Another excellent meditation, yet even more amazing is that Christ tells us that we are to one with him and God the Father:
(John 17:11-22) Jesus reiterates something similar about being one with God about twenty times from John chapters 14 to 17: 14:1,7,9,10,11,20,23, 15:1-2,4,5,6,7,23, 16:3,15, 17:3,5,10,23,26.
If you are a friend with God, he is going to make you become one with Him! And please note, it does not say we are to be "at one" with God, no, we are to be "one with God".
To be "at one" could imply that we are in total agreement with God, which would certainly be fantastic. But, to be "one with God" implies something way beyond mere agreement: a complete union far exceeding anything we, as physical beings, have experienced, or could understand.
Oneness with God is explained by Jesus as being analogous to friendship, sonship, and drinking his blood and eating his flesh, along with many other analogies that he employs.
It's not easy to understand what God means by being one with him, for the nature of God always seems to be beyond our comprehension. However, Jesus told us something very simple about being one with God, when he said:…That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. (John 3:6) Obviously being composed of spirit and being composed of flesh are two different things. Yet, if we are to be sons of God, we must be born of spirit, as God is spirit.
Continuing in the next verse, Jesus tells us what being born of the spirit is like: Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wants to, and you hear its sound, but (you) don’t know where it comes from and where it is going. So is everyone who is born of the spirit.” (John 3:6-8)
Being born of the spirit is only analogous to being born of the flesh. When we have this spiritual ‘body’ it will be unlike anything physical - as we are going to move like the wind! The words “spirit” and “wind” in this section of John are actually the same original Greek word, the translators just changed it to make some sense of what is being said. While doing this is quite logical, it doesn’t help a great deal, for being like the wind is really as meaningless to us as being like spirit!
We see therefore that the nature of God, even when revealed to us by the Son of God, is way beyond our comprehension. Yet being a Spirit Being is the promise God has made to you! And at that time, we will be one with the Father and the Son, and we will also be like the wind!! And, what is even more amazing, we will be God’s friends!
Jesus told us that You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. Many people obey God out of fear of what they think he will do to them if they disobey (e.g. burn in Hell forever), or they obey God to get a great reward (e.g. live in Heaven forever). Yet the actual reason God wants us to obey him is so we can learn how to love him as our friend.
"There it is (for me at least), "the new man is Christ, "formed in the believer"". The old man is the flesh, the dead soul apart from God, that part of the immediate death in Adam. That old man steeped in rebellion against God, in rebellion against everything the Lord God said is "very good". Man created in the image of God rebels byassuming power without God. Then man in rebellion against God's first command to "be fruitful, and multiply", man perverts the very means of being fruitful and multiplying by glorifying sex above devotion to God in His blessed union of marriage. And man rebels against God's supremacy in knowledge by declaring all that can be known is measured and determined by "the great minds among men". In power, sex, and knowledge that old man the flesh is in a power struggle in enmity against the Holy Spirit, against who is forming that new man we are putting on, Christ in us, the hope of glory." Just beautiful, the truth, God bless you & thank you Richard!
Another excellent meditation, yet even more amazing is that Christ tells us that we are to one with him and God the Father:
(John 17:11-22) Jesus reiterates something similar about being one with God about twenty times from John chapters 14 to 17: 14:1,7,9,10,11,20,23, 15:1-2,4,5,6,7,23, 16:3,15, 17:3,5,10,23,26.
If you are a friend with God, he is going to make you become one with Him! And please note, it does not say we are to be "at one" with God, no, we are to be "one with God".
To be "at one" could imply that we are in total agreement with God, which would certainly be fantastic. But, to be "one with God" implies something way beyond mere agreement: a complete union far exceeding anything we, as physical beings, have experienced, or could understand.
Oneness with God is explained by Jesus as being analogous to friendship, sonship, and drinking his blood and eating his flesh, along with many other analogies that he employs.
It's not easy to understand what God means by being one with him, for the nature of God always seems to be beyond our comprehension. However, Jesus told us something very simple about being one with God, when he said:…That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. (John 3:6) Obviously being composed of spirit and being composed of flesh are two different things. Yet, if we are to be sons of God, we must be born of spirit, as God is spirit.
Continuing in the next verse, Jesus tells us what being born of the spirit is like: Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wants to, and you hear its sound, but (you) don’t know where it comes from and where it is going. So is everyone who is born of the spirit.” (John 3:6-8)
Being born of the spirit is only analogous to being born of the flesh. When we have this spiritual ‘body’ it will be unlike anything physical - as we are going to move like the wind! The words “spirit” and “wind” in this section of John are actually the same original Greek word, the translators just changed it to make some sense of what is being said. While doing this is quite logical, it doesn’t help a great deal, for being like the wind is really as meaningless to us as being like spirit!
We see therefore that the nature of God, even when revealed to us by the Son of God, is way beyond our comprehension. Yet being a Spirit Being is the promise God has made to you! And at that time, we will be one with the Father and the Son, and we will also be like the wind!! And, what is even more amazing, we will be God’s friends!
Jesus told us that You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. Many people obey God out of fear of what they think he will do to them if they disobey (e.g. burn in Hell forever), or they obey God to get a great reward (e.g. live in Heaven forever). Yet the actual reason God wants us to obey him is so we can learn how to love him as our friend.
I love this paragraph:
"There it is (for me at least), "the new man is Christ, "formed in the believer"". The old man is the flesh, the dead soul apart from God, that part of the immediate death in Adam. That old man steeped in rebellion against God, in rebellion against everything the Lord God said is "very good". Man created in the image of God rebels byassuming power without God. Then man in rebellion against God's first command to "be fruitful, and multiply", man perverts the very means of being fruitful and multiplying by glorifying sex above devotion to God in His blessed union of marriage. And man rebels against God's supremacy in knowledge by declaring all that can be known is measured and determined by "the great minds among men". In power, sex, and knowledge that old man the flesh is in a power struggle in enmity against the Holy Spirit, against who is forming that new man we are putting on, Christ in us, the hope of glory." Just beautiful, the truth, God bless you & thank you Richard!
So much truth needing to be learned from God teaching us.