2.2 Learn of Me
© 2019 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light (Matthew 11:29-30).
When Jesus said, “Learn of Me,” He was using a metaphor regarding His relationship with us inside of us, a metaphor that is the same thing as many other similar statements. Learn of Me – Put on the Lord Jesus Christ – know that you are inside of Me and I inside of you – Drink of Me. We don’t learn “about” Jesus, but to know Jesus Sent, this glorious One inside of us who is our only LIFE. Before considering what it means to “learn” of Jesus, however, let’s begin with how we think, that is, the three levels of thinking.
Three Levels of Thinking. Every verse in the Bible, every idea heard or read, every impression from daily life, comes into your thinking as a “fact.” As each of these words or ideas enters, you pre-judge it to determine its value and meaning before you place it into a structure of knowing together with other similar ideas or facts.
The first level of thinking, then, as any “verse” appears to your mind is the profound underlying definitions that you hold of four primary elements of reality – your definition of God, your definition of the human, that is, of yourself, your definition of Christ, and your definition of salvation. Your definitions of each of those four things are, actually, fully unique to you. And your definition of God is matched with your definition of man, that is of yourself.
Definitions and Patterns. Your essential underlying definitions, then, RULE over every word or idea entering into your awareness. For instance, many Christians, reading their Bibles, never notice John 14:20, because they have automatically judged those words as being irrelevant to them and having no place in any structure of their thinking.
The second level of thinking is the structure or pattern by which you arrange all those ideas and facts coming in, how you make sense of them. In education, that is, “Learn of Me,” those practical arrangements of ideas are called “theories.” The third level of thinking, then, is the ideas or facts or verses themselves, whether true and accurate or not, each one already pre-judged as to value, place, and meaning.
The Most Important Question. This brings us to the most important question of the Bible. By your own personal answer to this question you “know” everything you think you know regarding God and salvation. – Who do you say that I am? (Matthew 16:15). Of course, Peter gave His immediate answer – “You are the Christ the Son of the living God.”
Peter meant that this man was God revealed, that man is the appearance of God in creation and that this particular man shows us what God, meek and lowly of heart, is and does. And that was true, as far as Peter knew Jesus in that moment. But Paul’s gospel had not yet been released to the Church, and Peter did not know Jesus as we do, the One who lives inside of us, the One who is our only life.
My Answer. Notice that Jesus said, “Who do YOU say?” Simply to repeat Peter’s statement is not really being honest. Jesus was not asking for mental ideas. Your answer to Jesus, face to Face, comes out from your REAL answer to the most important question in the Bible regarding you – What do you want?
Let me give my answer to Jesus’ question in three concentric circles, with the larger answers as only an expansion of the first. First – Jesus, You live in my heart through faith. Then, expanded slightly. – Lord Jesus You are every Word God speaks alive in Person inside of me, my only life, and You are written as every Word God speaks upon all the pathways of my human heart. – Christ is my life; I have no other life.
Jesus Personal in Me. And finally, here is a larger rendition of my same answer.
Jesus, You are a Man just like me, upon whose breast I always lean my head. You exist continuously in the form of God, that is, all here now and Personal inside of me. Yet Jesus, You never hold onto that “form” as if You should remain as God’s “equal,” rather, as every Word God speaks, You are always becoming me as I am in my present humanity. Having willingly, then, made Yourself a servant, connecting me with Father and Father with me, Jesus, through my faith which is Your faith inside of me, You reveal God Himself through my human appearance. Jesus, You are every Word God speaks, entering me through my faith to become my own story of self inside my bubble.
Open the Door. Here is another picture of this same Jesus entering into us. – Look and see, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone should hear My voice and open the door, I will enter in towards him and will dine with him and he with Me (Revelation 3:20).
Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me – and – Open your door and eat with Me – are two ways of saying the same thing.
Now, all created things, and especially, all created beings, are designed and created by Word as their source, and are sustained and carried by Word as their sufficiency. That Word is Jesus as every speaking of God’s thoughts. Look around you. How many people know that they are coming out from Jesus and are sustained by Jesus every moment?
