 17:22, in which He bequeathed to us not the glory of the Christ in the mortal body of Jesus, but the glory of the pre-existent Christ, which He had with the Father before the world was made.

“And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one.” 

Our oneness in Christ exceeds all human union. So then, what is this glory which He has given us? And if it is given, is it received? The glory is Christ. Christ stands at the apex of a pyramid and we are all at different points along its side. As we progress towards Him, we also come closer to each other, but it is the oneness of purpose that brings us closer to Him and to each other.

The glory that we seek is Christ. How do we get Christ? It is one of those simple, yet hard answers: We get Christ by being in obedience to the Holy Spirit. Of course, we cannot be obedient to someone whom we cannot hear and we can only hear by the Word of God. Our first action, then, must be a tacit determination to believe the Word of God and to obey it without reservation. Some of us believe this part and that part, but not the other. When this happens, we instinctively seek other interpretations for the Word and, invariably, we fall into error. Once we are in error, we cannot hear the Word of God clearly and we cannot act correctly, thus we miss the glory that was given and we cannot be one with those with whom we should be one.

Let us look at the ending of Jesus’ prayer in John 17:24-26, “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovest me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. 26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

The key in this prayer is expressed in the fact that Jesus is saying that we will have this glory in the natural and not just when we are dead. He is praying not for a glory to come where He will be, but “where I am.” In Chapter 14, Jesus explains that He is going to the Father and that He will come again and receive us unto Himself, “…that where I am, there ye may be also.” God’s plan for us is that Christ Jesus, Who is with us now, should bring us into the place where He is with the Father. He moved out of the place on earth and the Word declares in Hebrews 2:10 that He will bring “…many sons to glory.” The time is close when we will come into this glory. Pray that you do not miss it as the scribes and Pharisees did when Jesus first appeared.

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, June 1991, pg. 6-8)

Thought for today: As we progress towards God, we also come closer to each other, but it is the oneness of purpose that brings us closer to Him and to each other.

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Being in Christ

Posted in The Living Word, tagged , , , , , on August 3, 2022| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: John 17:9-23

The Word of God is a great mystery which none of us can claim to fully understand, but more and more the Lord is revealing to us deeper things pertaining to Himself. As we draw closer to the light, we can see clearer and clearer some of the things which were hidden in the past.

The Word of God functions on many different dimensions and we relate to Him according to where we are in God. There are four basic planes upon which our understanding can reach. But beyond these, the planes of the function of the Word are within the spiritual and beyond the veil. Our Lord spoke to Nicodemus that if he could not understand natural things, how would he be able to understand spiritual things. We can easily understand the things on the flat plane, the horizontal plane. But on the vertical plane, there is both height and depth. On the vertical height plane we understand that God is above us, that the realm of heaven is above our realm, and that there are things too high for us. On the depth plane, we have to be in Christ to get deeper in God, therefore, the IN CHRIST situation is a whole new realm of human experience. This experience is beyond the Christ-in-us experience. This position is us-in-Christ as described by our Lord Himself in His prayer to the Father:

John 17:21, That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

The dimension of being IN CHRIST is the place of being overshadowed by Him in all things. When Christ becomes the Head of the believer, then the believer becomes a part of His body. Many believers claim to be in the body of Christ without having Christ as their head in their actual day-to-day life, which we will describe as a fourth dimension living. In order that we might fully understand this thought, allow me to show you by scriptural references the difference between the Christian who is IN CHRIST and the one who is not.

John 17:23, I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

All those who are in Christ are one. This is the only solid united in the world. They do not have to know each other nor do they have to join any organization because they are joined of the Spirit and will never move one against the other. At present, the world does not know this. The world will classify Christians in one mistaken bundle and do not yet recognize that there is a vast difference between those who are in Christ and those who are not. If we are to be specific, then we must recognize that in the church there is an Outer Court, a Holy Place, and a Holy of Holies. (Note: For a more detailed description of these three areas in the Tabernacle of Moses, please read The Pattern.) The Christians in the Holy of Holies are those who are covered by the Shadow of the Almighty, who not only have Christ in them, but are themselves spirit, soul, and body – in Christ. Those who are in the Holy Place are the ones in the realm of the gifts of the Spirit, who have not yet made the supreme sacrifice of the offering up of their soul nature upon the Altar of Incense. This means that total death has not yet occurred in the soul of the believer, which hinders the life of Christ coming forth.

