5. I Am Just Like Jesus
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Can you say that? – Can I say that!!!”
All the other statements of faith we could make could be justified by the “I” as being Jesus Himself speaking. Can I prophesy that Jesus is filled with all the fulness of God? Can I claim that Rivers of Spirit flow out from Jesus? Can Jesus tell Himself, “I KNOW the True God; God, My Father, shares Life with Me?” Does Jesus live in your heart? Can He speak concerning Himself through your mouth?
But it can’t be Jesus who says, “I am just like Jesus.” It has to be me who is speaking those words.
Comparing Myself with Jesus. So – let’s see how this pans out.
1. Jesus could do nothing of Himself. – Just like Jesus, I can do nothing of myself.
2. Jesus trusted utterly in God to keep Him from death. – Just like Jesus, I trust utterly in God to keep me from death.
3. God was inside of Jesus reconciling the world to Himself. – Just like with Jesus, God is inside of me reconciling the world to Himself.
4. Jesus stumbled under a cross He could not carry. Just like Jesus, I stumble under a cross I cannot carry.
So far, the same.
And I Also.
5. Jesus set the Church before His eyes as His joy and purpose, that He might see her safe. – Just like Jesus, I set the Church before my eyes as my joy and purpose, that I might see her safe.
6. Jesus cried out to God in the agony and confusion of His soul, feeling utterly lost. – Just like Jesus, I cry out to God in the agony and confusion of my soul, feeling utterly lost.
7. Jesus set forth His soul for me, that I might join together with God inside His heart. – And just like Jesus, I also set forth my soul for my brothers and sisters that they might join together with God inside my heart.
We Humble Ourselves with Father.
8. God anointed Jesus for the task for which He sent Him. – Just like with Jesus, God anoints me for the task for which Jesus has sent me.
9. Jesus honored and covenanted with God, that He might keep His Word. Just like Jesus, I honor and covenant with God that I might keep His Word.
10. Because Jesus joined with Father in humbling Himself beneath of all, so God raised Him on high. – Just as with Jesus, because I join with Father in humbling Himself beneath of all, so God raises me on high, inside of Jesus.
I fail to see any meaningful difference between Jesus and me.
Made Visible. Beloved, we are now children birthed out from God, and it has not yet been made visible [in outward appearance] what we will be. We know that if He becomes visible [to us], we will be just exactly like Him, because we will be seeing Him as He is. – Even more, the one who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will appear in person and make Myself visible to him (John 14:21).
Jesus swears to me that as I love Him, so He WILL appear to me in Person and He WILL make Himself visible to me. I can assure you that since I first read these words, my true eyes have been fixed on nothing else.
By Word and by Oath. God, intending with full determination to demonstrate to the heirs of promise His unchangeable purpose, He interposed it by an oath, so that through two unchangeable deeds [spoken word and sworn oath], in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might possess STRONG encouragement, having already fled for refuge (into the Holiest, that is, into all that is God) to seize hold of hope found already there (Hebrews 6:17-18).
And everyone who has this hope upon Him, purifies and devotes himself [to God], just exactly as Jesus is pure and devotes Himself [to God.] – This HOPE, my hope, is that Jesus shows Himself to me as He is and I am just like Him.
A Fake Image. Of course, the vast majority of people, Christian or not, will look at the title of this session and say, “Bull pocky.”
But consider the imagination they have built in their minds, their own labored-over creation, which they call “Jesus.” They KNOW that they are not like that image and neither am I. The problem is that if they were really seeing Jesus “as He is,” they would be just like that image, as God swears. Because they are not just like that image, that image is false. If they are not just like their image of Jesus, then their image of Jesus is their own false lust for superiority.
Upside Down. What, then, is the one thing that keeps anyone from saying, “I am just like Jesus?” The one thing is – rebellion. Or, in its most common expression – contempt.
Let me show you what contempt for ourselves, for God, and for others does to us. In our former way of “Christian” thinking, we interpreted Paul’s words in Colossians 3 entirely upside down. If you have already been raised together with Christ, then seek and enquire of the things above, where Christ is sitting inside of the right hand of God. – We were calling down, “up,” and up, “down.”
