Jesus Christ: The Tree of Life - 6

In continuing on with our look at Jesus as the Tree of Life, I want to start off this time with the comment thousands of years ago by Soloman that there is "nothing new under the sun."

Taking that insight and applying it to Christ as the Tree of Life, I want to show some of the simplicity of this as it relates to the church.

Our walk with the Lord within, while it may be new to us, as far as experience goes, is not new at all, from the point of view of the Godhead. They have been walking this eternally.

What this means is we are partaking within of His existing experience and living it out among one another.

One easy to understand concept we can embrace and practice as the church, is to comprehend that much of we do when we practice our Christianity, or Christ-centeredness (which is what Christian means), is repeating how the Godhead has lived together before time.

So when we share with one another what it is Jesus is doing through our current circumstances or revealing to us, is more than anything else, reminding one another of what has happened throughout the existence of God.

The practical outworking, is that when we share, much of it is to remind one another of who He is, and help one another to learn more of who He has always been.

In other words, we do more reminding when we talk and share life together, than anything else. As a matter of fact, as we grow in Him, it simply becomes His life emerging out of us toward and into one another.

The reason this has become complicated isn't the only the unbibical way people meet and the whole pagan structure and practice, but many times even when people start to see the organic, they tend to share the things they've learned in schools or colleges, especially related to philosophy and related courses that are diametrically opposite of who Christ really is.

It's nothing other than the old alternative tree of the knowledge of good and evil being consumed.

So we again get the mixture that always weakens and ultimately destroys the testimony of Christ in His people.

Remember, Christ is writing His story within us, so ultimately people will be able to read us as a letter from God. That's why Paul one time said "you are my letter," referring to the church.

In the end, that's the overall purpose of Christ as the Tree of Life, to be eaten and internalized, so what is within will be shown without and read by all men.

Jesus Christ: The Tree of Life Series

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

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God's Eternal Purpose - 6

   
 Eternal Purpose and Us 


There are times when one learns of God's eternal purpose, it seems very impractical and distant. The temptation to think of things in this way, nonetheless, is not consistent with who the Lord is.

As we started this series with, the Lord is all things of the Father at once. He is completely filled with all of who He is. 

Yet it is the wisdom of God to reveal these things to us progressively. If God were to simply put everything of who He was into us, as far as intellectual understanding goes, it would bear no fruit at all. All we would have would be the equivalent of a lot of data being downloaded into a computer. This would be not better than the Pharisees.

After all, the Pharisees had all the intellectual understanding that someone could handle, yet they crucified the very Lord they had thoughts about. 

God teaches through practical experience. 

Let's look back to the beginning again, in the book of Genesis. There we have a continuous unfolding of the invisible nature of God day after day. And even there it is a broad brushstroke that is revealed. 

When you get into chapter 2, it is there that the intimate details of what happened are begun to be revealed. 

For example, when God brought the animals to Adam to see what He would name them. There were a number of things that God, in that exercise concerning Adam, was beginning to gradually unfold. For instance, when He was done naming the animals, it is said that there was not found someone that was suitable for him.

One of the things that Adam learned as a result was that there was something not only that he was missing, but also that there was something that also was not there concerning God: the bride of the Lamb. God not only allowed Adam to begin exercising his dominion on the earth, but along with that naming of the animals, revealed that there was something still hidden that needed to be revealed: there was a woman hidden in Adam as well as there was is Christ. 


I am saying all of that to show forth this: while we completely receive all of Christ when we truly believe in Him, it will take a lifetime, plus all eternity to discover all that He is. And that discovery will be a continuous, endless process. 

So when you read the book of Genesis, which we will be getting into soon, you will begin to comprehend that everything that was entailed, and revealed in the last two chapters of the scriptures, was what was inside of God from before time. It was what He saw when the first words came out of His mouth and He said, "Let there be light."

Once that happened, it began an endless practical journey for those who truly want all of who God is. In these next several articles we will look more into the practical side of things, and how God's purpose relates practically to us all. 

One more thing I want to say here: we have barely touched upon all that the eternal purpose is in Christ. The point of this series is to start you hopefully on a journey of wonder and appreciation and revelation into the greatness that the purpose of the Father is in His son Jesus Christ.

God's Eternal Purpose

Introduction

  Christ - Everything at once!
 
