27.2 Put on the Lord Jesus Christ
© 2015 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
The question before us is this: how do we abide in Christ?
We can accept that God has already put us entirely into Christ; how then, do we “remain.” How do we walk every moment of our lives in the knowing that we are entirely and utterly inside the Lord Jesus and that He is entirely and utterly inside ALL that we are? There are two ways only, that is, two ways attempted by man –human effort called by some “obedience” – or faith.
He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him (John 14:21).
Dishonesty
Jesus words are clear, aren’t they? If we don’t “do,” what He tells us to do, either verses in the Bible, or a voice in our spirit, then we clearly do not love Him.
But look at ALL who define Jesus’ words in this way. One thing is clear – they do not obey, something they know deep inside, something that tells them they are fallen short, something that makes them keep trying the next time. Dishonesty. But there is something worse – they are okay with that way of living – because they think they MUST.
I am carefully bringing into this lesson specific negatives in order to fully contrast what abiding must mean.
Keeping His Commandments
The first word we must know here is entolas. On the surface, entolas means a command or order, but the word has a deeper meaning, that of speaking towards the end purpose, telos, completion – inside all the sphere of perfection. My strength is made perfect in your weakness.
Then echon, possesses, I have, I hold, I possess; and teron or tereo, I keep, I guard, I watch over. The power to bring to perfect fulfillment, to complete the words God speaks is NOT, NOT, NOT found in the human, but rather inside the Word itself, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Inner Citadel
Thus “to keep” means to watch over, to guard; in this instance, the English word “keep” is the best choice. The keep was the inner citadel inside a castle, the place where all found safety when the outer walls of the castle were breached. The keep was the heart of the castle, the place where the Lord of the castle dwelt, where his treasure was kept.
To keep the commandments of Jesus is NOT to pretend to do them and always fail. To keep His commandments is to watch over all the good speaking of Christ with full expectation, that Jesus will do in us all that He says and BE in us all that He is.
Where Do We Turn?
But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts (Romans 13:14). Notice carefully that “fulfill its” is in italics; that means the words are not there in the Greek – the word “lusts” is an adjective describing “flesh,” and is better translated “desires.” Make no provision regarding a desiring flesh.
Romans 13:14 is an exact companion verse to John 14:20; we must have its power clear in our hearts. EVERY reader of the Bible enters this verse at the “and”; then, having entered this verse, every reader of the Bible turns in one direction or the other. Almost all turn towards “dealing with” the flesh.
Disobedience
Why do most Christians turn towards “dealing with” the flesh? Because they believe that Jesus is far away and that flesh is right up close and because they then assume that, in order to someday “put on the Lord Jesus,” they must today “deal with the flesh.”
The word, “provision” is pro-noia, pro-mind, think beforehand, give thought to, thought that places a desiring flesh closer to us than Christ. All Christians who seek to put their flesh under their “control,” disobey the first part of this verse by not regarding it at all, assuming that the “putting on” of Jesus cannot happen now. We do the opposite.
We Put On Jesus
We also turn at the “and” as we enter this verse, but we turn towards “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” thus we find that we have our backs turned towards thinking about how strong our “fleshly desires” might be.
This equation is absolute; either a Christian is busy putting on the Lord Jesus Christ or the Christian is busy dealing with the flesh. There is no possibility of part of one and part of the other at the same time. We put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Put on – enduo – I put on, I clothe, I sink into Jesus as a garment as into the covers of my bed.
Sinking into Him
We put on the Lord Jesus Christ, we abide in Him, by faith, by reckoning and proclaiming that it is TRUE. Those who are busy putting on the Lord Jesus Christ, sinking into Him as into the covers of one’s bed, find the flesh no longer in their minds; Jesus takes care of the flesh.
Those who are busy attempting to rid their mind of fleshy desires find Jesus their only life no longer in their minds; the flesh and its burden now fills all of their thinking. And we who are busy sinking into the Lord Jesus Christ, entirely and only by faith, by speaking and by knowing that He is our only life, discover that “the flesh” also becomes His. We alone are actually obeying “make no provision.”
Enduo
Enduo, put on, is one of the most precious words in the Bible, right alongside of symmorphy; enduo describes our active part in symmorphy, entwining ourselves with God.
First, very simply, it is not the Lord, nor Jesus, nor “the Christ,” that we put on, but the Lord Jesus Christ. Second, this word cannot mean anything figuratively; that is, if we attempt to interpret this statement in a figurative manner we arrive at exactly nothing. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ must be literal, spirit, soul, and body, heaven and earth. I believe absolutely that Jesus’ Spirit IS my spirit, that Jesus’ soul, His self, IS my self, and that Jesus’ body IS my body.
The Becoming Known of Father
You see why our definitions of Jesus and of God MUST change. Jesus is not some THING up there somewhere. Jesus is the becoming known of Father in every moment, NOW, and at every place, HERE, that Father is becoming known.
This is what Paul meant: Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer (2 Corinthians 5:16). My body of flesh IS the literal physical flesh of Jesus that arose out of the grave.