He Humbled Himself. When we were “hanging upside down,” contempt taught us to call “above” by superiority, and thus the highest angel was our image of God, not a man on his face in the dirt. And so we came up with such contemptuous statements as, “Jesus is perfect, and you are not.”
But when God turned us right side up, we saw, to our joy, that “He humbled Himself” is the highest thing inside of God, and that a man stumbling under a cross He could not carry was the very revelation of God as He is. We saw that “things above” meant a God who sees others as better than Himself and who carries all through the darkness and into life.
Source and Completion. Then we learned that Salvation is a Jesus who has already come into union with us and that the Father already shares our lives with us; we are already the image of God. And when we turned around inside of God, we saw that this same Salvation now comes through us into our world.
The Salvation that came into our world through Jesus was Salvation as the Source, but the same Salvation, coming into our world now through us, is Salvation as Completion. Thus, as Jesus said, greater works are reserved for us than were given to Jesus, yet it is always Jesus Himself through us. We are LIKE Jesus because He first became like us, not generally, but personally.
Our Confession. I perceive the love the Father has given to me; I am a child birthed out from God. Yet I know and confess that I do NOT know what I am. I also know that I am just like Jesus if I see Him as He is. I see Jesus as He is; I am just like Him. I am just like Jesus. I am pure and devoted to God in just the same way that Jesus is pure and devoted to God.
I live inside of Jesus; I never disconnect myself from God. I do what is just and pleasing to God; I am just and innocent, just like Jesus. I am conceived out from God; I do not sin. The Sperm of God lives inside of me; I am not able to disconnect from God. I love my brethren in full reciprocity; I am made visible as out from God, just like Jesus.
The Jesus Secret Page. I see two larger boxes on this page, plus a Jesus Secret box at the bottom. The first larger box will be “Just Like Jesus,” and the second will be “The Covenant – Our Hope.” As you can see, we have already covered most of what will go in the first box, and we have introduced the second.
Even though “our hope” will go into the second box, I want to bring it in now before I write “Just Like Jesus.” “Our hope” makes being like Jesus very personal to us. The hope of “being like Jesus” is the biggest deal in the Bible, and the false hope of “going to” heaven is its enemy.
Our Hope. Two times in the gospel “our hope” is defined specifically, and both times it is tied tightly with “the Covenant.” The first is in Romans 8 when Paul said that our hope is the redemption of our physical bodies, that is, the resurrection, just before declaring that we are already symmorphosed with the image of God’s son, sharing the same Spirit/Flesh form with Jesus as the revelation of the Father. Our bodies swallowed up by life is the outward visible moment of the completion of Symmorphy.
And the second is in our present passage, where John says, “this hope,” referring to our being made just like Jesus.
My Attention Is Caught. Here’s the thing. IF these statements are in my Bible, that is, if GOD Himself is making this beyond-all claim to me –. Conformed with the image of His Son. – We shall be like Him if we see Him as He is. – Transformed into the same image from glory to glory. – Well, I don’t know about you, but my attention is CAUGHT and I cannot see anything else.
Nothing can be bigger or more important. Nothing else can have any meaning at all except it points directly to this. Yet to set my face on this one Word is utterly personal to me; I alone choose to make it my all – my own HOPE.
Just Like Jesus. ~ Just like Jesus, I can do nothing of myself. Just like Jesus, I trust utterly in God to keep me from death. Just like with Jesus, God is inside of me reconciling the world to Himself. Just like Jesus, I stumble under a cross I cannot carry. ~
~ Just like Jesus, I set the Church before my eyes as my joy and purpose, that I might see her safe. Just like Jesus, I cry out to God in the agony and confusion of my soul, feeling utterly lost. And just like Jesus, I set forth my soul for my brothers and sisters, that they might join together with God inside my heart. ~
~ Just like with Jesus, God anoints me for the task for which Jesus sent me. That task is obviously different from the task given to others. Just like Jesus, I honor and covenant with God that I might keep His Word. Just as with Jesus, because I join with Father in humbling Himself beneath of all, so God raises me on high, inside of Jesus. ~
~ Because Jesus makes Himself pure and devoted to God, so I am made pure just like Him. ~
The Essence and the How. The essence of the New Covenant is – That all might know Me, that is, God revealed. God revealed is then found in these words from John 14 – He who sees Me sees the Father. I want you to see how closely our passage in 1 John 3 is tied together with John 14 and 17; they must be known together.
