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The Ultimate Victory
By Linda Rex
May 5, 2024, 6th Sunday in Easter—“I wish I had your faith,” a friend said to me. We had been talking about a change God had done in my life. The Lord had given me a totally new perspective about what it meant to follow Christ. And his grace had transformed my life.
The interesting thing about faith is that we cannot drum it up ourselves. We can only receive it as a gift from God. It is the faith of Jesus Christ that we need most, for only Jesus truly knows the trustworthiness, faithfulness, love, and goodness of the Triune God.
This Sunday’s reading in the New Testament, 1 John 5:1–6, speaks of the need to believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God who lived in our human flesh, was crucified, and rose again. Bound up in the sacrificial self-offering of Jesus Christ is a profound expression of God’s love. As we believe, we receive this gift of love he offers us. This gift is God’s love poured out in the Spirit of truth. The Spirit bears witness within us to the reality that God has come to dwell in human hearts, through Jesus in the Spirit.
The love of God is poured out within our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5). It is Christ in us by the Spirit who is the law of God written on human hearts. It is Jesus’ own face-to-face relationship with his Father in the Spirit that we participate in. It is his triumph over evil, sin, and death that we share in. And we find within his victory our own victory over all that opposes God. This is the beauty of our new life in Christ.
Too often we focus on the dos and don’ts of our life in Christ. We focus on whether or not we (or others) are measuring up to the standards we believe God requires of us. We find ourselves trying to hide our failures to love. We stuff down inside, as best as we can, all those things we are ashamed of and feel guilty about. And they only seem to gain strength and power.
What we miss is the reality that, in Christ, we are who God has declared us to be—his very own beloved children. We cannot alter our inclusion in his life by our behavior or misbehavior. God’s love is unconditional. However, the reality is that our experience of his love is affected by our behavior or misbehavior. And we may need to be reawakened to the reality in which we exist.
When my toddler threw a temper tantrum, it did not change the reality that they were my beloved child. It did not alter my love for them or my desire to be with them and to have them in my life. It did require that I respond to them in the most loving way possible. They needed to know who they were—my beloved child—and that the behavior they were manifesting was out of sync with that reality. The reality was they could not continue their misbehavior and fully enjoy the fellowship of our family.
Every person who has ever lived was created to participate in God’s life and love. God has loved every person since before the foundation of the world. God knew we each tend to turn and go our own way. This has not altered his love for us. Rather, he has worked since before time began to ensure that nothing, not even our own stubborn disobedient wills, would stand in the way of us being able to participate in his life and love. For it is God’s purpose that every person be included in his life and love for all eternity.
We cannot do any of this on our own. Our own efforts as humans have sent us down the road to ruin, back to the nothingness out of which we were created. God is not willing that anyone perish, and so the Son of God came. Born of a woman, he lived a very human life in obedience to his Father, and died a painful, bloody death. And he rose from the grave to carry our human flesh with him into glory. Now we all are able by faith to participate in Jesus’ own life with his Father in the Spirit. Jesus sent the Spirit from the Father to us so he might live his life in and through us. We have been given Christ’s own life of faith, obedience, and right relationship with his Father, by the Spirit.
We stand with open hands and open hearts to receive this gift of God’s love and grace. We are God’s beloved children. He is our very own Father. Jesus, as our brother and friend, includes us in his own fellowship with his Father in the Spirit. And the Spirit says in our hearts, the words of the Father and Jesus, “I am yours, and you are mine.”
If you are struggling to believe, simply ask the Lord Jesus to give you his faith to believe. He will be happy to share everything he has with you, including the faith to believe.
We thank you, heavenly Father, for the gift of your Son and your Spirit. We ask for the grace to believe—free us from our unbelief. Enable us to leave each day, by your Spirit, in the truth of who we are as your beloved children, accepted, forgiven, redeemed, and renewed, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is the One who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood. It is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.” 1 John 5:1–6 NASB
“Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ, the incarnate begotten son of God, loves the Father and esteems the son with equal affection. In this knowing [of mankind’s co-genesis revealed in the Christ-incarnation,] we love the children of God with the same love that we have discovered in God; we treasure the conclusion of his prophetic purpose with affection. For the love of God is realized in the way we evaluate his precepts; if love’s triumph is the conclusion of every prophetic pointer, how can this be interpreted as an unbearable burden? Whatever is born of God is destined to triumph over the world system. Our faith celebrates a victory that is already accomplished! This is the ultimate victory: the certainty that the human Jesus is the divine son of God; (that he is indeed the incarnate Christ—and the central theme of both the Word that was before time was as well as the key to understanding all of Scripture. He is the Savior of the world. …) This is he who was to come; he arrived in the flesh via his mother’s womb—by water and blood—Jesus Christ. And in his ministry as the Christ, he was not only borne witness to by John the Baptist in the prophetic baptism of water, but he went all the way into his baptism of death, in his shed blood, where he died humanity’s death. And it is the Spirit that bears witness according to her own being, which is truth!” 1 John 5:1–6 Mirror Bible
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United With Christ, We Live
By Linda Rex
January 7, 2024, Baptism of the Lord | Epiphany—As we move into the season of Epiphany, we are reminded of the magnitude of what Christ initiated for us in his incarnation. Here, in taking on our human flesh and living as a human being, Jesus formed within our human flesh the capacity to receive and be indwelt by the Holy Spirit, so we could have the very presence of God living within us. Even though every part of our human existence is filled with the presence of the Spirit in some way, when we personally come to faith in Christ, we are individually united with Christ, and so joined together in union with Father, Son, and Spirit and with other members of the Body of Christ. What Jesus did for all now personally becomes our very own by the Spirit as we trust in him.
