10.3 Commitment
© 2018 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
You are the unfolding of God’s thoughts concerning you, spoken by Jesus and becoming your ongoing daily life. You are and have never been anything else.
You have had three problems with knowing that ongoing reality, however. The first is that you have not yet fully believed that Jesus, with His redemption, has already fully connected you back into the knowing of God’s thoughts becoming you. The second is that you have shared with Adam a dislike of yourself and your circumstances, that unfolding that is the revelation of God, but which we sometimes call “the daily grind.” And so you have desired a “superior Christ.”
Your Problem. And the third blockage that has kept you from knowing yourself as the revelation of Father is the face of all your brothers and sisters in Christ, who are to you as Eve was to Adam.
Your problem is simply this. Stepping aside from pretending, you realize that, for the most part, you don’t like other Christians and what they do, especially what they do that aggravates you. How could that be Christ through them? But even more than that, you hold other Christians “at arm’s length” primarily because you are convinced that they suspect you of falseness, that they don’t like you in the same way that you don’t like them.
I hope to change your mind.
And We Also. As we have seen, if the Lord Jesus lives as you, then He lives also as all who belong to Him. If the love of God is shed abroad in your heart, then it is also shed abroad in the heart of everyone who belongs to Him.
But just as sharing heart with God as the Mercy Seat, His throne, the authority of love in creation, requires a stated devotion to Father (something Jesus Himself completes for us), so in the same way does becoming the fulness of Christ, that is, the Church. This final expression of God in the universe, the Church as one body together, requires something from you we will call commitment. And we also are committed to laying down our lives for the sake of our brothers and sisters (1 John 3:16).
Your Fourth Agreement with God. Before we look at commitment, I want to talk about your fourth agreement with God, your agreement to be His Mercy Seat, to share Heart with your Father.
Before that agreement, as you continued to speak Christ as your only life, you found yourself speaking goodness into others. You found faith for others you never had before, but different as well. You KNEW that the Spirit of Christ was always going out from you, blessing and healing and giving life and joy. Yet again, a new desire arose in you, a longing to know the Lord Jesus as you never had before. You knew that Christ is the Redeemer, and that God was also in you, reconciling the world to Himself.
Stricken with Fear. Then the day came when you suddenly saw your next step in God. You saw the Mercy Seat, as God means it; you saw the reality of sharing Hheart with God. And you were stricken with fear, for you KNEW that this place of Mercy was Holy and not to be used for foolishness.
You heard the Father speaking in your own heart. “Will you be My Mercy towards others? Will you share heart with Me?” In agony and joy, you began to draw that which offends into Love inside your heart, the throne of heaven, the Mercy Seat of God. And there above the Blood sprinkled on your heart, you released the offender and set him or her free of you. You knew the power of God in a way you never knew before.
Now Turned Around. As you said, “Yes,” to Father and as you began to share His Heart, you saw all the difficulties in your life, every circumstance, even every mistake you made, as Father sharing His travail for others with you. The agony you turned, together with Father, into precious fruit for others, entirely by faith, by knowing Father with you.
As you made that agreement with Father as the Lord Jesus in you, something incredible happened to you. In that moment, it was not just you inside of Jesus, there in Gethsemane and through every step of the Atonement, but now it was that same redeeming Jesus inside of you. You had turned around. No longer were you “going into God.” Now it was Father entering His creation through you.
The Travail of God. You now knew that it was not just you inside of Jesus, as precious as the reality continues to be even now, but it was also Jesus inside of you. You knew Jesus now as a Personal Spirit Word, still human, yet as a Life-giving Spirit. You knew your heart as the Lord Jesus. And you knew God was in you reconciling the world to Himself.
You saw your daily human circumstances in an entirely different light, as the travail of God for others. And you knew Christ Jesus as the Sustaining One, the Word of power out from which all things are continuously generated. Not just all things in you, but you saw Him sustaining all things in your world. You looked out, and you saw the passion of His heart.
