We Would See Jesus - Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight: Seeing Jesus as the End

Having dealt with the reality that Jesus is the Way, the natural next question is, "Where does the way lead to? What is its end?"

In summary, the authors tell us that according to John chapter 14, "He (Jesus) is both the way and the whither. In finding Him, men have not only found the Way, but the End too."

This chapter deals with a topic that I have touched on before, and that is the danger of moving away from simple devotion to Jesus. Because the sincere believer slips into this easily and unintentionally, it's worth touching on again.

The Apostle Paul was very concerned about this as it related to the Corinthian church, and he wrote the following passionate words:

"I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ." (II Corinthians 11:2,3)

The Hessions point out how prone we are to see Jesus as the Way to many good things, such as peace and joy and success in ministry and family, etc. While this is natural in our initial stage of walking with God, He wants us to mature into a true love relationship with Him in which HE is our Goal and End, rather than the blessings that we want.

Young Solomon is a good example of having chosen God above all else. When God offered him a "blank check" to ask for whatever he wanted, He chose wisdom, which was actually to choose God. He could have asked for riches and power, etc. God was so pleased with Solomon's choice that He gave Him not only incredible wisdom to rule, but all the things Solomon did not ask for: riches, power, success.

However, as we see in the case of Solomon, having had the desire for God above all else is no guarantee that this simple devotion will continue automatically the rest of our life in God. By nature, humans will slip backwards in our walk with God if we are not intentional about keeping focused on Him. Our default is to slip into ruts of thinking and acting that satisfy our fleshly need to do religious things and that fool us into thinking we're advancing in God (while in reality we are going in circles).

This is part of what Paul is fearful about with the Corinthians. He knew the dangers of settling into sort of a spiritual routine, lacking focus on Jesus alone. Paul felt the jealousy of the Holy Spirit over God's people and named their bentness towards other ends "spiritual adultery"; even good goals can become other loves to us, corrupting our minds through worldly and fleshly understandings of spiritual truths. In fact, for the dedicated follower of Jesus, it's the good issues related to family and ministry, etc., that are the greatest traps to lead us away from the simplicty of pure and exclusive devotion to Jesus.

The Church in Ephesus (Revelation 2) is a perfect example of shifting away from the Person of Jesus to give one's energies and time to other good things; Jesus commends them for their diligence and faithfulness but ends with a stinging corrective word which casts a shadow on all the good things that they were busy doing: "I have one thing against you; you have left your First Love, and it's so critical an issue that if you don't correct it, I will come and remove from your midst My presence and any ministry impact that you have had." (my paraphrase)

So does this mean we are never to ask the Lord Jesus for blessings in our families or our ministries, etc.? No, but what it does mean is that we are to devote our energy and time primarily to keeping true to Jesus and then pray and trust Him to spread that around to our family and those He has given us to influence for His sake. The reality is that the more I devote myself to Him alone, the more impact my words and actions in Him will have on others, and the overflow of my devoted love to Him will spill out on those I love and minister to.

So how do I stay true to Jesus in practical outworkings?

1. Do what Jesus says in Ephesians 2: repent from having allowed other things and blessings to become your goals, and return to that place of simple devotion to Jesus, telling Him that you want Him above all else.
2. Ask His Spirit to keep you true to Jesus, whatever the cost. Make this an ongoing request because He alone can keep you true to Jesus, and He loves doing this!
   
3. Settle in your heart and mind that this will be costly as it relates to investment of time in prayer and the Word and other spiritual disciplines such as fasting, etc.
4. If you need help, seek someone out to help you establish simple regular habits and who will hold you accountable long enough that you get rooted and grounded in walking in this pursuit of Jesus as your First Love, the End and Goal of your life.
5. Be fully aware that there is much grace for this; in other words, it will be a struggle and a journey and God loves being in the struggle with you. He isn't bothered by our struggle; in fact, that's what blesses His heart so much. He knows our weakness and hastens to help us, not condemn or scold us (except when there is conscious sin and disobedience).