The Holy Place is the place of the soul. It is also the place where Christ enters into the believer’s soul through the ministration of the Holy Ghost. Previous to this, the believer had the Blood of Jesus in his soul, which gave him life. We call it the born-again experience. He was dead in trespasses and sins, and the Blood of Jesus Christ quickened him and brought him life. The next experience of baptism into the death of Christ is designed to bring him into the life of Christ. So, while the Outer Court represents death, the Holy Place represents life. This Life of Christ in the believer is designed of God to lead him through the two stages of the Holy Place: to experience union with Christ in the Lampstand operation, and to feed on Christ and His body, depicted by the Table of Shewbread. The next and final experience of the Holy Place is the offering which God demands before the believer can enter the Holy of Holies and find rest under the shadow of the Almighty. This offering is the most prized possession of a human person – his soul. When this sovereign act is accomplished, the believer loses all his rights. He loses his nationality, his pride, his ancestral endowments, his carnal identity as male or female, and he knows nothing but Christ and His crucifixion.

Galatians 3:27-28, For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

The baptism into Christ mentioned in Galatians 3:27 definitely could not be speaking of baptism in water; neither could it be speaking of anything humanly accomplished. In I Corinthians 12:13 we are told that we are baptized into Christ by the Holy Ghost. This baptism makes us a part of Christ, which part we call His body. The average Christian might read the above passage and think that it gives him or her license to get up and minister in the congregation, but this passage is written for those who are IN CHRIST and cannot be applied otherwise.

We must conclude that being IN CHRIST means that one is in that Fourth Dimension mentioned in Ephesians 3:18 as the depth of Christ.

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, December 1993, pg. 1-3)

Thought for today: In order for an individual to be in the body of Christ, Christ must be their head in their actual day-to-day life.

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The Oneness of the Lord

Posted in Being One, tagged , , , , , on October 12, 2021| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: John 17:22-23

John 17 shows us God’s perfect will for the church. Verses 22 and 23, “And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) are one: I in them (Jesus in us), and thou in me (God in Jesus), that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou has sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.” If you see this to be the perfect will of God, could you go into an ecumenical joining with people who are deviant and contrary to God and say that this is the will of God that we, the church, should be one? This is not the oneness that the Lord is talking about. The oneness that Jesus is talking about is a oneness wherein we are absolutely subject to the Head which is Christ.

Every man, everywhere, that is subject to the Head, which is Christ, does not have to go and make an agreement, or an ecumenical joining, with another man in order to be one. He is already one in Christ. If Christ speaks, he moves and becomes a part of Christ. Every part of my body is at this present time subject to my head. My hands and my feet must move according to the dictates of my head. This is what we call ONENESS. Anything else is a travesty; it is against the very thoughts of Almighty God. The thing that is about to come forth is called the one-world church, or the antichrist, with “seven heads and ten horns;” power will be given to them by Satan himself.

In Matthew 24:21 and 22, Jesus refers to this group of people (the “man child”) and He called them “the Elect.” “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.” These are not just the called-out, not just the church, but the “eklektos, those who are selected out of the elected.” The selected ones will be selected out of the “ekklesia,” or “the church.” The “eklektos” comes out of the “ekklesia,” or “the chosen comes out of the church.” God is saying that there is a “man child” company.

Another description of this company is in Revelation 14. In this chapter they are called the 144,000. Verse 4, “These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.”

(Excerpt from The Book of Revelation, Volume 3, pages 100-101)

Thought for today: The oneness that Jesus is talking about is a oneness wherein we are absolutely subject to the Head which is Christ.

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“That They May Be One”

Posted in Being One, tagged , , , on September 2, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Scripture reading: John 17:20-22

Have you ever thought about the fact that God gave each one of you somebody to love? I am talking now to you children, you young ones who are not married. God has given you some people to love. You must love this people, this Body, your brethren, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and you must love the Lord God. He says, “Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might, AND thy neighbor as thyself” (Matthew 22:37-39).

But we come short. Yes, we come short! We sin against one another; we say things against one another. But we need to repent. We need to repent, because God is creating a Body in the earth! This is what God is doing! God doesn’t want any mighty preacher to go around healing and delivering everybody. Everybody has to wait until Brother So-And-So comes to lay his hand on them. That’s over with! God is creating a Body. Jesus is calling His bride.

The word comes to me, “That they may be one.” Let us read it in John 17:20-22, “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; 21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. 22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one.”