In our New Testament reading for this Sunday, Acts 19:1–7, we read how the apostle Paul traveled to the city of Ephesus, where he came across some believers. As he interacted with them, Paul realized that something was missing in their relationship with God. They had been baptized by John the Baptizer, but had not paid close enough attention to John’s teaching. If they had been more attentive, they would have realized that John was pointing them to Jesus Christ, telling them that even though he baptized them in water, the Christ would baptize them in the Holy Spirit. And this was what Paul realized they were lacking—the indwelling presence of God through Jesus by the Spirit.
It was important that these believers came to repentance and sought the forgiveness of sins. But there was more involved than a simple recognition of their need to change the way they were living or to be baptized in water. What Paul pointed out to them was their need for the Holy Spirit—the One who would unite them with Christ so that all Jesus did for them in his life, death, resurrection and ascension would become their very own. The Spirit was the One who would enable them to share in and participate in a real way in Christ’s own life with the Father, and all of the perfections which Jesus formed within our human flesh, and now bears in glory.
So, with Paul’s instruction and encouragement, these twelve persons were baptized in the name of Jesus. Being baptized in Jesus’ name meant that they were in essence, baptized into the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit—and so they received the gift of the indwelling Spirit which enabled them to personally participate within the Triune life and love. As they opened themselves up to the presence of God more fully, they were moved to speak of the glories and goodness of God. The Spirit moved them profoundly, which testified to Paul that the Spirit was genuinely present in and with them in a new way.
Too often, our modern religious experience has to do with forms, practices, rituals, and/or dogma. Often, this is why we reject anything having to do with Christianity. While these things can be and often are helpful, they miss the point of it all. There is only one central issue, and that is our life is in Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ alone. There is only one human being who has ever lived in right relationship with God in every moment, never having thought, done, or said anything inappropriate or sinful. And that person is not us. And that person still lives today in right relationship with our Father in the Spirit. And that Person is Jesus Christ.
Whether or not we believe it, we desperately need Jesus in our everyday existence, in every moment, in every thought and every experience of life. Even though we often believe we do just fine without him, we were meant for so much more than what we experience here in this broken world. We just don’t realize, often, that having Jesus Christ live in us and through us would transform our human experience, moving us into an existence which we were always meant to have—one which is authentically human, where we truly love God and love others as we were created to do.
Even though our human flesh will not be fully restored and renewed until the new heaven and earth are established, we do have the miracle of God’s indwelling presence through Jesus in the Spirit as our own, as we trust in Christ’s finished work. When the Spirit indwells us, we discover an inner companion, a Guide, Friend, and Comforter, who never abandons us, but walks with us through every circumstance of life. This is a relationship with a divine Person, who is just like Jesus—in fact, you cannot tell the difference between the two, for they are one.
And as the Spirit lives in us, Jesus and the Father live in us, and that is all possible because of what Jesus did for us when he embraced our human flesh, obeyed John’s called to repentance and baptism, received the Spirit for us, and lived our life, died our death and rose again. How blessed we are to share in Christ’s own relationship with our Father in the Spirit!