In writing about Christ and the eternal purpose of God, we must be cautious concerning the temptation of wanting to put this into categories or bits and pieces. While this is true with all spiritual things, it is especially true here. For it is here that we have lost the greatness of the Father and the purpose He has in His son. To make it into another fragment or disjointed tidbit of so-called “doctrine,” would be a futile, hopeless, endless misapprehension of who Christ is. Once one sees the greatness of Christ in all of His fulness, it totally demolishes this human concept.  

So having said that, may God grant us all eyes to see and ears to hear as we open our hearts fully to the revelation and receiving of Jesus Christ.  

It has been revealed to us by Christ Himself that He is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end. Of course when He says this He includes everything in between also. In other words – He is everything all at once: eternal.  This doesn’t mean that he had a beginning somewhere and then grew into becoming the end – for He had no beginning and He has no end: Again, He is eternal.  We are told that everything that is the Father has been fully indwelt inside of Christ. When we see Christ we see the Father. This of course happened before there was even a creation.
 
So when we have Christ, we have all of who the Father and Son are. When we believe, we don’t receive part of Him, we receive all of Him.  

Let’s look at one example of this. When Jesus waited until Lazarus died and came back to resurrect him, He was told by Lazarus’ sister that she believed that he would be raised on the last day, to which Jesus responded to her that He was the resurrection and life. The resurrection wasn’t simply a one-time event that would happen in future, the resurrection was a person. The resurrection was an all encompassing reality that fully indwelt Jesus Christ. He was the resurrection.  

In other places we see that Christ reveals that He is the way, the truth, and the life. He is revealing to us that the way is a person, the truth is a person, and the life is a person. They literally exist as Him, complete in Him at the same time. They are Him.  

We must again open ourselves to the Lord Jesus Christ as one who completely, totally, fully embodies all of who the Father is at once and eternally.  

Patience, love, hope, longsuffering, faith, among all other Godly attributes, again, are Christ the person, they are not unattached things or characteristics.  

What does this have to do with the eternal purpose? The eternal purpose is a person too. The eternal purpose is Christ. All that the eternal purpose entails is embodied in Christ; it is who He is. All that the eternal purpose is the Father has centered in His Son. It is one purpose, single, unified, whole in Christ.  

As we search out and explore God’s only purpose, we will discover that all of it is placed in and is Christ Jesus our Lord. That purpose is total and complete with nothing that can be added to it. Still as we are taught, it is the glory of God to conceal a matter, and the glory of the king to search a matter out. And we are kings and priests unto our God, so we are called to search and explore the depth, height, and width of the eternal purpose the Father has imparted in His Son.  

But we are not called to search it out as some fragmented, fractured idea that is dissected and separated from the person of Christ. Rather we are to see this purpose in Christ as our Father sees it: fully dwelling in Christ. All the fullness of God dwells in Christ, and He totally embodies all that the Godhead is.  

This was before creation, outside of space and time, completely whole and complete. Christ is the beginning, middle, and end of all of this, and when we believe in and receive Christ within, all that God is comes at once. The alpha and omega as Christ is entirely dwelling wholly within our spirits - Not part of Him but all of Him.
 
We must see that all of the purpose of God is in Christ Jesus our Lord. We must see our Lord as completely whole and unified as the Father’s purpose. This is the beginning of seeing how truly great our God is!  

Sit Back and Relax - Eternity Within

Eternity Within

A letter I wrote:

When you wrote to me talking about discouragement, I wanted to relate something to you that has truly set me free in this area, and prevented me from entering into a lot of soulish, self-originating directions.

In the book of Ecclesiastes, we read about where God has set eternity within us. It is after that where we read about there being a time for everything. Of course Christ is our eternity, and when He reveals Himself and works Himself within us in that way, it takes away much of the discouragement that can come upon us. After all, discouragement is usually simply getting tired of a situation that were in or
waiting for something that we want to happen.
 
The scriptures and history is strewn about with those who are children of God who make terrible mistakes by not viewing things from the Lords' timelessness. Is He in a hurry? Does He get terribly troubled by the situations of life? No! 

Ask Him to reveal and to work into you His way of life in this matter, after a season of time you'll be surprised at how things that have troubled you, no longer come to mind.