One with Jesus + News

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ONE WITH JESUS

Now that we realize that the last of the last days are upon us, it’s time to fine tune our spiritual lives. We will need to be at the top of our game if we are to faithfully complete our mission in these challenging days. We must free ourselves of every worldly thing that controls us.

Deliverance from Self

Many Christians are so bound up by so many things that their primary focus is on being delivered from all the things that have kept them in bondage. Yet, when we examine the whole counsel of God, especially the writings of Paul, we discover that we have ignored the deliverance we need most—deliverance from self. Once we experience this, everything else becomes insignificant. Paul was able to accomplish and endure so much only because he had become caught up in complete abandonment to Jesus Christ. He and his Master had become one. Paul no longer had interests and concerns of his own. Jesus’ thoughts and desires had become his thoughts and desires.

Once he had realized his own wretchedness and had thrown himself at the mercy of Jesus’ “court,” all self-interest and pretense were gone. He had been made ready give himself completely to His Master, so his own opinions and desires never interfered with Jesus’ plans for him. Once he had been delivered from himself, he never thought about his personal holiness or his spiritual walk. His oneness with his Master was all that mattered, and this made him single-minded.

God Set the Pattern

When we are reminded of these things, we know we are to be like Paul. We compare ourselves with him and rationalize why we can never be like him. Perhaps we should change of focus to God, who is our example. We love to quote John 3:16, but we usually miss the fact that God set the pattern for complete abandonment to another person. This verse plainly says that He, the Supreme God of the Universe, gave Himself completely to us in the most profound act of love imaginable.

God Himself set the pattern. He didn’t just “give” as so many sermons emphasize. He gave Himself absolutely without any calculation or reservation. Only a parent who has given up an only child can come close to understanding the depth of such a sacrifice for the sake of another. When we consider just how unworthy the human race was (and is), His abandonment on our behalf becomes even more incomprehensible.

Hopefully, this gives us a fresh perspective regarding our abandonment to Christ. We love God because He first loved us. Likewise, we give ourselves to God (through Christ) because They first gave their all in complete abandonment to us. If they, the greater, willingly sacrificed Themselves for us, the lesser, how can we, the lesser, not do the same for Them, the greater.

Abandoned to Christ

Our entire and singular focus should be pleasing our Master, Jesus, who has purchased us with His blood. In what we call Jesus’ great high priestly prayer in John 17, He prayed that we would be one just as He and the Father were one. This was His greatest desire for us. Once this happened, everything else would take care of itself. He did His part when He allowed the Father to place His life within us. He made Himself one with us. Our responsibility is to allow Him to live His life through us as we walk in the Spirit, and this only happens through our complete abandonment to Him.