Heavenly Father, Son, and Spirit, thank you for the life you forged for all of us, transforming our human existence and giving us new life. Jesus, I believe you lived my life, died my death, and rose again. Jesus, baptize me anew with your Holy Spirit. I receive the Spirit you sent on all, and ask you to awaken me anew to your indwelling presence. Heavenly Spirit, illuminate me so that I might see our Father and his Son, as they live in me, and I in them, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
“It happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the upper country and came to Ephesus, and found some disciples. He said to them, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?’ And they said to him, ‘No, we have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.’ And he said, ‘Into what then were you baptized?’ And they said, ‘Into John’s baptism.’ Paul said, ‘John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in Him who was coming after him, that is, in Jesus.’ When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking with tongues and prophesying.” Acts 19:1–7 NASB
“John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the country of Judea was going out to him, and all the people of Jerusalem; and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins. John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist, and his diet was locusts and wild honey. And he was preaching, and saying, ‘After me One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to stoop down and untie the thong of His sandals. I baptized you with water; but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.’ In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. Immediately coming up out of the water, He saw the heavens opening, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon Him; and a voice came out of the heavens: ‘You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased.’ ” Mark 1:4–11 NASB
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The Tyranny of False Freedom
by Linda Rex
July 2, 2023, Proper 8 | After Pentecost—In last week’s message, we talked about the way in which we as humans often have a mistaken understanding of what it means to be free. We adore freedom—being free to choose what we do, when we do it, and how we do it. But we do not realize how often our freedom actually becomes an entry way to our being enslaved or held hostage.
Before he left us for his eternal glory, Dr. John McKenna told me that he felt one thing our American society needed was to understand what true freedom was. As a people, historically we have valued (at least on paper) the freedoms we espouse, which involve such things as freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, right to bear arms, and so on. Because we value these freedoms, we object strongly to anyone placing restrictions upon us, and voice loud complaints when such restrictions occur.
To be sure, there is much benefit in allowing people to freely make decisions and to own property and do the other things that are a part of being a free person. Much of the misery we inflict on one another happens when we do not honor each other’s liberties in this regard. But living truly free is difficult for us, because we do not understand what true freedom is. It’s important for us to come to see that freedom in the greatest sense of the word goes way beyond these limited human types of freedoms. In fact, true freedom is solidly grounded in the other-centered, self-sacrificial love of Father, Son, and Spirit—the only Being who lives truly and completely free.
Jesus Christ, as God in human flesh, is the one human person who lives a truly free life. Interestingly enough, while he was here on earth, this freely lived life was lived within a culture which embraced slavery and existed under the tyranny of a Roman government marked by paganism, oppressive taxation and military oppression. He was raised within the confines of a legalistic religion, with all its dogma and hypocritical leadership. And still, he lived as distinctly himself, without losing his essential nature as the one sent by his Father to live, die, and rise again on our behalf.
How was this possible? Jesus said at one point that he never did anything he did not see the Father doing. If he was a truly free person, then how is it that he never did anything unless it was what his Father was up to? Could it be that true freedom for us as human beings is in living in full union and communion with our Father in the Spirit as Jesus did? Could it be that freedom has nothing to do with doing what we will and what we desire and everything to do with doing what our Father wills and desires?
For us as humans, this seems to involve a loss of self. But in reality, this is not the truth. If Father, Son, and Spirit are the God who created us and who knows what it means for us to be truly human, then wouldn’t this mean that they know what is best for us? And if God is love—other-centered, self-sacrificial love—doesn’t this mean that God wants us to live in joy and peace, and develop into the fullness of all he meant for us to be as reflections of his image in Christ by the Spirit?
Taking this further—if life in loving relationship with Father, Son, and Spirit are what we were created for, and if we were meant to live in right relationship with God and each other, then true freedom for us is living in this way, in being truly human, in being our true selves. This means that every part of our existence is swept up into Christ by the Spirit, where our decisions, our choices, our “freedoms” are all held within the bounds of God’s love. We are free to enjoy life, rejoice in all God has made, but within the bounds of God’s love. God has designed things to work a certain way so that we are able to truly live. When we don’t stay within these limits, we find ourselves in the place of death.
The good news is that Jesus, in the divine, loving freedom of his Father in the Spirit, went through death into resurrection so that everyone of us might be set free from the chains of evil, sin, and death. Since we all died with Christ, we are no longer slaves to sin. So, we need to act like it. We are set free from anything which hinders our right relationship with God and each other. We are set free from the chains of the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life—those things which so often hold us fast and imprison us. We are under no obligation to live in submission to these things any longer. If we find ourselves where these chains are trying to form about us again, we need to look to Christ, for in him and him alone are we truly free.
Because of Christ, we are free now to be who God created us to be—the beloved, adopted children of Father. Because we are free in Christ, we walk no longer according to our flesh but we are led by the Spirit, are filled with the Spirit, and we follow wherever Christ leads us. We live each moment in face-to-face relationship with Father through the Son in the Spirit, enjoying their zōe life now in loving fellowship with others, in anticipation of sharing this life forever in the world to come. This is the gift of true freedom God has given us in Christ—a grace gift that we cannot earn, but can only receive with humble gratitude.