You Are Free of God. If being created and sustained by every Word that is Jesus is so all-pervasive, why, then does no one know such a thing?
We must know this absolute fact about God. God cannot sin. Doing what is wrong never enters God’s mind. God does not have options. God is not a “moral” being; He never chooses between “right and wrong.” The Bible does not actually say that “God can do anything,” it says, in the original, that “God can do anything – that He speaks.”
Here is the testimony of Isaiah concerning this One who IS every Word God speaks. – He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth (Isaiah 53:9). Having created you as a person just like Himself, God will never force His knowledge on you. You are FREE of God.
Your Permission to Jesus. Consider your human consciousness, your existence as a story of words inside of a spirit self-awareness, ruled by the desire of your heart and protected by an outer wall. That God-given wall of protection is designed by God to keep everything not part of you outside of you. And because God respects you so much, thinking more highly of you than He does of Himself, the knowledge of God is also on the outside of you, wanting to enter and to dine with you.
I stand at the door and knock; if anyone should hear My voice and open the door, I will enter. That door is your permission to Jesus to enter into your bubble to become part of you as every Word God speaks.
Two Responses. Because we are always free of God, we always have two options in our response to every Word God speaks coming to us. The first response was spoken by the children of Israel to Moses on Mount Sinai. – All that the Lord says we will do. In Galatians 3, Paul shows how contrary to Christ and Salvation this response to Word really is.
The second response to Word is Mary’s response. – Let it be to me according to Your word.
The difference between these two responses is extreme. The first closes the door to Jesus and says, “I have all the sufficiency in myself that I need.” The second opens the door wide open to allow Jesus to be all that we are by every Word that He is.
A Living Word. We must then understand this fact about Jesus as every Word God speaks. The Word is never static; it never enters into us as one thing and then sits there. The Word is living and dynamic. – Living indeed is the Word of God, and energeoing, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing through… (Hebrews 4:12).
Our relationship with this God out from whom we come every moment by every Word that is Jesus contains no thought of “been there, done that.” Here is a Word God speaks – Symmorphosed with the image of His Son. You can say to that Word, “Let it be to me” every morning for a billion years, and every morning it will be in you a power and life beyond what you had ever known before.
Word Inside. Just as the Word God speaks abides forever, living and new, so the entrance of that Word into you through your faith, with your permission – “Let it be to me,” will also abide forever. And forever, you will learn who and what that Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, IS and is doing inside of your own bubble of self.
Our question is, then, how do we make all these dynamic metaphors Jesus gives us a part of our everyday life. How do we learn of Him? How do we dine with Him? How do we drink of Him? How do we eat of Him? How do we put the Lord Jesus Christ upon ourselves? Paul gave Philemon the answer. The fellowship of your faith becomes energeoing [dynamic] by the acknowledgement of every good thing inside of you inside of Christ Jesus.
Acknowledge. That word, “acknowledge,” is, in the Greek, epignosis, that is, the Greek for “to know” with “epi” as a qualifying prefix. To acknowledge, epignosis, means your own personal response to the living knowledge that comes into you through every Word.
“Let it be to me” is your invitation to every Word to enter into your bubble as Jesus Himself. And “acknowledge every good thing” is your ongoing response to that same Word now inside of you inside of Christ Jesus.
“You shall find rest for your souls” never ever means static passivity; it always contains dynamic and living JOY. – I will dine with you and you with Me. – Who do you say that I am?
My Acknowledgment. Let me give you another rendition of who I say Jesus is to me.
I acknowledge, Lord Jesus, that You live in Person inside of me, causing me to exist in every present NOW by Your creative speaking. I acknowledge, Lord Jesus, that You sustain my life, that You energeo me in this present moment by the power and goodness of Your every word, that You now live as me.
I acknowledge, Lord Jesus, that You also set me free of Yourself in full honor and respect, that You think more highly of me than You do of Yourself, that you are always calling me by name. I acknowledge, Lord Jesus, that You are always winning my heart to Yourself in love, but especially in this present moment.
I acknowledge, Lord Jesus, that You are always connecting me with Father and Father with me, making Father and me to be one Hheart together in sweet fellowship.”