8.3 Unfaltering Pursuit

Part of what we must consider in this lesson is how Jesus defeats the demon of appeasement towards us first, and then through us inside His entire Church. It’s actually easy to say how – “Love never fails.” But knowing the depths of meaning, inside of the ongoing story that is the present experience of the Lord Jesus, will be forever.

Inserting the lesson titled “The Demon at the Heart” into a chapter called “A Love Story” does not detract from that love story. On the contrary, it shows us the awfulness through which Jesus has passed to win the Love of His Heart. I have asserted that Gethsemane is 2000 year’s long, that Jesus has carried us all the way through the darkness.

Planted into the Ground. Here is a familiar text. – If a grain of wheat planted into the ground should not die (in this case the appearance of death), it remains alone. If it should die, however (become something entirely different – the plant), it bears much fruit (many more seeds just like itself). The one who loves more his soul, his own story of self, loses it, and the one who loves less his soul, his story of self inside this world, will keep and protect it into age-unfolding life. If anyone serves Me, let him accompany Me; and where I am, there also My servant will be. If anyone serves Me, the Father will value and honor him (John 12:24-26).

Let’s paraphrase Jesus’ words into our present understanding of how God means them. And we understand this, that if 1 John 3:16 is in our Bibles, then it must be fulfilled on this earth, in this age, and through a people who are willing to believe that God is telling us the Truth. – We know Love, and we also become love.

Answering the Greeks. Now, these words of Jesus were spoken in direct response to a bunch of Greeks who had said, “We want to see Jesus.” Jesus was not going off topic; He was answering their desire.

“Tell this to anyone who thinks he wants to see Me. I am about to enter into Gethsemane, and there I will drink My Father’s cup. I will receive into Myself all whom the Father has given to Me, with all their rebellion and shame. This includes you, if you really want to see Me. Then, upon the cross, I will do what you cannot do, I will receive the Father with me inside the agony of My broken human soul, that the Father might share all with you. Then we will die together to all that is old.

I Will Come Again. “But on the third day, we will rise together into newness of Life, into the Life of knowing the Father. Except – it will seem to you that I will disappear again, that I have entered again into the appearance of death. This is not so, for I will come again into My Church, into you, as a Life-Giving Spirit on the Day of Pentecost.

“God plants Me again into the earth, that I might carry you inside Myself all the way into life. Just as the seed becomes the plant, so I have become My Church, which is My body, My fulness, for I fill all inside of all. I am planted in the earth, appearing as My Church, for two thousand years, for two days, and at the moment the third day begins, we will rise again together into the Age of Life.

How You See Me. “Yet you say you want to see Me. Here is how that happens. I have become your brothers and sisters inside of Me. As you see their faces as My own, as you place them as the love of your own heart, so you will see Me. I will show Myself to you, and you will love one another with the pure and fiery passion of My own heart.

“Yet the world still does not see Me, neither do the Greeks who have come looking. You must believe that as you see Me in one another, My glory reflected on each of your faces, regardless of present outward appearance, so I make you just like Myself. Just like Me, you can do nothing of yourself.

Give Me Your Self. “Just like Me, you trust utterly that our Father is with us together, and that He alone is the sending forth of power, God alone is love. Finally, for the first time, I will be free to show you just how much I have loved you. You will know how I have carried you through every stumbling step of your life. You will behold Me in the dark places; in the tears and confusion, you will know My unfaltering love for you.

“I ask of you to give Me your entire story of self that I might make it My own story. Then, even as you know that your soul, your story of self inside your spirit self-awareness, now belongs to Me, so you will know that I have given you My own story of self, My own soul, in return.

Serve Me. “You serve Me as you give Me your own soul for the sake of your brothers and sisters, just as I have done for you, and you will know that I have loved you with an everlasting love. Then having been planted inside of the earth, having appeared as My Church, I will bring you forth as many more seeds out from Father, just like Myself.

“In that hour, God Himself will remove the veil, and all the world will see God as Love among you and they will know that God did indeed send Me into My Church. Then these Greeks, and all the ethnic families will see Me through you together, My Body, and they will know that the Father loves you just as He loves Me. The Father honors you.”

