‘As the deer pants for streams of water so my soul pants for you, O God’. (Psalm 42:1)“On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” (John 14:20 NIV)
Just before His crucifixion, resurrection and ascension, Jesus seeks to explain to His Disciples what will be the consequences for them of all that is about to happen.
The Holy Spirit will come to reveal to them the truth of what has taken place and of who Jesus is and who they are in Him.
First, on that day (when He sends the Spirit) their eyes will be opened to see and understand the relationship between Jesus and His Father. Their eyes will be opened to see who God is within Himself. That He is Father and Son mutually indwelling each other, living in each other in the fellowship of the Spirit. He is not a solitary, isolated, lonely God, but a Triune community of persons mutually indwelling one another without losing their personal distinctiveness.
This revelation of who Jesus is in relation to His Father is dependent on the Holy Spirit; our understanding of God as a community of persons in relationship, in whose fellowship we are included, is one which we can only ultimately know by revelation. That’s why Paul prays, ‘I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you…’ (Ephesians 1:17–18)
Second, on that day (when He sends the Spirit) you will realise that “you are in me.” In other words they will discover that Jesus has included them in His relationship with His Father.
Through the Incarnation, the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, you and I participate in Jesus’ relationship with His Father in the Fellowship of the Spirit.
We are in the Father in the incarnate Son and He has joined Himself to us; in Him we share in His relationship with the Father.
Third, Jesus says, that on that day (when He sends the Spirit) you will realise that “I am in you”. Jesus wants us to know that He is living out His life in and through us; the life that Jesus has and shares with His Father, and the fruit of that life and relationship, He shares with us.
Jesus takes His life, His experience of faith, joy, hope, assurance, love and all that He is, and He puts it inside of us and shares it with us as a gift.
My prayer is that we might know these truths more and more fully in our own lives and experience, as the eyes of our hearts are enlightened day by day, until we see the Lord face to face.
Prayer
Dear God, through the Holy Spirit may we have our eyes opened to realise more clearly who you are and who we are in Christ so that we can put our trust in you and seek to grow in our relationship with you all of our days.
Amen.
Have a good week realising our inclusion in God.
Pastor Barry