Christ, the Redeeming One. You looked out and you knew the Desire of the Lord Jesus towards His Church, that she might know Father together with you, that His entire Body might walk together in love.
In this is love, that He laid down His life for us, AND WE ALSO are committed to laying down our lives for the brethren. “What does it mean, Father, for me to lay down my life as Jesus for the brethren” – became the guiding question of your life.
I want to talk, now, about that commitment, that agreement with God that is Jesus Himself already your only life, that agreement to commit yourself to walk together with your brothers and sisters as the local Church, the local expression of Jesus walking this earth in His Body as Father revealed. For we are members of one another (Romans 12:5).
Full Reciprocity. You see, as Jesus commands you, “Love one another,” He is not actually saying to you, “Love other people.” Jesus said, “Love allélón.” Allélón means full reciprocity, full back and forth, a fully shared love.
God has given us a picture of such love in the marriage between a husband and wife who love one another. And so “Love one another” creates through you, if you want it, a commitment of marriage to the believers in Jesus with whom you fellowship, to share life together with them. Having purified your souls [your self-stories] inside of submitted hearing of the truth into sincere brotherly love, love one another fervently out of a pure heart (1 Peter 1:22).
Commitment AND Liberty. What is commitment?
Commitment is NOT any kind of forced obligation. As Paul said, “Owe no debt or obligation to anyone, except to love one another” (Romans 13:8). Commitment cannot exist apart from full liberty, and liberty is not found separate from commitment. It’s not half and half, but all of one and all of the other.
We are talking about marriage with one another, to walk together as the local expression of Christ. It means expressing the Love that is Father towards one another in the daily things of life, in little acts of kindness and gentle words of encouragement, and it means honoring one another as the Lord Jesus Himself.
Bullies in the Church. I must give one warning here. There are many men and women in Christian circles who are humanly gifted and capable on the one hand, but do not know God as meek and lowly of heart on the other hand. Then, when the Holy Spirit anoints them as He anoints all, they assume that their “superior” capabilities mean that they are called to be “leaders” in the Church.
And some of those imagine that the anointing of the Spirit upon their human capabilities mean that they are “in charge” and “above you” in the gathering together. They use the anointing of the Spirit to exalt themselves and to bully other precious saints. Do not be like them.
See Jesus Alone. Do not be like them and do not place yourself under their manipulation. Nonetheless, they also belong to Jesus. Loving, as the Mercy Seat of God, even those who imagine themselves “superior” by their Spirit giftings, will cost you everything. For that is also how Jesus loves you. God is after one thing alone – you heart, that you might share Hheart with Him.
Practice being the Mercy Seat especially towards those who abuse you in the name of Christ.
And here is one of the most important steps in seeing and knowing Jesus as He really IS. You will begin to know Jesus as He is as you see Him alone in the faces of your brothers and sisters through all circumstances of daily relationships, whether difficult or joyous.
Pray out Loud. If you are ready and willing to make such a commitment to Father through Christ towards His Church, then pray something along these lines.
“Father, I believe that You are Love poured out in my heart through Your Spirit given to me. I believe You also, Father, that you are that same Love poured out in the hearts of all who belong to Jesus. Father I know that You want to become seen and known by all creation and that You can win Your desire only through a Body, the Church, the fulness of Christ. Therefore, for Your sake, my Father, I commit myself to love all who belong to You and especially those with whom I walk daily, to love them even as You through them love me.”
Knowing Jesus As He Is Together. As you are seated upon the Mercy Seat, now sharing heart with Father, you see the Church of Christ as the Body of Jesus.
28. Christ is a many-membered body; believers are part of one another. The Church is the end of all salvation, the fullness of Christ, the dwelling place of God forever. Church is Father made known.
29. Believers live in and by the same One Spirit. We see each other as belonging to each other. We drink of the same Spirit together. We see the entire Church across the earth as one Spirit and one body.
30. You commit yourself to walk together as one with other believers in Jesus, to love one another, to be together the revelation of Jesus Christ, Father now seen and known.