Reciprocity. The reciprocity of God is not a negotiation, but it is a trade of sorts. God gives us His love even when we are enemies, so that we might love Him in return. Jesus gives us His soul first, when our souls are still unlovely, that we might give our dark and bitter stories back to Him as His own. This is His unfaltering love for us, yet it is not yet revealed to the world. The Completion that is God requires that same unfaltering love through us for our Christian brethren.

Enter Appease. Appease has turned the Blood and the Cross into consciousness of sins in the doctrine of Christianity.

Pollution. More than that, our Christian brethren, these very people whom Jesus tells us to see as “the Lord Jesus” to us, have required of us to fornicate with consciousness of sins if we want to be part of them. They told us that God was far from us, that He was against us. And because we did not know that our Father shares all things with us, we joined them in the false worship of “weeping over sins,” pleading with God to allow us someday to enter into where we already were.

Our Christian brethren lied to us into pollution. Yet such were we, polluting and polluted, and Jesus loved us regardless. Completion is God through us loving them regardless.

She Must Be Willing. Yet remember the story of Isaac. Abraham told Eliezer, representing the Devoted Spirit, “She must be willing to come, for you will not take my son back there again.”

It is the Devoted Spirit who wins our hearts for Jesus, even while Jesus is joining us to the Father inside His own soul. We do the same. We do not pursue our Christian brethren outwardly; we do not try to convince them of “the truth,” nor that our love for them is “God’s Love.” Rather, we are as Jesus is, hiding ourselves in Father, sending forth the Devoted Spirit to win our Christian brethren to the unfaltering Love for them that is Jesus through us. Our task is to join them with Father inside our own souls.

A Simple and Costly Path. God’s path into being seen and known by all is very simple in its layout. Jesus loves us, we love our brethren in return, God comes through our love for one another into our world. It is simple in layout, but costly in practice.

When I see a brother or sister who seems to be unable to know just how much Jesus loves them, I realize that there is someone in their life, whether present or past, whom they despise, whom they will not receive as Jesus received them. And I’m sure they have every reason to deem that person to be despicable. Yet so are they, having preferred Appease.

To receive others as Jesus receives me is to live in costliness.

The Turning of the Ages. To share in Jesus’ sufferings does not mean what the Church has made it to mean. It means to share in a life of all-cost for the sake of our Christian brethren, that the unfaltering Love of Jesus for us might be through us for them as we give ourselves in every moment and circumstance to the Father for their sakes.

This is the fruit that is Christ coming out from the Church, many sons just like Jesus, together giving their all for the sake of those who are despised and unlovely, seeing them as the Father sees them, honoring them as the Lord Jesus. Here is the turning of the ages; here is the Father made known.

Reading for Next Time. When I finalized the outline for this text, I titled these five chapters, Part 2 “Salvation.” I wrote the first chapter on human folly a year ago and have held this chapter in my heart until now. But the next three were just ideas. And so I had to pause and allow the Spirit to show me the entirety of the next three chapters so that we could go forward in understanding.

The next chapter is titled “The End of the Age.” In fact, I hoped truly that our study of John’s vision would allow us to understand and write this next chapter. As I pondered how such a topic, the end of the age, must fit into a text on Completion, I saw and titled the three lessons that must be included.

After that, I saw that I had already titled the lessons with different wording, but that the meaning was the same. I am unable to drop either set of titles, and so I have merged them. Thus the next lesson is titled, “9.1 The Issue – Faithful and True.” This will be followed by “The Completion – the Apocalypse” and “Swallowing Up – the End of Folly.” As you can see, these are the three primary things in God’s purpose as He causes this age of woe to cease.

I would suggest, then, that you read Lesson 7.4 “Into Goodness” and all of this Chapter, “Redemption – A Love Story,” again before the next session. It’s really happening, and God has really made us to be part of His Love.

Let’s Pray Together. “God, our Father, You have honored us. You have made us to be part of Your own Love for our fellow Christians. And as we know Your love for them through us, so we know ever more just how much You really have loved us. Father, we know that You share every moment of our lives with us, personal and real. We acknowledge Your Person when we are lonely and afraid and when we are cheerful and filled with good comfort, regardless.

“We give You our hearts and our eyes, that You might see all things good. We give you our hands and our feet, that You might rejoice with us in the goodness of Your creation. Father, we ask that You be as You are, Yourself, inside of us, among us, and through us together. In Jesus name, You are.”