The essence of the Covenant is God revealed, but the how of the Covenant, the outworking is – I will place My laws in their minds [dianoia – through mind] and upon their hearts I will inscribe them; and I will be God inside of them and they shall be people inside of Me (Hebrews 8:10).
He Who Sees Us. Here is that same thing, condensed. – It is fully made visible that you ARE a letter of Christ… having already been written… with the Spirit of the living God… inside tablets of hearts of flesh (2 Corinthians 3:3). We must be like Jesus already, for every Word God speaks is already written all through the pathways of our hearts as Jesus Himself.
And thus we are, with Jesus, God revealed, by the urgent determination of God. – He who sees us sees the Father. – God, …with full determination to demonstrate… His unchangeable purpose, He interposed it by an oath…
Limiting Our Box. Only one thing can get the eyes of Christians turned away from such wonder, and that is the words of the serpent. – “You will not surely die, for death will ‘take you to’ heaven, the only ‘place’ God’s word is fulfilled. Death is actually life!”
Now, I have written six large textbooks thus far to somehow understand Romans 8:29. For our purposes here, let’s bring its meaning in as one simple line. – Out from God’s intense Determination, we already share Spirit/Flesh form with Jesus as the visible appearance of God. Thus I want to limit our box just to the pairing of 1 John 3:1-3 with 2 Corinthians 3:3 & 18.
1 John 3:2 & 2 Corinthians 3:18. We are now children birthed out from God – We all, then, having been unveiled in face.
And it has not yet been made visible [in outward appearance] what we will be – Yet – we are reflecting the glory of the Lord [to one another] as a mirror.
We know that if He becomes visible [to us], we will be just exactly like Him, because we will be seeing Him as He is – We are being metamorphosed (present progressive tense) into the same image from glory into glory, just exactly as from the Spirit of the Lord.
You see how it works – IF – we see Him in one another.
In One Another’s Faces. I will love him and will appear in Person and make Myself visible to him. – You shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ (Luke 23:39). Jesus did not mean “see Me” as an isolated figure, but see Me in your brother and sister, beholding the glory of Jesus in one another’s faces.
You see, God already is, as in – I AM! We are already His appearance. The mechanism of this whole thing is to see God as He is! – I will be God inside of them and they shall be people inside of Me!
Weaving the Covenant Together. The one who has seen Me, has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show and make known to us the Father?’ Do you not believe that I am inside of the Father and the Father is inside of Me? – Know that I am inside of My Father, and you inside of Me and I inside of you (John 14).
And it has not yet been made visible [in outward appearance] what we will be – Yet – it is fully made visible that you ARE a letter of Christ.
We know that if He becomes visible [to us], we will be just exactly like Him, because we will be seeing Him as He is – Having already been written… with the Spirit of the living God… inside tablets of hearts of flesh.
Pure as Jesus Is Pure. I want us to see how powerfully the Covenant fits together.
Finally, John was in Ephesus. He knew the writer of Hebrews personally and closely and had poured over Hebrews in its original wording. The remainder of our passage is John’s expression of the truth of Hebrews 10:1-23. Yet John is also referring directly to Jesus making Himself pure and devoted so that we might be the same (John 17). This purity is the removal of contempt. So long as we see our brother or sister through contempt, we will never see Jesus, not in ten billion years.
The Apocalypse is the removal of false seeing from our eyes.
