1.2 God's Heart First
© 2018 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).
Let me let you in on a secret. God has always been enormously involved in your life, though you did not know that at all. And God sent Jesus into the world and into your heart and life in order to bring you to Himself. Jesus wants to be with you and you with Him, yes, but only because God wants to be with you and you with Him even more. Jesus is God’s wanting of you.
Here’s the thing. We know Jesus only as the Person living in our own hearts, but Jesus is sent into us by Father God. Everything begins with what God wants first.
Our In-Between. What does God want? And when we say, “God,” Jesus instructed us to say, “Father.” God, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, is our Father as well.
Why does God want you, and what does He intend to do with you?
You see, we could say that Jesus is an “in-between.” Paul used the word “mediator” (1 Timothy 2:5), and a mediator is someone who connects two together. Jesus alive in your heart is always connecting you together with the Father and the Father together with you. And so, in order to know Jesus as He is, we have to know what God wants and why God sent Jesus into you.
God’s Purpose. When we say, “God’s purpose,” we are also saying, “God’s heart,” or, “God’s desire.” You see, God is the most personal Person in the universe, filled with heart. In fact, God made us just like Himself. So we never think of Father God as anything other than a Person, close and real, who desires with all of His heart.
What does God want with you?
Brace yourself, because we must put the heart and rule of the gospel right here, right out in front of us. And what God wants with us is WAY bigger than we can understand. That’s why we must never leave “Jesus lives in my heart through faith.” God is far more excessive than Paul.
The Ruling Verse. Here is the ruling verse of the Bible, and of our lives and our future – Romans 8:29 (with Hebrews 1:3).
For those whom God pro-knows, He pro-determines them conformed with [sharing the same form with] the image of His Son [the Lord Jesus, the express image of God’s person] so that Jesus might be the firstborn among many brethren just like Himself.
Since we can know Jesus only by heart, we must make a word like this personal to ourselves.
Because God knows me, He determines me conformed with, sharing the same form with, the Lord Jesus as the image and revelation of the Father.
Two Companion Verses. Before we do anything with such an overwhelming statement of God to us, we must bring in the two close companions of this most important verse. We always put these two verses together, for they are speaking of the same thing, but from slightly different angles, 1 John 3:2 and 2 Corinthians 3:18.
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. – But we all with unveiled face, reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
The Set of Our Face. Be assured of this, dear believer in Jesus, this is all WAY too much for us. We will live and walk with the Lord Jesus living in Person in our hearts forever and the meaning found in the words and phrases of these three verses will never stop increasing for us.
You will never know Jesus as He is unless you set God’s determination regarding you right out there in front of your eyes and the set of your face.
Say these words out loud. “God is determined to make me just exactly like the Lord Jesus Christ.” Not only does Jesus live in your heart in all the glory of His Person, but God is also determined to make you just like Him.
A Stirring Witness. As shocking and as overwhelming as God’s determination towards us is, I know that there is inside your heart a stirring witness to what He is saying to you in these three ruling verses. I know there is because I know the Jesus who fills your heart.
We won’t expand here on the meaning found all through these three verses, Romans 8:29, 1 John 3:2, and 2 Corinthians 3:18. Indeed, it would take many large books even to begin such a study. Nonetheless, we must set God’s goal and intentions for us in front of our eyes, because everything that is part of knowing Jesus as He is, is found going only in the direction of God making us just like Him.
God Is a Person. We want to look a bit further, however, at the determination of our Father towards us. God is a Person, and His determination towards us is very personal.
Now, you will notice that Romans 8:29 uses the term “pro-determined.” This is the Greek word proorisen, from which we get the English word, horizon. Generally, the prefix “pro” means “beforehand,” but it cannot mean such a thing when referring to God.
A big part of knowing Jesus as He is, is knowing God as He is. God is omnipresent Spirit. That means that God is all here now and Personal in every place and in every moment.
God All Here Now. God cannot be “a long time ago,” because God is all here now. Everything that is God is all now. Everything that is God is all here. Everything that is God is always Personal. We never think of God any other way. That is, we never give God some sort of “form.” We never outline Him or split Him apart. We never think “God begins here and ends there, but over there, God is not.”
Although we do know Jesus as a Man, we never hold any sort of image in our minds regarding God, neither a form in space or a form in time. God is always a Person and God is always ALL HERE NOW, whatever all, here, and now might mean. When referring to God, “pro” means – coming out of who and what God is, out of the core of His Being, out of His Heart.
Determination. In English, the word “horizon” means that circle of destination which we see in the distance. The Greek word Paul used, proorisen, includes that thought of a clear and visible destination, but it also carries the intention of determination. At the same time, it is a past tense word, not future tense. It does not mean that “someday” we will be conformed with the image of Christ; it means we are. And thus, “God, out of His own Heart, determined us conformed with” carries the meaning found in the Greek.
Determination includes purpose, it includes passion, and it includes certainty. God’s determination is fierce.
God’s Reason. “No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). It is God Himself who sent Jesus into your heart to live there in Person in all that Christ is. And the reason God sent Jesus into your heart is so that He might connect Himself with you and you with Him through Jesus. Because God is fiercely determined towards you, to make you just like the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, John said that we don’t know what we shall be, or even what we are. That means that we never try to “figure out” a word such as this. We simply believe that God is telling us the truth.
Receive All that God Speaks. You see, God’s Heart determination towards you, as expressed in Romans 8:29, is the rule over every word in the Bible. We read every other verse in the Bible only in the light of God’s Heart determination towards us.
But we know God’s Heart determination towards us only by these words – Jesus lives in my heart through faith. Whatever God means by what He says, Jesus is. And whatever Jesus is lives inside your heart.
In your quest to know Jesus as He is, do not ever limit God or what He says. God and His Word have no limits. That’s why we receive all that God speaks into our hearts, knowing that we are receiving Jesus.
Father, You Say. Speak these words out loud. “Father, You say that you are determined to make me just like the Lord Jesus Christ, that I would share the same form together with Him as Your image and revelation inside of Your creation. Father, I have no idea what that means; Your word is simply too big for me. But this is what you say, Father, and I know that You are always telling me the truth.
“And so Father, I receive these overwhelming words into my heart through faith, through believing with all my heart that Your determination belongs to me and that Your words are Jesus inside of my heart. Father, out from Your own Heart, You have determined me conformed together with the Lord Jesus as the image of Your Person.”