Father, Son, Spirit, thank you for setting us free, for removing the shackles of evil, sin, and death. Grant us the grace to live in the truth of our freedom in Christ. Enable us to remember the price that freedom cost us, and to not give any part of ourselves over to those things which inevitably end up being our masters, no matter how strong the temptation may be in this moment. For it is your will and your desire we seek to fulfill, not our own, through Jesus our Lord and by your Spirit. Amen.
“Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace . What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death. But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:12–23 NASB
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Looking for Assurances
By Linda Rex
I was chatting with my son this morning and I was talking about how God has always taken care of us as a family. “Even when I was only making $6.50 an hour,” I said. “He’s always taken care of us. I’ve always tried to put God first in my finances…”
He interrupted me. “You’re not drifting into that health-and-wealth gospel stuff, are you?” he asked, amused. I laughed. “No, but it probably was starting to sound like it.”
I was reminded how easily we can slip into the cause-and-effect manner of thinking which we prefer as humans. We like to be sure God is going to do what we want in every situation, and so we come up with the perfect plan to make sure he does. We’d like to believe if we always pay our tithes off the gross and give generously to the poor and other charities, then God will always make sure we are taken care of. We hope if we always eat the right thing and drink clean water and do a good job of exercising and staying in shape, we will never develop cancer or die of a heart attack.
Doing things this way takes all the guesswork out of our relationship with God. In fact, we don’t have to even get into any of the messy stuff of dealing with our false motives or bad attitudes. As long as we’re doing the “right” thing, we’re in good with God and we have no reason to expect any issues in our life.
Of course, as we grow in our spiritual maturity in Christ, I would like to hope we get to the place we recognize this isn’t the way God works. Indeed, he seems at times to do the exact opposite of what we expect him to do in certain situations. And we can get pretty bent out of shape about it if we are not careful. It seems God likes to remind us about who is the Lord of the universe, and it’s not us. And he also likes to remind us even when it seems like everything is falling apart, he can still take it and work it all out for the best.
The real issue here is God’s real nature is relational, and all he does with us as human beings is with this relationship in mind. To live in the Triune relationship is to live in a relationship in which there is uniqueness and equality of Personhood in oneness of Being.
We are created in the image of this God, called into relationship with this God, and embraced in the midst of our turning away from this relationship in and through Christ’s life, death, resurrection and ascension. In the gift of the Spirit, God works to bring us fully into the Triune embrace in such a way we know we share in Christ and we begin to intentionally participate in God’s love and life.
The thing is, this is a relationship we are called into and created for. And within this relationship we have been given great freedom. God has freed us from sin and death so we may live forever in the true freedom which exists in God’s being—a freedom to truly be who God created us to be—children of God who love their Abba with all their being, and who love their neighbor as themselves. This is the true freedom Christ won for us—to live out by the Spirit our true humanity which is hidden with Christ in God.
This freedom given to us by our Creator and Sustainer is what we wrestle with as human beings. On the one hand we like being able to do what we want, when we want, and how we want. We want to call the shots in this universe, while having God take care of us and give us everything we want when we want it and how we want it.
We live, if we are honest with ourselves, too often as if we are our own little gods, not realizing that such freedom is a false freedom. It is a lie—and whatever it is we have chosen which is not in within the truth of our being as God’s children will in the end enslave us and consume us, and without God’s intervention, may even eventually destroy us.
And these things we choose are not always the vices most of us easily acknowledge as being wrong or unhealthy. The worst choices we make are the most deceiving—the choice to objectify God and one another, the choice to put our trust in money, people, and other things rather than in God alone, or the choice to try to control God, or even one another, by the things we do or say—acting as though we can change the way God or others behave if we just act correctly or speak perfectly. We do our best manipulate, use, manage, and/or control God and one another, rather than respecting each one’s personhood and honoring him or her as the person he or she is.
If I choose to honor God with my finances by tithing, for example, by giving 10% off my gross income, that is a good thing to do as an expression of my love for God. I am free to tithe or not tithe, and no doubt, if I genuinely wish to bless God by tithing, he will be pleased by my heart of gratitude and generosity. But tithing does not obligate God in any way to make sure my bills are paid or I have money for a new car. It demonstrates a heart of devotion and trust toward God but it does not cause God to do anything in return. The cause-and-effect rule does not apply.
My experience in my relationship with God, however, has been when I was making next to nothing and felt convicted of the need to continue to tithe in spite of my poverty, God honored that and somehow always made sure I had what I needed. I did not control or manipulate God by my giving—but I did express my genuine heart of devotion and commitment to God through my giving, and I found myself being blessed and helped by God in the midst of my poverty.