The Covenant – Our Hope. ~ By His Covenant with me, God fulfills His purpose of making Himself known to creation through me and through the love I share with other believers, just as He did through Jesus. God has already written His Covenant inside of me, all through my heart and soul, the Lord Jesus as every Word God speaks. God is determined to make me just like the Lord Jesus Christ. I am birthed out from God; my face is unveiled. I do not judge myself by my humanity, yet I see His Word in me and I see the reflection of His glory from the faces of my brothers and sisters. ~
~ Jesus makes Himself visible to me, as He swore that He would. Because I see Jesus as He is, I am exactly like Him. And even as His Covenant is written upon my heart and mind, so I am being transformed into the very same glory by the Spirit of the Lord. This is God’s Covenant oath to me, that He would make me to be just like the Lord Jesus, whatever God means by such a thing. I receive His Word soberly and with all confidence that God is telling me the truth, that God does all that He says inside of me. In this Hope, I make myself pure, just as Jesus is pure, for Jesus is pure and devoted inside of God for my sake. ~
Personal Engagement. Our personal engagement with the Covenant happens only because of, and out from, Jesus making Himself personal to us. God, My Father, I WANT Daniel to be WITH Me, more than anything in the universe! (Put your own name in the blank.)
Jesus engages directly and personally with us, inside of us; there is no other Salvation, no other Covenant. The intensity of all Desire belongs to Jesus, yet He whispers that same intensity to us, now as Himself inside of and through us, towards one another.
The Jesus Secret. ~ My Dear One, I am Your life, I am all there is in you and I energeo all that you are. I know that you love Me, that is why I make Myself visible to you, that you might know that you are just like Me, a human, filled with all the fulness of God. This is our Father’s Covenant, that you would be the same as Me, and He sent Me into You to be the completion of His Word. Wrap yourself with Me, My beloved, and know that you are already devoted inside of Me. ~
The Apocalypse. The topic of this session is the ONLY entrance there can be into John’s vision, into the Apocalypse, coupled with “And we also” coming up soon. The Apocalypse is the revelation of Jesus Christ, of Father being seen and known by all creation – a world of LIFE, the Completion of the Covenant.
Yet, as God is teaching me now, the Apocalypse is also LIGHT, the turning on of the lights. – God is light, and inside of Him is no darkness (hiding) at all. There is no such thing as “meet your Maker”; rather, the issue is – “meet your neighbor” – with no hiding at all.
Reading for Next Time. The next session should be the ruling verse of John’s letters – 1 John 3:16 – “I Set Forth My Soul.”
What I write, mostly on a daily basis, comes out, however, from the press God continually takes me through for the sake of His Church. That press right now is involved with my great desire to finish my life story this month. Thus, the next session, titled “The Terror of Light,” is not a Jesus Secret page, nonetheless it fits most urgently before we arrive at 1 John 3:16. Read 1 John 3:3 several times.
That will put our sessions on “And we also” across the time of Tabernacles, which tells me that God is completing the Day of Atonement through us into His Church.
Our Prayer. The passage of travail which the Lord has walked through with me over the last few weeks, regarding the writing of “A New Fire,” along with the specific understanding God gave me as I completed “A New Altar,” which you will be receiving soon, has brought me to a far deeper and clearer level of knowing the Mercy Seat, that is, our hearts given utterly to the Father for His desire alone.
This Hheart, Father through us for the sake of others, is the beginning, the center, and the completion of everything “being like Jesus” could mean. In our prayer, let’s place our hearts as Father through us in the fulfillment of the Day of Atonement in the Church.
Let’s Pray Together. “Father, we are filled with such gladness that You Sent Your Son, the Lord Jesus, into our hearts that He might cause us to be just like Himself, that You might have an entrance through us into all creation. Father, we give You our hearts, utterly and without reservation, that You might pass through us into Your Church for her sake.
“Father, it is time, the Atonement wrought by Jesus must be fulfilled in the Church, all who belong to Jesus right now upon this earth. The Atonement must be known Complete. Father, You are inside of us reconciling Your Church to Yourself.
“Lord Jesus, we know that You want us to be with You inside of our Father more than anything in the universe; we live only there, inside Your Desire. Lord Jesus, You are inside of us as Your own bowels of compassion over Your people, all whom the Father has given to you, all who are struggling in darkness and unbelief inside this world right now. Lord Jesus, inside our pain and confusion, inside our toils and troubles, You have made us to be just like Yourself as a heart given to God that He might prevail.
“God, our Father, inside the name of Jesus, open the eyes of all Your Church that they might see ONE UNLIMITED SACRIFICE for sins, that they might be Your Salvation revealed.”