Kingdom's Keys Fellowship
Where God's Kingdom Meets Man's Heart.
Lent 22 The Cross and Now
Lent 22 The Cross and Now ---Good Friday---
You don’t realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand. Jn.13:7
Now that you know these things…Jn.13:17
I am telling you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe that I am He. Jn.13:19
Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in Him and if God is glorified in Him, God will glorify the Son in Himself, and will glorify Him at once. Jn.13:31-32.
Now [Father] they know everything you have given me comes from you. Jn.17:7
Jesus saw time as the present. It was and is always the realization of the present.
The time is now. The time is always now. This is your time and my time to be and to be whom and to be what?
Time is the shadow that eternity casts across the universe. Time is the impress created by the finger of God on the mind of man. Time is the footprint of God on the history of man. Time marks a beginning and an end. Time is every self-consciousness moment in between. The self-conscious moment is God’s reason for the Cross. Why? It is not so much the moment but the consciousness of self, of who we are, of what we believe and what keeps us from being who we really are when having to make a decision. That is what every moment is all about.
It is God’s eternal consciousness of who He is that saw our lost, displaced and searching self-consciousness and sent His Son to recover the conscious moment, every moment of every person past and future.
With the conscious moment comes choice, with choice comes decision, with decision comes behavior. What motivates choice and then decision and then behavior is the key to understanding the Cross.
Jesus’ life was a life of self-conscious moments in which He made choices that showed what human self-consciousness could be and should be. His choices, His decisions and His action were all centered on who He was, His Father’s Son, what He was here to do, His Father’s will and where He got the direction, from Scripture and its power, the Holy Spirit. There were no moments lived apart from His Father and the Spirit.
Jesus’ teachings were all about making His disciples and us conscious of each moment and to whom that moment really belongs. He touched the minds and hearts of those willing to listen, in the moment. It was His Spirit acting in the moment through the Word. It was the heart responding to the moment He spoke. It was for His moments they followed Him in theirs. Each moment with Him was a moment to treasure. Each word was a word to cherish, to remember, to live by. “No man ever spoke like this man.” “They were amazed.” “He spoke as one having authority.” “Truly this was the Son of God.”
The difference between Jesus’ self-consciousness moments and ours is that ours are self-centered, it’s all about what pleases me. Jesus was all about His Father and what would please Him. It was all about what the Scripture said about who He was and what He was here to do. It was all about the Spirit and the faith He inspired. This is why He was crucified.
It is one thing to be self-conscious and another to be self-centered. One is the image and likeness of God that knows he is a child of God and lives that way into eternity. The other is self-consciousness choosing to live apart from God which becomes self-centeredness. That choice brings sin, the spiritual disease that renders us separated, alone and afraid. It is sin that causes us to see the moment as survival until the next arrives. Life in this world then becomes living moment by moment. The moment and time can appear as the enemy because they bear the ultimate penalty of alienation, rejection and death. Spirits of fear and control motivate it. It feeds on spirits that tempt it to widen the gap between God and self.
Every moment is a judgment against self for not meeting the success that can come only from God. This is where the world, taken over by the devil and sin, has set standards that can never be met. The higher the worldly position you achieve, the more fame you amass, the amount of wealth you gain, do the opposite of what the world promises. You find that you don’t know who to trust, who is after what you have, who uses you for their agenda and you are still alone, still anxious and still unfulfilled. The devil and his world desire to frustrate, alienate and isolate every person. The world is the enemy and the devil its prince. The devil is the archenemy of self-consciousness in the moment but the deceitful false friend in the moment we choose to be self-centered.
The Cross is Jesus recovering the moment of self-consciousness and defeating the moment of self-centeredness by faith. He wants us to live in His now. Faith is all about now, the moment. The moment is always the present and it is the present in which we were designed to live faithfully. Jesus is faithful by nature. He is the eternal present and Presence of living faith, “Before Abraham was, I am.”
