In and Within 28 Who, Why and What We Are

[HKHaugan]

In the last section we spent some time talking about ‘knowing’ God, which is relating to and with Him. We identify ourselves in Him. That is, we find our identity in Him, we gauge our experience in and through Him and we set our life course on Him being present in us. The more we ‘know’ God the more we know ourselves. The Lord wants us to know Him and prays for that experience in each of us.

The way, the means, the entry way to that relationship is through His Word. There He is in action. There we find the mirror of the heart of God and the heart of man. There is God’s exact image in Jesus and there also is us. The Word reveals three things, God’s perfect nature, man’s imperfect nature and the image of God as perfected in Jesus whose mission was to perfect each of us in a personal relationship with Him.

Every person is born into this world brand new and finds him or herself spiritually distant from God and one another. The distance is caused by sin, which builds a wall between us and God and one another. He refused to leave us in this condition because we are all special to Him. We are unique images of Him with self-consciousness, a sense of being a person, an individual, an ‘I’, just like He is. This is why He has to be shared new with everyone who is born.

Of course this has been said many times before but repetition keeps us honest, grounded in reality and conscious of our own personal purpose and mission. But it helps us keep in mind our true life’s goal, not only to know Him but also to glorify Him. To glorify Him is to reveal Him in the world around us through the faith we have in Him as we devote each next moment to serve Him.

The process by which we give God the glory is choice. Each and every next moment is all about the choices we make. How we know God is in the person of Jesus. As we let the Word inform our mind, it is the Spirit that moves it in us. As we read the Word it is the choice to be open to what it says that the Spirit uses to experience the Lord working in us. When we allow His Word to embrace us we are in actuality allowing Him to energize our mind and heart with His Holy Spirit.

It is a personal and unique embrace for each of us. Our response to His embrace is based on the choices we make to share what that embrace can mean for others. This is the way God is glorified in and through us. What we know is revealed through the choices we make to let Him be known through us. Again, our personal request is the same as that of Jesus, ‘Glorify us that we may glorify you.’ Each choice made with the Lord in mind is the process of by which we glorify Him. “True freedom is not freedom from responsibility to God and others in order to live for ourselves, but freedom from ourselves in
order to live for God and others (John Stott, Langham Trust quote 11/20/11).”

So that brings us to vss.6-19 in which the Lord prays for His disciples. How do we as reborn images of God, renewed by faith in Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, see our discipleship lived out? First, every one of our family, brothers and sisters in the Body and friends are, in a sense, disciples. Let’s take these verses and see their direction for us as we go into our closet and pray.

Vs.6---“I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word.” In our relating to one another are we revealing the Lord Jesus as Jesus revealed His Father? If we can think of ourselves as disciples we are always both serving and teaching, therefore, in a discipling mode. Every one with whom we come in contact is either a disciple or a potential disciple and of course all are images of God. They belong to Him. They are His property. Our first task is to pray for them in the issues that face their ongoing discipleship and for those who have yet to believe to pray for the sensitivity to reveal the Lord to them. Pray for the Lord’s view of people to be our view.

Vs.7-9---“Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours.” When we have been truthful to the Word and revealed it in our attitude and behavior then others will know the source. When Jesus spoke the original disciples remembered His words and passed them on. For us it means not only the Word of God but also the testimony we have that we can pass on. Those are words we have been led to share as our personal witness to His presence. The Holy Spirit uses both. The first is His authority and the second our witness to the truth of His personal love. Again we pray for our daily contacts whether well known or the casual unexpected ones that really need to be seen as ‘divine appointments.’

Vs.10---“All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them.” Paul tells us in Romans 8:16-17 that we are not only children of God but joint heirs with Christ who share not only in His sufferings but in His glory as well. In our calling to be a disciple it includes sharing the wealth in whatever way that calling comes, be it material or spiritual. Then His glory is there for everyone to experience. Pray to share the wealth of the relationship with all its insights and blessings to be given to others as we go from place to place.

We’ll continue in and within on this prayer journey so read on.