I remember one ongoing conversation with God expressed my anxiety about the bills which I thought I couldn’t pay. Anxiety in itself demonstrates a lack of faith in my Abba, and I have struggled with this over and over—it’s one of those subtle yet encroaching sins. But God merely would remind me to write down my needs and to ask him to take care of them. That is a relational thing, not a cause-and-effect thing. It is an act of trust. I felt compelled by the Spirit to do write down my needs and give them to God, I obeyed God and did it, and God responded by hearing and answering my prayers. It began with God and ended with God, and I got to be in the midst of it and be blessed in the process.
Looking back, I know too often in my life I thought I had to do this or do that other thing in order to be blessed by God or experience his good will towards me. In reality, God’s will toward me was already good, and he was looking out for me when I didn’t even realize it. He intervened in so many situations, and I never realized what was going on until later, if at all, and was amazed by his tender love and concern.
What I have learned is God is love and God is faithful. And we are held in his love and grace, He is always at work, no matter what is going on, bringing us to a place of redemption and healing. We are free to make choices, and God allows us to experience the joy or pain of those choices. But he is ready and willing at any time to embrace us when we come running and are ready to participate in making choices his way, in the way which best expresses our true humanity as God’s beloved children.
Dear Abba, thank you for your faithful love and gracious provision for our needs each and every day, whether we realize it or not. Thank you for holding us in your love and grace, and that your heart toward us is good and full of compassion. Grant us the grace to live in the true freedom which is ours in your Son and by your Spirit so our lives and ways of being are a true expression of your nature and Name as Father, Son, and Spirit. In your Name we pray, Amen.
“For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him.” 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10 NASB
The Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus
By Linda Rex
I spent a large portion of my early years believing the Holy Spirit was merely God’s essence and power, and not a Person who I could come to know and have a relationship with. In fact, the idea of talking to the Spirit or having a conversation even with Jesus was considered inappropriate. All my prayers were directed to the Father in the name of Jesus Christ.
Any mention of the Holy Spirit in my prayers came about only because I felt it was necessary to occasionally ask God for more of his Spirit so I could have better behavior and stop doing stupid stuff. I understood there was God the Father and Jesus his Son, and they were a family I could be a part of if I worked hard enough and qualified to belong. I believed the Holy Spirit was something God would pour out or withhold according to how well I behaved or just according to his own preference, which could change on a whim.
When it was brought to my attention how in the Bible the Spirit is repeatedly shown to have all the attributes of personhood, and was spoken of by Jesus himself as being another Helper just like himself, a light went on in my mind and heart. Could this be true? Is the Spirit another One just like Jesus and the Father? Do they live together in a oneness in which each is distinct and equal? Is the Spirit Someone I can have a relationship with?
Coming to this place in my understanding was critical to being able to understand God’s grace and love toward me. I had been denying the personhood of the One who is instrumental in enabling each of us to awaken to faith, the One who makes possible our participation in the finished work of Christ. I had objectified the One who enables us to see the Father and the Son—the Spirit unites us to Christ, enabling us to participate in Christ’s intimate relationship with his Abba.
Over the years as I have grown in my relationship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I have come to see more and more how I had traded in real love and grace for empty religion. I learned how to be very religious from an early age, and it appalls me to hear someone still tell me today I’m very religious.
I don’t like being called a religious person because I don’t want to be religious—I want to be rightly related, to God and to others. There is a difference. I don’t want to work hard at being good enough. I don’t want to be constantly striving to win my Father’s approval. What I want is to rest in God’s amazing grace, and in his unconditional love and acceptance.
I want to be actively participating in a personal, intimate relationship with the Father, Son, and Spirit in which I am trusting in the perfect work of Jesus Christ—in that which he did in his life, death, resurrection and ascension—in the work he is actively completing in each of us today by the Holy Spirit he sent from the Father. The Holy Spirit is bringing to completion in us individually what Christ accomplished for us, in our place, on our behalf in our humanity.
I realize part of this process of growing up in Christ requires my participation. Participation is a lot different than being religious, or working hard or striving to win God’s love and approval. Participation is a sharing—where Christ is in us and we are in him, and we are in the Father and the Father is in us. This is the Person of the Holy Spirit uniting us together in harmony and oneness—a beautiful perichoretic relationship—a mutual indwelling. This is life together in a beautiful give and take, an ongoing conversation, a perilous yet joyful and thrilling journey.
Today I don’t ask for more of the Spirit. I pray to him (and the Father and the Son). The Spirit is a Person, a beautiful, amazing Being, who fully indwells me. He doesn’t split himself up into thirds, fourths, or sixteenths. He just is. And he is present. I can shove him away, resist him, reject him and even try to quench him. But in the end, he is still present—for his is the Breath who sustains me and the Water of Life I need to exist, both physically and spiritually.