Eat My Flesh
Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you . . . He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him (John 6:53-56). We become what we eat; to eat is to become, atoms and molecules.
You see, what appears as a “miracle” to us is just normal with God. Trans-substantiation: as we eat the bread of Communion, our bodies are symmorphosed with His glorious body, sharing the same FORM, sharing the same flesh. Who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed (sharing the same form) His glorious body . . . (Phil. 3:21a).
Flesh of His Flesh
We KEEP guard over the Word that is Jesus, filling our hearts, our inner citadel with His glory, speaking with our mouths and believing with our hearts that ALL that He speaks is true. And we place neither limit nor end upon His word.
Enduo – we sink every moment into utter rest. It is another Person who carries us, a Person who is our Savior AND our Salvation, a Person who is more real than anyone we see, a Person who, every moment, loves us and trades His self into us as our very own. Flesh of His flesh, one flesh with Him (Ephesians 5:30-31). I believe it. I believe it with all my heart and with every fiber in my being.
My Testimony
Nine and a half years ago, I heard the words from across the pulpit, “Speak what God says you are.” Those words entered all the ferocity of my heart and I took those words all through the New Testament on this basis, We shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is.
But in my speaking of John 15:4, I abide in Jesus; Jesus abides in me, I spoke this definition of “abide.” I conform myself to Jesus, Jesus conforms Himself to me. Heresy, I know, but I said it anyway because I knew it was true.
Eight years ago I saw, in a moment of sweet revelation, that “I” had utterly disappeared into the Person of Jesus and that He was all that “I” am.
I NEED Jesus
From that moment until now I have spoken and written that Jesus IS my life, that I have no other life.
You see, I cannot make myself acceptable to God. Some might have that gift, but I do not. And I cannot lie to myself that my half-baked half-efforts ending in miserable failure could ever be the fulfillment of “keep My commandments.” And I cannot live in any form of reality or thinking where I am far away from God and He far away from me.
Living in my own inability to please God IS nightmare. I am a desperate man. I NEED Jesus; I need Salvation.
I Speak Christ
I say, “I abide in Jesus; Jesus abides in me,” when I feel raunchy, when I holler at my kids, when I do something wicked, when I fail people. I say, “I abide in Jesus; Jesus abides in me,” against every and all other possibilities, in every moment. I say, “I abide in Jesus; Jesus abides in me,” because I cannot accept any other possibility.
I say it willfully. I say it when I should not be saying it. I say it against all the wailing cries of horror and accusation. I say it against the face of my fellow Christians and against the foreheads of mighty anointed preachers who would leave me out in the cold.
I Will Speak
I do not care. I will be found in Him, not having my own life, not having my own righteousness, not having my own ability to please God, because I DO NOT. And I will speak and speak and speak and speak that all that I am is IN Jesus and Jesus is IN all that is me BECAUSE nothing else is acceptable to me.
And over the last nine years a most amazing thing has happened to me. Jesus has come to me, with Father, and He has made Himself known to me. Jesus loves me, with Father, and I am content.
Jesus Is for Losers
And those who also NEED Jesus hear me gladly. But those who are busy doing what they think God expects them to do, satisfied that they are “pleasing” God, cannot hear from such a failure of a man as Daniel Yordy, a man who cannot exist without Jesus as the only life he is.
You see, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ” is for one group of people only. Such a thing is for the losers, the outcasts, the has-beens, those who tried and failed, those who cannot do what God says, those who cannot please God.
We ground ourselves in Word, yes, but this is not theology; this is Heart, and heart is for desperate people.
Desperation
Let’s take this to the bottom line. You see, reality is not “theology” or “ideas about” God. Reality is heart and heart is desperation.
- Desperate (Webster’s 1926): 1. Without hope; given to despair; hopeless; specifically, hopeless of salvation.
- 2. Beyond or almost beyond hope; causing despair; extremely dangerous.
- 3. Proceeding from, suggested by, or expressing, despair; influenced or impelled by despair; without regard to danger or safety; reckless; extreme.
- Desperation (Webster’s 1926): 2. Abandonment of hope leading to extreme recklessness.
This is the entire and only purpose of the law, to persuade you and me that we are absolutely WITHOUT hope of ever pleasing God or of obtaining Christ by our own obedience.
I have suffered the loss of all things (desperation), and count them as rubbish (reckless), that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness (extreme recklessness), which is from the law (hear and obey), but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death (Philippians 3:8-10). Being symmorphosed, sharing the same death, that we might share the exact same Life, the same soul, the same Personhood.
That I May Know Him
That I may know Him. This is the whole point of redemption. God wants us to STOP considering how we are going to measure up to Christ and get on with the one job given to us. To KNOW this One who is already the only life we are. All the HOWS of God have already taken care of all that is lacking in regards to us.
And so, with the heart of a pirate, we rush in where angels fear to tread and seize hold of LIFE, JESUS, as our only and very life, REFUSING to consider ANYTHING else. For we would have no other life.