Where I Am
Russell Walden
 
 

This is one of those posts that will either change your whole Christian walk, or you will get absolutely nothing out of it. Either way, I invite you into my personal prayer time to look over some things I've been meditating on. God bless.

THAT WHERE "I AM" YE MAY BE ALSO

John 14:
1. Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God believe also in me.
2. In my Father's house are many mansions if it were not so, I would have
told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
3. And if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you
unto myself, that where I am, ye may be also.
4. And wither I go ye know and the way you know. In verse one Jesus is calling the disciples to make their faith in God and their faith in Him one and the same. For you and I that is a simple matter because we readily except that Jesus is God. For the disciples however, they more readily accepted him as man therefore were challenged to except him as Messiah and Savior. They know that Jesus is about to go away and they want to be with him at all costs. Knowing this Jesus chooses this moment not only to comfort them but also to challenge them and us with a greater vision of the fullness of Christ in our lives. Knowing that they are hurting, Jesus goes on with great solicitation, emphasizing that there are many dwelling places in the father's house, and that his purpose in leaving them was to make preparation for himself and his followers to be together both NOW and ALWAYS.

Contrary to popular thought it is doubtful that Jesus is speaking ONLY of our heavenly home in eternity. Looking at the context at the end of chapter 13, he has declared to Peter that he would deny him in the near future. The disciples were being faced with their own shortcomings. They knew that Jesus was bringing his earthly ministry to a climax, and he is confronting them with their failings. While at the same time He is assuring them that even in their weakness they had a place in the Father's house. Human as they were, they yet had a place and a purpose in the economy of God. He calls them to put their faith not in the strength of their own zeal, or determined will, but rather to look with absolute dependence upon him whom God hath sent.

In putting their faith in him they also put their faith in his provision. He comforts them with the promise that he is going to make preparation for them that where " I am", " ye may be also". Now here we see that he isn't necessarily speaking of eternity, because he was not yet ascended. The place he promises to prepare is the place where he was at that moment.

Where was Jesus at that time? He was spiritually located with the Father. He didn't say I'm going to prepare place for you, that where I will be, you will be. In that sense he could only have referred to our eternal home. But the place in the Master's eye, that he was promising to prepare was not where he would be in the future, but where he was right then. Where was he? In the natural, he was in Judea. But the greater truth is that he was spiritually located with the Father in heavenly places.

Jesus was spiritually located with the Father, and was going to make preparation that where he was (with the Father), we might be also. Where was Jesus going to make this preparation? He was going to the cross to bleed and die, for the sins of the world. He was going into the grave, and into hell itself, to set the captive free. In what is our captivity? Some may say that man is captive to sin. Another assertion may be that man is captive to Satan. But in truth, Satan is not the problem, nor is certain problem. Man is captive to himself, his own choices and failings. Weren't not for man's failings in the garden, indeed for his choices in the garden, Satan and sin would not be an issue.

I don't need salvation from sin. I don't need salvation from Satan. I need salvation from myself. The cross didn't change sin. Nor did the cross change Satan. Sin today is the same as sin 2000 years ago. Satan is the same today as he was 2000 years ago. What does the cross change? The cross changes me. The preparation that Jesus made on the cross was a process initiated to change me to change my being, to change my heart and my soul.

What is the end product of this change? The consummation of Jesus work on the cross is personal transformation in the heart of every man who looks to God through faith in Christ. This is the transformation from darkness to light. From emptiness to fullness. From the desolation, to intimacy and fellowship with the Father.

Jesus said in John 10:30 " I and my Father are one. " In John 17:11 we find him praying to the Father " now than I am no more in the world but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one even as we are."

This passage correlates directly to John 14. Jesus is securing the provision of the Father through his faith, that we might have available to us the same fellowship and intimacy and fullness of the Father, that he had in his earth walk. What a privilege! This beggars the imagination. Yet this fathomless union with the Father is the primary provision of Calvary.

Oh that our finite minds could grasp this! Would that we could lay hold upon it. What boundless treasures in Christ are our. How far below our privileges we have lived. All our lives languishing in the mundane, putrid backwaters of dead religion!

I trust the simplicity of this truth has touched you and opened to you of path of progress, perhaps even a beacon of hope to those deeply frustrated with what others call "Fullness". There is so much more in Him available, to those who abandon themselves and embrace Him in all his glory.

Russell Walden
http://cust3.iamerica.net/rwalden/
 
 

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