The Spirit woos me, invites me deeper and deeper into this perichoretic relationship God has called me into. He opens my mind to a deeper understanding of who God is, and therefore, as one made in his image, who I am. He enables me to know the depths of Abba’s heart, and the love of Jesus.
He gives me the capacity to understand and be sensitive to those to whom I am normally indifferent. He gives me the heart to love those who are cruel and insensitive—and enables me to bear up under difficulty and sorrow. Sometimes he gives me a sense of what will happen in the near future, preparing me so I can bear what is coming.
And sometimes the Spirit just gives me the pleasure of a word of affirmation or inspiration in my mind and heart which I am needing in that particular moment. He is able to do this because he knows and understands the depths of my heart and mind—he is the Spirit, and discerns things about my spirit, my heart, and my mind I don’t even recognize. He is the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the One who took on my humanity and lived the life I was meant to live, and who died my death. The Spirit is one with Jesus who lives in me.
This indeed is the mystery of godliness—Christ in us, the hope of glory. Today I live and walk in Christ because I live and walk in the Spirit. The Father, Jesus, and the Spirit are one, so I live and walk each moment of my life within the embrace of the Triune God. I cannot escape this—for Christ has united his being with our humanity. And the Spirit is drawing me into the fullness of Christ’s glory. What a wonderful present and future I have in this relationship!
My faith was so empty in comparison with this. I am extremely grateful to God for awakening me to this life in Christ Jesus. I still struggle, for it is much easier to slide back into religious doing than it is to rest, trusting fully in Jesus to finish his perfect work in me by his Spirit. I still fall asleep on occasion, and have to be reawakened to the reality of what God has done for me in Christ and what he is doing in me by his Holy Spirit. But I can and do rest in the completed work of Christ and trust in Abba’s faithfulness, for he will not quit until I fully reflect the perfected humanity I was meant to bear.
Dear Holy Spirit, thank you for continuing to point us to the Father and the Son, and for making them and yourself real to us day by day. Please finish the work you have begun in us so that we might fully reflect the glory of the Lord we were meant to bear. Thank you, Abba, you will never quit until we are all what you meant for us to be in your creation and your redemption, through Jesus our Lord, and by your Spirit. Amen.
“But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.” John 16:13–15 NASB
“The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.” 1 John 3:24 NASB
“… the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ.” Colossians 1:26–28 NASB
“Without the distinct and inseparable gracious ministry of the Holy Spirit, we could not and we would not participate—we would and could not share in Christ’s own (vicarious) responses of repentance, faith, hope and love for God and receive his grace given to us. Our salvation requires the ministry of all three Persons of the Trinity and all three moments of God’s saving action towards us, each contributing to the one whole will, purpose and accomplishment of our salvation.” Dr. Gary Deddo, “Clarifying our Theological Vision”, Pt. 3.
Searching for Answers
by Linda Rex
How often do we take the time to consider the truth about who we are? When faced with a situation in which we need to make a significant decision in our lives about where we are going to work, who we are going to marry, or how best to develop our gifts and gain experience in the area of our giftedness, how do we go about it? And are these two questions even related?
I believe sometimes the struggle is made more significant when we try to find these answers under our own power, or when we base them on what someone else says about us. It seems to me we often make this whole process more difficult than it needs to be because we forget who we are.
We forget we are daily being molded and shaped into the person God created us to be by the One Who made us in the first place. We are the adopted children of the One who redeemed us by taking on our humanity and transforming it into the perfect image-bearer of God our humanity was meant to be. Were we to fully embrace our calling to bear the image of God in our person, we would gradually find ourselves being who we were meant to be.
But this is a process. And it is not something we are able to do by human effort. Whatever effort we put into the process is merely a participation in what Jesus Christ has already accomplished in his life, death, resurrection and ascension. We participate in Christ’s perfected humanity, and as we do, we come to be more and more truly human, as God meant us to be.
Many times we invest ourselves deeply in things such as our work, our marriage, a project, or in a group of people such as a church congregation. When things don’t turn out as we expect and we find ourselves at odds with those we used to be in close relationship with, or we lose our job, or fail at a project, we find ourselves devastated.
We have identified ourselves so closely with that which has broken or has ended, we end up feeling lost or aimless, without a sense of direction or a purpose for our lives. Sometimes the fear of this type of outcome prevents us from getting involved in the first place. We don’t want to risk this kind of hurt or possible rejection.
