In and Within 27 Life Through Choice

[HKHaugan]

“Life is not about time but about choice, conscious choice, awareness of God in choice and the realization that He is the Savior and Lord to deliver us from time and bring us into His eternal present (In and Within 26).” Jesus’ prayer is a prayer about personal choice, personal decision and personal eternity and eternity is not about time but about the relational experience of God in Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Listen closely to Jesus praying, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent (Jn.17:3).” The verb ‘know’ in Scripture carries more than the mind apprehending the identity of another person. It is a relational, heart to heart, knowing. It is the kind of personal interchange in which a growing internal bond is established. Jesus is praying for all those the Father has given Him to be His disciples and future believers (vs.2) so that they can ‘know’ Him, grow in that relationship and be in His eternal present.

The question we have to ask then is, “How do we get to ‘know’ the Father and the Son?” Let’s look at the thematic context of John 17.

First, consider this, Jesus is praying for us to know God in His fullness. He has been teaching the disciples in the last hours of His life during the Passover meal about the Holy Spirit, the One who enables the heart to ‘know’ relationally the heart of God. Now He is praying for all of us too.

Secondly, He is recalling before His Father that He is completing the task of revealing the Father so that all can know Him. This was His work assignment, His mission, to glorify the Father.

Third, and this is important, He prays to be glorified in His Father’s presence with the glory He had with Him before Creation. His relationship with His Father is eternal. This clarifies that His mission was incoming in order to bring us our “out coming.” He was always the Son of the Father and continues such for our sake. Can you see the depth of the relational mission Jesus had and accomplished? Again it is not about eternity being an endless succession of hours, days, months and years. It is about a present heart to heart relationship that grows in grace and love. Realizing that heart-to-heart purpose and mission of Jesus gives us access to knowing Him.

The next move in getting to ‘know’ Him is to let Him relate to us spiritually through His Word. This is why the more we read, study and share the Scripture the more we ‘heart-to-heart’ know Him. It is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus, who through the Word confronts our hearts to transform us from separated sinners to unified hearts in concert with Him. It is the work of the Spirit (John 16) who moves within us to bring Jesus to reign as Lord and lead us. It is the Holy Spirit whose purpose and task is to move within our mind, heart and spirit to separate sin from our spiritually born nature and heal the breach. It is choice that gives us the ability to bring spiritual reality and life into our minds and hearts.

Having seen the Word as the means to ‘know’ Him we open His parables as keys to who the Son is, who the Father is and who the Holy Spirit is---One God and three distinct persons each of whom are His image in each of us---mind, heart and spirit. When Jesus tells the parable about the son who leaves home to live life on his own, it describes the inevitable consequence of aloneness with its total poverty in body, mind, heart and spirit. Finding himself groveling simply for physical survival he returns in utter despair only to discover his father’s unquestioning unconditional love, forgiveness and acceptance. He discovered his father for the first time, not a distant meal ticket but someone who gave him what he was really looking for in the first place, an unbreakable relationship of love, wisdom and compassion. Yes, he was given new clothes, food and a welcome home party but most importantly what his father really gave was himself. That is how Jesus reveals the nature of God in whose image we were created.

In each parable there is that revelation of another facet of the brilliant jewel of God’s being, a loving Father, a caring personal Lord and a life giving Spirit. Every parable, event, command and miracle is designed to touch the uniqueness in each of us and enable us to make choices that unlock and remove the barriers to His presence in our heart.