28.3 Our Home
© 2015 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him (John 14:23).
Seldom can I conclude any series of teachings by anything other than this one verse. What do you want? I want Father to come to me with Jesus and together to make Their home in me.
I will not lie to God about how I am “trying” to keep His word. I cannot keep His word; I am an incapable failure of a man. Yet in my shame, I would know Father, still, if it could be so.
Gethsemane
Gethsemane is truly the Heart of Father. By Gethsemane, Jesus has already become me. And this same Jesus, now in me and living as me, shapes my heart by that same Gethsemane. And He has shaped my heart in the precise and perfect dimensions to fit and to contain my Father’s heart. He has done so by every Word that He speaks.
How many times through the years have I pressed my Bible tightly against my chest with tears streaming down my face, “Father, if it be possible, cause Your Word to enter fully into my heart.”
Father Keeps Covenant
Father has kept covenant with me. I look into my heart and all I can see is His Word, His Bible, the living Lord Jesus, alive in me, filling my heart with all of His glory. And I am content; Father has kept covenant with me.
What must happen inside of us first before Father and Son can be known fully by us as at Home? So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you KNOW that man does not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord (Deuteronomy 8:3).
The Door
Do you see what God is after? Do you understand how tricky this whole endeavor is for God? God cannot dwell in our hearts except that our hearts be as bold as His. Yet a bold human heart empty of God is the most wicked and deceitful thing in the universe.
And so the Father places the door closing off this most precious of truths, the reality of age-abiding life, Father and Son making you and me Their Home. That door is, “Keep My word.” And all the bold and un-broken hearts run with “Obey, do not disobey,” never noticing that they do NOT.
He Humbled You
So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know. So much of Deuteronomy is a Spirit word, enclosing in itself the heart of the gospel, if we but have ears to hear.
God is meek and lowly of heart – yet more bold of heart than all things created put together.
You see, most everyone notices John 14:23, though many never see John 14:20, and seeing beyond the barrier the words, We will come to him and make Our home with him, then go running out, determined to “prove to God” that they can do it, that they can “keep His word.” But some come back, knowing they have failed, humbled.
Manna We Have Never Known
And God allows us to hunger, in our brokenness, knowing that we, in ourselves, CANNOT ever please Him. And then He feeds us with a manna that we have never known, Christ our only life. Now, there is no more barrier, no more door to enter, for we are entirely inside this One who is now inside of us, and in Him dwells the Father, and Jesus and us together live utterly inside of Father.
Father and Son are at Home in us; we are at Home in Them. This is the only True God; this is eternal life. And from here on out, Wwe do all things together.
The Wolf and the Lamb
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them (Isaiah 11:6).
Whatever any literal fulfillment of this line from Isaiah might be, I see now something incredible that it represents. You see, nothing can show itself in outward appearance in the new creation except it comes, first, out of you and me sharing heart with God. God’s heart contains the wolf and the lamb, the calf and the lion at peace together; Father is led by a little child. But in our former hearts these Godly things were at war.
Christ Visible
Thus we see again the entrance of God out from invisibility into the becoming known that is Christ Jesus.
But taking on the form of a bondservant, He made an invisible God visible, coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself . . . (Philippians 2:7-8 – modified). Here is the Father’s dwelling place; here is God showing Himself as He really is, filled with grace and truth.
And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and make Myself visible to him (John 14:21b). As we see Jesus as He is, we KNOW that, right now, we truly are just like Him.
The Lamb Slain
Just like Jesus, we are filled with Father; Father and us doing all things together, bold as lions, gentle as doves.
Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed . . . ” And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne . . . stood a Lamb as though it had been slain . . . (Revelation 5:5b-6).
And at the center of all that Father and us do together, we look at our hearts, the throne of heaven, and we see a Lamb slain, this Lion that has prevailed. The Mercy Seat of God. Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me (Hebrews 10:5).
Walking with Father
We have a job to do, Father and us together inside of Jesus; we have a creation to set free into Love.
How do we know the Father? The Father’s Holy Spirit and our spirits are one. How do we know one another? By walking together, by eating together, by working together, by standing in battle together. Thus we also know the Father ONLY as we walk together, eat together, work together, and stand in battle together, Father and us, each one of us as individuals, all of us as one body of Christ.
God Made Visible
As the Father and us together make all things good, we discover something beyond mind-blowing, beyond all. As we walk together with Father, filled with Father, we discover that when He formed us inside Himself, in His own heart, He made us just like Himself.
You and I are just like God. You and I are the only ones who can show creation who the Father really is. God makes Himself visible through us.
This is the gospel. This is what it means to be human.
Father’s Gentle Hands
This is the final lesson of this course. In the next session, we will give a comprehensive overview of the ten most important verses of the Bible, what they mean, and how we become real human beings by them. I believe that in these 28 sessions, I have laid out for you the entire structure of God’s motive, His means, and His opportunity to win for Himself that which He desires – a Body prepared for Him.
That God might be seen and known; that God might touch and be touched. That Father might take little children into His lap, place His hands upon them, and bless them.