Isn’t it interesting how much of our identity or our feeling of personhood is bound up in our relationships and in the things we say and do which involve other people (i.e. things which are relational in their impact)? I don’t think we realize how much our identity as persons in the divine Personhood is bound up in our relationships with one another as well as with God.
Perhaps one of the reasons it hurts so much when we experience a loss in this way is because it hits us at the core of our being. We were created to be in loving relationship with God and each other—this is who we are. We identify ourselves by what we do and by who we are in relationship to others.
When what we do and who we are in relationship to others is based on self-gratification, self-interest, and self-service, we may avoid such deep pain, but we become a law unto ourselves. Greed, lust, immorality—all the hurtful things we do to ourselves, God and each other—consume us.
This is not who we really are—this is a false self, not the person we were created to be. This is the person Jesus took on when he took on our flesh (our self), bore it to the cross and died with it. This person, as far as God is concerned, is dead and buried with Christ. This is why over and over the apostle Paul tells us to put it off. This is not our true self.
That person we really are, the truth of who we are, is found in the resurrected Jesus Christ. Perhaps we only catch glimpses of it in this life, but this most certainly is who we were meant to be. This amazing person we are even today is “hidden with Christ in God.” (Col. 3:3) We are told by the Word of God to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. (Rom. 13:14)
This is who each person we encounter throughout the day is meant to be. When we look at them, we are looking at the dwelling place of Abba and Jesus by the Spirit. They are bearers of the image of God just as we are. When they don’t reflect the image of God and cause harm to themselves and/or others, then we experience separation, pain, all the things we were not intended to have to experience—this is not what we were created for.
There are many descriptions in the New Testament of how followers of Jesus live in their relationships with God and each other. These ways of being and actions are not expectations of God, but rather descriptions of the truth of who we are in Jesus Christ. As image-bearers of God (who we are), we will act in these ways (what we do to image God), not in the ways which orbit around ourselves.
Our life revolves around and in Christ now, and dances within the life and love of Abba, Jesus and the Spirit. Our life is a fellowship with Abba’s adopted children, our brothers and sisters. This life in community means every action and reaction impacts someone around us—so we rest in Christ and his perfected interaction with his Abba and all of us in the Spirit, and we live out the truth of who we are in Jesus Christ by that same Spirit.
Difficult questions of life then can be held within this place of true reality. We can invite Jesus to open our eyes to the truth of who we are in him—ask Abba to help us see the person he created us to be. We can listen to the Spirit, listen to the Word, and open ourselves to the work God wants to do in us to transform and heal us. Many times the objective is not as important to God as the journey is.
Life in the Spirit. Walking with Christ. This is Abba’s focus—mutual indwelling with God and one another. Somehow as we do this the answers come. It becomes clear to us which direction to go. Relationships begin healing. We find the grace to forgive and to renew broken relationships. We find the courage to stretch ourselves into new ways of being and doing. And all along the way we are never alone, but are held in the divine embrace. Praise God.
Dear Abba, thank you for including us in your life, in your love, through your Son and by your Spirit. We treasure our walk with you and ask to open our eyes to see, our ears to hear and our hearts to know the truth of who we are in Christ, and who you are making us to be by your Spirit. May we rest fully in you, trusting you to finish what you have begun. In your Name we pray, amen.
“But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.” Ephesians 4:20–24 NASB
“Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.” Romans 6:4–7 NASB
Killing Expectations
By Linda Rex
I was reflecting back on some of my life events recently, when it occurred to me that we don’t take seriously enough our participation with Christ when it comes to our relationships. It seems as though we go through life interacting with others and building relationships without taking into consideration all of our life is bound together in union with Christ in the Spirit.
For example, we bounce or in my case, crawl out of bed in the morning, go through our routine, and find ourselves in the middle of the day, wondering why our spouse is cranky, our boss is rude, or our friend is ignoring us. We may decide then that we need to follow some Biblical principles in order to try to fix the relationship. Following them may or may not help, but sometimes even our best efforts don’t change anything—in fact, at times, they seem to only make things worse.
I think the error is in believing that somehow by doing and saying the right things we cause the right things to happen in a relationship. We turn people into objects we act upon, which automatically respond in preset ways to certain words and actions. How many books have you and I read which teach us this very thing: In order to have a good marriage, you have to do x, y and z, in that order?
We approach our marriages, our child-raising, and our friend and work relationships in this way. And we approach our relationship with God in this way too.
But the thing is, relationships involve persons. And persons derive their identity from the three Persons of the One God who are united, diverse and equal. In the oneness of the Trinity, there is always freedom based in love. That freedom means that no one causes the Persons of the Trinity to do anything. God acts out of his own nature as Father, Son and Spirit in love, in whatever way he chooses to. The Persons of the Trinity may respond to our efforts, but they are not obligated in any way by anything we say or do to act in certain ways.