Tomorrow is the dark day between the Cross and the Resurrection. What did Jesus embrace on the Cross that saved us from our self-centeredness? Stay tuned.
You don’t realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand. Jn.13:7
Now that you know these things…Jn.13:17
I am telling you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe that I am He. Jn.13:19
Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in Him and if God is glorified in Him, God will glorify the Son in Himself, and will glorify Him at once. Jn.13:31-32.
Now [Father] they know everything you have given me comes from you. Jn.17:7
Jesus saw time as the present. It was and is always the realization of the present.
The time is now. The time is always now. This is your time and my time to be and to be whom and to be what?
Time is the shadow that eternity casts across the universe. Time is the impress created by the finger of God on the mind of man. Time is the footprint of God on the history of man. Time marks a beginning and an end. Time is every self-consciousness moment in between. The self-conscious moment is God’s reason for the Cross. Why? It is not so much the moment but the consciousness of self, of who we are, of what we believe and what keeps us from being who we really are when having to make a decision. That is what every moment is all about.
It is God’s eternal consciousness of who He is that saw our lost, displaced and searching self-consciousness and sent His Son to recover the conscious moment, every moment of every person past and future.
With the conscious moment comes choice, with choice comes decision, with decision comes behavior. What motivates choice and then decision and then behavior is the key to understanding the Cross.
Jesus’ life was a life of self-conscious moments in which He made choices that showed what human self-consciousness could be and should be. His choices, His decisions and His action were all centered on who He was, His Father’s Son, what He was here to do, His Father’s will and where He got the direction, from Scripture and its power, the Holy Spirit. There were no moments lived apart from His Father and the Spirit.
Jesus’ teachings were all about making His disciples and us conscious of each moment and to whom that moment really belongs. He touched the minds and hearts of those willing to listen, in the moment. It was His Spirit acting in the moment through the Word. It was the heart responding to the moment He spoke. It was for His moments they followed Him in theirs. Each moment with Him was a moment to treasure. Each word was a word to cherish, to remember, to live by. “No man ever spoke like this man.” “They were amazed.” “He spoke as one having authority.” “Truly this was the Son of God.”
The difference between Jesus’ self-consciousness moments and ours is that ours are self-centered, it’s all about what pleases me. Jesus was all about His Father and what would please Him. It was all about what the Scripture said about who He was and what He was here to do. It was all about the Spirit and the faith He inspired. This is why He was crucified.
It is one thing to be self-conscious and another to be self-centered. One is the image and likeness of God that knows he is a child of God and lives that way into eternity. The other is self-consciousness choosing to live apart from God which becomes self-centeredness. That choice brings sin, the spiritual disease that renders us separated, alone and afraid. It is sin that causes us to see the moment as survival until the next arrives. Life in this world then becomes living moment by moment. The moment and time can appear as the enemy because they bear the ultimate penalty of alienation, rejection and death. Spirits of fear and control motivate it. It feeds on spirits that tempt it to widen the gap between God and self.
Every moment is a judgment against self for not meeting the success that can come only from God. This is where the world, taken over by the devil and sin, has set standards that can never be met. The higher the worldly position you achieve, the more fame you amass, the amount of wealth you gain, do the opposite of what the world promises. You find that you don’t know who to trust, who is after what you have, who uses you for their agenda and you are still alone, still anxious and still unfulfilled. The devil and his world desire to frustrate, alienate and isolate every person. The world is the enemy and the devil its prince. The devil is the archenemy of self-consciousness in the moment but the deceitful false friend in the moment we choose to be self-centered.
The Cross is Jesus recovering the moment of self-consciousness and defeating the moment of self-centeredness by faith. He wants us to live in His now. Faith is all about now, the moment. The moment is always the present and it is the present in which we were designed to live faithfully. Jesus is faithful by nature. He is the eternal present and Presence of living faith, “Before Abraham was, I am.”
Tomorrow is the dark day between the Cross and the Resurrection. What did Jesus embrace on the Cross that saved us from our self-centeredness? Stay tuned.
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