1.2 Fully Equipped

God designed humans as His image and likeness, just like the Lord Jesus Christ, in two ways, each of which is utterly dependent on the other. We could say that we are formed after the Pattern that is Jesus first intrinsically and second dynamically.

To know what a human is, we must see Jesus, for He is the first one of our kind (Romans 8:29). We could say it this way. We could not know Jesus Himself Sent into us unless our form was first designed to be just like Him. But being formed like Jesus, we now welcome Him to live as Himself inside of and as us. We share both form and Life force with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Form and Life Energeia. When God shows up inside of creation, He appears in one form only; God appears as a human. – He that has seen Me has seen the Father (John 14). And so Adam and Eve possessed fully the form that God takes when He would reveal Himself in creation, but they had not yet asked Jesus to live dynamically (energia) inside that form.

This is a critical distinction we must hold in our minds to know the incredible Glory that is Salvation. Yet to accomplish God’s wondrous purpose for our lives, we possess both. We are like Jesus in our form, yet Jesus also lives inside of us as the dynamic action of our doings. Let’s consider how we are equipped like Jesus in form first.

In Earthen Vessels. Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart. – I can do nothing of Myself. – The works that I do are not of Me, but the Father does the works. – Let this same mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus – to see others as better than yourself. – Love suffers long and is kind.

To understand the form that is Jesus, and we like Him, we must comprehend two Gospel versus. – For we have this treasure (all the fulness of God) in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power might be out from God and NOT out from us (2 Corinthians 4:7). – And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we looked upon His Glory, filled with Grace (God with Me) and Truth (honesty – I can do nothing of Myself) (John 1:14).

The Form of Weakness. God did not create us to “DO” God, that is, to Love. God created us to be filled with all of God – who Himself is Love. In making us like Himself, God gave us the form of weakness, just like Jesus, for God Himself is meek and lowly of Heart. God places Himself beneath, that He might lift others up.

Yet in the weakness of our form, God gave us the shape of the most incredible things inside His own Being. God gave us hearts that could beat with His Compassion. He gave us hands that could touch with His gentle Kindness. And He gave us a mouth that could speak the Words that are Jesus, the full language that God is inside Himself, a mind that could reason with God’s own thoughts.

A Living Soul. God created us from the dust of the ground, weak, just like Jesus. – For we are flesh of His flesh, one flesh with Him (Ephesians 5). Then He breathed into us the breath of Life, His own Devoted Spirit, just like Jesus. – For he who is joined to the Lord is one Spirit with Him (1 Corinthians 6). The Spirit of God has become part of the fabric of our own humanity, that we might know God (1 Corinthians 2). And we became a living soul. This is what we are, according to Paul in 1 Corinthians 2, just like God, a story of words inside of a Spirit self-awareness.

We are custom made to fit God; we have the capacity to be filled with all the fulness of God (Ephesians 3:19).

Subdue. But God also designed into us the quality most necessary for us to synergeo with God towards goodness, that is, to rule. God speaks one word into us, a word that does more to shape our human souls than any other. God says, “Subdue.”

In Chapter 2, the writer of Hebrews explains that, in saying, “Subdue,” God gave all authority over His creation to us, the spiritual realms as well as the physical. God transferred authority from Himself to us, and He never thinks to take it back, according to Paul. Yet in doing so, God gave us NO power to accomplish anything at all. God made us judges, God made us to rule. This is the scariest part of sharing form with Jesus, and the most dangerous.

Symmorphy and Synergeia. Let’s now consider the incredible extent to which God also equips us to fulfill our role inside of creation by sending the Lord Jesus into us to be our Life, our Friend, and to be written upon our hearts as every Word God speaks. Those two roles are, to synergeo with God, making all things good, and to share form with God, as His dwelling place — symmorphy— as love for one another, God made visible to all.

The form of God is the Church, His body, believers in Jesus walking together in commitment and in liberty. The Love of God is the Father energeoing as Himself inside that form. God transferred all authority from Adam to Jesus, this One who is now our Life force, the Energeia of God energeoing all that is found inside of us (Ephesians 1 & Philippians 2).

Eating of Life. Let’s consider seven qualities of action (subdue/overcome) that Jesus imparts to us as Himself inside of us, equipping us personally and dynamically to make creation free.

First, Jesus gives us to eat of the Tree of Life, that is, of Himself as all the energeia of Life inside of us. Second, Jesus becomes our giving of thanks, our blessing of God and ourselves, of our circumstances and of all others, that alone is the entrance of God into our world.

Third, Jesus becomes our All-Connection, connecting us with God our Father in every way, God sharing our lives with us, connecting us with ourselves and with one another. Jesus becomes our own valuation inside of God and the great weight of value by which we carry one another.

Giving All. Fourth, Jesus becomes our Devotion to God and our reciprocity by which we give freely to others that which God has given of Himself so freely to us. This is the authority of our rule by which we shepherd all that is created.

Fifth, Jesus becomes the very reception inside of us by which we receive Him as Lord, having come into union with us from the start. Jesus becomes all our provision, His strength filling our human weakness to COMPLETION. Jesus becomes our approach to everything that is God in whom we dwell.

Sixth, Jesus makes us free in glorious liberty, free to be what God made us in joy and celebration. More than that, Jesus is inside of us that very costliness by which we make one another free of ourselves, free from any obligation to our “rule.”

Sharing Hheart with God. And seventh, Jesus is that very sharing of Hheart with God that is the most precious thing there could possibly be to us, that we might know the Father, that we might share Hheart with Him. And through this sharing of Hheart that is Jesus, God Himself becomes Himself inside of creation, through the kindness of our words and the gentle touch of our hands.

Jesus is God’s Heart, Jesus is our hearts, we share Hheart with God and with one another. This is Love. This is God made known. – By this we have known Love, in that Jesus set forth His Soul for us, for our sakes, and we also are committed to setting forth our souls for our brothers and sisters (1 John 3:16).

The Impartation of Jesus. We have hardly touched on the vastness of this impartation of Jesus Himself to us enabling us to be and to do all that God intends. As John said, it would take the writing of an infinite number of books to record all that Jesus is inside of us. And as Solomon indicated, there will be no end to the writing of the stories that are Christ Jesus now living as His Church.

There are two words, however, that give some meaning to the incredible wonder and closeness of the dynamic and personal relationship between Jesus and each one of us, inside the knowing of our hearts, as He imparts all that He is to us. Those two words are transubstantiation and metamorphosis.

Our Glorious Salvation. As we partake of Jesus, speaking the same Word that He is now as ourselves, putting Him upon all that we are, acknowledging His life force now energeoing everything inside of us, so Jesus Himself, by His own Hand, transfers the very substance of His Being to us, so that we become His very Flesh and His very Blood. – Indeed, My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. The one eating My flesh and drinking My blood abides inside of Me and I inside of him (John 6:55-56).

And as we live inside of Jesus, seeing Him alone as our only life, so we become just like Him in all ways, metamorphosed into His same image (2 Corinthians 3:18). This is our Glorious Salvation.