Some of the greatest hurts in our relationships occur because of these types of expectations we place upon God and upon one another. Expectations in a relationship are helpful only if they are held within a framework of grace, because no human being can perfectly and fully meet another human being’s expectations. Rigid expectations, when they are unmet, create resentment, bitterness, hate, and anger. They create a separation within a relationship—they do not build unity. Nor do they facilitate love.
Holding God to our human expectations is actually arrogant. After all, God is free to do whatever he wishes in any and every situation. Whatever we may expect of him, he is going to do the good and right thing. He’s going to be loving and gracious, faithful—he is and will be true to his nature as God. Our expectations do not change who God is and what he does. They only hurt us, because when God doesn’t perform to our expectations, we end up hurt, angry, and frustrated.
Holding our loved ones to rigid expectations can be very abusive. To expect a child to do something beyond their age and capacity and to punish them when they fail to meet our expectations is destructive to their mental and emotional health. To expect a spouse or loved one to perform something exactly how we think it should be done, with no room for individuality, personality or preference is selfish and controlling, and destroys trust and love, and stifles affection.
The sad thing is, not only do our rigid expectations ruin our relationships, but they also blind us to our own shortcomings. We become so focused on the other person’s failures that we cannot and do not see the many ways in which we ourselves have not kept our word or have been unfaithful. We are so “right” that we don’t realize how very wrong we are.
The truth is that there is only one Being, our Father, Son and Spirit God, who is able to fully keep his side of a covenant. It is his covenant with us as humanity that is the basis of our relationships with others. Because we could not fulfill our part of the covenant agreement, the Word came into our human flesh and lived out our part perfectly and completely. It is Jesus Christ who is the One who is the perfect human, who never fails to keep his promises and perfectly fulfills his Father’s will.
Jesus is the risen High Priest who stands in our stead, bearing us in the presence of the Father. He also, as the Mediator, intercedes between each of us, being the One who perfectly relates to us and to his Father in the Spirit. God sends his Spirit into human hearts so that we are bound together, not only by our common breath in the Spirit, but also by our common sharing in the humanity of Christ. At the basis of all our relationships is Jesus Christ in us by the Holy Spirit.
This means that all our relationships with God and each other are set upon the foundation of Jesus Christ, our Intercessor and our Lord. They are mediated by Christ in the Spirit, who works to bring about love, joy, peace and unity in our relationships. Whatever efforts we may make to heal, bless and grow our relationships need to have their center in Christ by the Spirit, because it is his relationship with his Father in the Spirit which defines what true relationship is.
Christ’s relationship with the Father does not require or use expectations. Christ does the will of the Father because his own will is in perfect unity with the Father’s will. Christ’s will and the Father’s will are one in the Spirit. Their relationship is based on love and mutual submission, not on fulfillment of expectations or obligations.
If in our human relationships we were to release everyone from any and all expectations, and instead focus on the relationship Christ has brought us into with the Father in the Spirit, we would experience a huge shift in our dynamics. When we begin to treat one another as persons who equally yet diversely share in our common union with Christ in the Spirit, we open the door for love, unity and peace. Accepting that we are all broken people sharing in the grace of God in Christ will begin to create in us a spirit of humility, mutual submission and service.
When Christ admonished his followers to be people of their word, he was well aware of their inability to always be faithful and truthful. Jesus himself is the only human capable of actually keeping his word and fulfilling the will of God. Thankfully, God’s relationship with each of us as faulty, frail and at times untruthful people is not based upon our ability to perform, but upon the inner relations of the Father, Son and Spirit in their perichoretic union and communion, and upon the grace and love showered upon us through Jesus Christ.
Our relationships with one another, especially in marriage and family, need to be built upon this same foundation. It is in looking to Christ and participating in his perfect relationship with the Father in the Spirit that we find the grace to love and respect one another, and to be faithful and truthful in every circumstance of life. Whether we bound out of bed or crawl out in the morning, we all share in Christ, and can by God’s Word and through the Spirit find the wisdom, strength and whatever we may need to truly love and care for one another like we should. May God find us so doing!
Father, thank you that by your Son and in your Spirit we have been given a relationship with you and each other we could not have otherwise. Grant us the grace to throw away all our expectations of you and others which create division and hurt in our relationships. Instead, may we live together in love and grace, awake to the life you have given us through Christ and in the Spirit, expectantly looking forward to all you will do to heal, restore and renew. Through Jesus, our Lord, amen.
“Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.’ But I tell you, do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” Matthew 5:33–37 NIV
Our Life in the Trinity 