Having Eyes, We do not See

John 14:8
Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
Having Eyes, We do not See

Sometimes we can miss the forest for the trees. What is right in front of us we fail to see. Our natural mind and thinking often hems us in and keep us from seeing a bigger picture. Jesus, the man which they saw, held and touched was the Christ. He was the incarnate manifest expression of God in flesh. Jesus was the prototype and example of God’s Spirit living in human form. That is why knowing Jesus is the revelation of expressing the Father.
“Show us the Father and it will satisfy us.” What had Jesus spoken just before Philip asked this question? John 14: 6-7, “Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
Philip’s thinking was exactly why God had to meet with us on our level of understanding and thinking. We always perceive God through the filter of our natural thinking and understanding. What God is helping us understand is that He is not flesh and blood or an old, majestic white-haired man setting upon a throne in heaven. Jesus tells us in John 4 that ‘God is Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.’ If God is Spirit then it only stands to reason that He has given us a spiritual book in our Bible. If it is a spiritual book then how is it going to best be comprehended and understood, with a natural mind of a spiritual mind? If we are to truly comprehend God in some true measure then we have learn to use another dimension of our mind rather than just our intellect and natural reasoning.
After Philip asked Jesus to show them the Father, Jesus replies in John 14: 9-14, “Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that 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. 11Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. 12I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. 14You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” Jesus speaks something to His disciples that the rest of the religious world of that day would have considered flat out blasphemy. Common thought would have been, “Jesus, a man, identifying Himself with Father God and calling Himself one with Him. Who does He think He is?” He knew who He was, but others didn’t know Him for who He was. The revelation of Christ in you is to bring you into the spiritual revelation and knowledge of who you are in Christ. Jesus Himself has identified us with Himself and the Father, but most of us are still living in this old paradigm of our natural man. If you are a new creation in Christ Jesus then you must know that He has placed within this new creation the characteristics and the nature of Himself. Many of us have grown up in religion and yet we still don’t have a true revelation of who we are in Christ. We still view Christ as up, out and away from us, rather than the substance of our being and life.
John 14:23, “23Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.” Jesus came to earth to live before us a relationship of Father and Son. While Jesus acknowledges the Father as greater, His purpose is the expression of the Father in complete and total obedience. His life is not about Jesus the man as some in Hollywood have made Him out to be, His life is Jesus the Christ, the complete surrendered human expression of God the Father. Jesus is the example of what He wants to do in and through each one of us who are a part of His body.
When people ask us to show them Jesus, will we be able to reply as Jesus did to Philip, “Have I been so long with you and you have not seen the Christ?” This is mind that must be in us, that we know our purpose as the expression of Christ in whatever capacity, gifts and callings He has placed upon our lives. Our purpose is to express Jesus, the Christ, as He expressed the Father, for together, with Him we are one.

Blessings,
#kent

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Faithfulness

Faithfulness

1 Corinthians 4:1-5
1So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God. 2Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. 3I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. 4My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. 5Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.

When we received Christ as our savior and embraced the cross, we embraced and committed ourselves to a trust. Through our faith in Christ we promised to be faithful. Even as couples, at the altar of marriage, enter into a covenant with one another, part of that covenant is the commitment to faithfulness and fidelity. Likewise we are in covenant with Christ and one of the primary attributes God desires in His people is faithfulness, unswerving, unconditional and continued commitment to their faith. God is looking for faithful servants that He can commit His kingdom, his power and authority unto. If they do not prove faithful they will abuse, misuse or fail to use what He would entrust to their care. Each one of us in Christ has been given the Holy Spirit. The Word teaches us that He gives us gifts and callings and talents. We may not see ourselves as being anything or having anything, but God has placed something unique and special within each one of us. He wants us to be faithful in whatever it is that He has given to us. Some of us are still learning and searching out what our unique talents and giftings are. They have a way of coming to the surface if you will look for them, because they are all resident in you, because Christ is in you. God is not asking all of us to be a great missionary, evangelist, preacher or teacher. It is not the prominence of what we do; it is the faithfulness that God is looking upon and that we will give account for. It is faithfulness that causes the body of Christ to function and operate in a healthy manner. What is unhealthy is when someone tries to make us be, or we try to be, something that God didn’t intend that we were. We can get out of God’s placement and we will most likely experience a great deal of frustration and failure if we are. We don’t always get man’s approval or even the approval of our brethren for what God has called us too, but it is important that we please God and not men. Often we can look at others and make judgements about them and their place with God that we have no business making. We can even misjudge ourselves. God is the final judge and before Him we stand justified or condemned. Far too often we try and judge a fruit before it is ripe. God is working in and processing each one of us to be what He has created us to be. Our job and responsibility is to remain faithful to Him through the process.
Faithfulness is often a submission to others who are in authority and even submission as an act of love. There will be times you may be far more qualified than one who is over you and you may find that to be a source of trial and irritation, but remember ‘humility is strength under control’. Faithfulness is lifting others up and not putting them down.
A faithful man is a reliable man. One story of faithfulness that impresses me in the Old Testament is the story about Uriah the Hittite. He was the husband of Bathsheba whom David became involved with and impregnated. David, in his effort to cover up his sin brings Uriah back from the battle so that he can get him to have relations again with his wife and then the child can be attributed to him. Uriah, the Hittite is actually named among David’s mighty men, which were like the elite force of David made up of thirty some men. Uriah wasn’t the most prominent of men, but there is an attribute we begin to see in Uriah that we could aspire to be like. He was faithful to David to a fault. Normally this would be a very desirable quality in a soldier, but unfortunately faithfulness was not quite the attribute David was hoping for when he brought Uriah home to his wife. Uriah was more committed to David than he was to his own wife and because of his faithfulness to David and his men he wouldn’t allow himself to even sleep with his wife. He viewed that as a betrayal of his trust while he was still committed to the battle and the other men had to abstain and be separated from their wives. Uriah was such a faithful man that David ended up ordering him into a suicide mission that would take him out of the picture. One cannot help but admire the dedication that Uriah had to David. That is the kind of faithfulness we want to have toward Christ.
So many of us are morally and spiritually loose in our faith. We are tossed to and fro. We are double-minded, trying to be spiritual and yet operating so much out of the flesh. That is not to condemn us; it is to draw attention and awareness to the state of our own faithfulness. How trustworthy and faithful are we to the Lord’s work and the mission we have to live for Him?
The one thing I think we all want to hear when we get to heaven is the Lord saying, “Well done thou good and faithful servant; enter ye into the joy of the Lord.” Are we His faithful servants? Are we responding, as we ought to the high calling of faithfulness that the Lord has placed upon each one of us? It is not for others to judge, but one day God will judge it and what will He find in us?

Blessings,
#kent