So, if anybody comes to you, and says he is preaching and doing miracles in the name of the Lord, but he is not creating oneness among the people of God, he is not doing the will of God. For the perfect will of God is that we all may be one! You hear them talk about black church, some talk about white church, some talk about all the different kinds of ethnic and whatever else religious organization churches. All those are outside of Christ. He said, “In Christ, there is neither male nor female” (Galatians 3:28). IN Christ! So you have a wife and you must realize that in the Spirit, IN Christ, she is neither male nor female. It is just God lying down beside you, in your bed at night. And you have to be careful with her, tender, forgiving one another for Christ’s sake. As Jesus Christ forgives us, let us forgive one another (Ephesians 4:32). Let us love one another, as God loves us!

It is like a final word being given. Do you know why? We are at the end of the business. If we fail, God will turn away from us and choose another people. God chooses a group, He chooses one over there, He chooses one over there, and every one that fails, He puts them aside. If they turn church, He finds another group. Don’t you understand? God is trying to melt people into one. We must be one in Christ Jesus. We must have no dissimulations, no divisions that will divide us. We must have repentance. For right now we are not what we ought to be. But we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him (I John 3:2). So, the more of Jesus you have, the more you will be one with the brethren who are one with God.

For that reason, God has set certain things in our midst. God has put in our midst different arrangements. The brethren asked Paul, “How do we relate, one to another in the church?” He said, “The older women should be mothers. Then you have fathers, then you have brothers, and then you have sisters” (1 Timothy 5:1-2). So we should look at each other as brothers and sisters. Why? Is it not reality to you? Let me tell you how real it is. It is more real than your natural brother because the Blood of Jesus Christ which you have in you is in him, and in her, and in this one and in that one. The same Blood that flows through you, flows through them.

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, July 2005, pg. 11-13)

Thought for today: The more of Jesus you have, the more you will be one with the brethren who are one with God.

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The Glory That Makes Us One

Posted in Being One, tagged , , , on November 16, 2020| Leave a Comment »

[Printable version]

Scripture reading: John 17:1-8, 22-26

In order to save man, Christ had to lay down the glory that He had with the Father before the world was. There was one time on the Mount of Transfiguration when Christ burst forth from the body of Jesus and the disciples saw the glory cloud as it shone through his body. They heard the Father speak from within the glory cloud that also enveloped Moses and Elias. But John 17:5 shows that even the great power we saw manifested in Jesus Christ while He was in His human body was not the power which He had with the Father before the world was, but much less.

Let us look at John 17:22, in which He bequeathed to us not the glory of the Christ in the mortal body of Jesus, but the glory of the pre-existent Christ, which He had with the Father before the world was made.

“And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one.” 

Our oneness in Christ exceeds all human union. So then, what is this glory which He has given us? And if it is given, is it received? The glory is Christ. Christ stands at the apex of a pyramid and we are all at different points along its side. As we progress towards Him, we also come closer to each other, but it is the oneness of purpose that brings us closer to Him and to each other.

The glory that we seek is Christ. How do we get Christ? It is one of those simple, yet hard answers: We get Christ by being in obedience to the Holy Spirit. Of course, we cannot be obedient to someone whom we cannot hear and we can only hear by the Word of God. Our first action, then, must be a tacit determination to believe the Word of God and to obey it without reservation. Some of us believe this part and that part, but not the other. When this happens, we instinctively seek other interpretations for the Word and, invariably, we fall into error. Once we are in error, we cannot hear the Word of God clearly and we cannot act correctly, thus we miss the glory that was given and we cannot be one with those with whom we should be one.

Let us look at the ending of Jesus’ prayer in John 17:24-26, “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovest me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. 26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

The key in this prayer is expressed in the fact that Jesus is saying that we will have this glory in the natural and not just when we are dead. He is praying not for a glory to come where He will be, but “where I am.” In Chapter 14, Jesus explains that He is going to the Father and that He will come again and receive us unto Himself, “…that where I am, there ye may be also.” God’s plan for us is that Christ Jesus, Who is with us now, should bring us into the place where He is with the Father. He moved out of the place on earth and the Word declares in Hebrews 2:10 that He will bring “…many sons to glory.” The time is close when we will come into this glory. Pray that you do not miss it as the scribes and Pharisees did when Jesus first appeared.

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, June 1991, pg. 6-8)

Thought for today: As we progress towards God, we also come closer to each other, but it is the oneness of purpose that brings us closer to Him and to each other.

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