Lord, would You bring Your light and truth and grace to bear on our hearts related to simplicity in Christ Jesus? We want to know You as the Goal and End of our life. I pray that You would lead each one of us in the unique way that You want to and that You would raise up a Bride across the earth that is consecrated and exclusively Yours with no spiritual adultery! You are worthy of such a Bride, and I thank You that You will have this when You return to rule on the earth by the power and jealousy of Your Spirit. Blessed be Your name, Lord Jesus!

Next week we will end this book with the last chapter: Seeing Jesus - For Others.

We Would See Jesus - Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven: Seeing Jesus As the Way

Previously the authors emphasized the truth that Jesus is the Door for both unbelievers to enter the kingdom of God initially and also for believers who are continually entering into the fullness of God throughout our life journey. Entering through the lowly Door to experience more of God requires a lifestyle of repentance.

So then what lies beyond the entrance? Beyond the doorway is a life-long walk, a pathway into God and all that has to do with Him and His kingdom. That pathway is Jesus; so this chapter is about the truth that Jesus is the Way (John 14:6). He is both the doorway and the pathway.

A "Way" speaks of a walk, a continuous experience. "A walk is simply a reiterated step, where something is happening each moment in the present; after one step, the next step; after the one 'now', the next 'now.' This illustrates the fact that our experience of Christ is to be a continuous present tense, a glorious 'now.'"

If we agree that this is what our life in God is, then the natural question that should come to us is, "How can people like ourselves, in circumstances like those in which we are, enjoy a continuous walk like that? With evil propensities within us and sin around us, we are faced with what looks like an impassable swamp. We need a Way, and a Way of such an order that foolish wayfaring men like ourselves may walk thereon in peace and safety."

Of course, we know that God has provided this Way: Christ Jesus.

When you stop long enough to realize the implications of this, it's massive! Lately I've seen more clearly than ever before how prone we weak and fallen humans are to look for many "ways" to mature in Christ. We determine that we will practice spiritual disciplines (such as prayer and Bible reading) or get involved in ministry to people, etc., hoping all the while that these things will bring us to Christ and lead us into the fullness of God. But when we approach our need for maturing in this manner, we find ourselves constantly unable to live up to the ideals that we set for ourselves and end up frustrated and angry and discouraged with no motivation to continue taking one step after another into God.

God's ways and thoughts are higher than ours, and He has determined that His Son is the only Way to arrive at anything in God.


Those of you who know me know that I believe with all my heart in prayer and fasting and all the spiritual disciplines, and I believe they are necessary for the believer to grow steadily in God; but it's easy to unwittingly fall into the belief that my prayers (or whatever) are the way to God. With this as my mindset, my tendency when I'm not praying as I think I should be will be to try to pray better and more in order to draw near to God.

The solution to a prayerless life is not to "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" and pray more in order to get to God and grow in Him, but the solution is to see Jesus as the Way to a fruitful prayer life in Him. The authors emphasize that our need is not to try harder but to repent of making other things the "way" and then ask Jesus to be the Way to a life of prayer and fasting and ministry to others, etc. Whatever we need in order to walk this continuous present tense life in God is arrived at by means of His designated Way, the Lord Jesus.

Practically speaking, this means that when I have failed to measure up in some way or another, rather than isolate myself from God and try to do better so that I can be presentable to Him, I turn immediately to Jesus who is the only One who can "fix" whatever needs fixing or strengthening in me. I come to Him "just as I am" for Him to be the Way to a more fruitful prayer life and ministry. So I talk with Him always about everything, even the sinful and un-Christlike things and thoughts that are going on in me. This is what it means to walk with Jesus. He doesn't want to walk with us only when we've got everything in order; if that were the case, He would never walk with us this side of heaven, because we will never have everything in perfect order. It is in taking His hand when we least feel we deserve to be with Him that He is able to lead us into a meaningful prayer life and ministry.

After sinning, Adam and Eve ran away from God rather than to Him. Their shame and self-consciousness drove them to try to cover themselves with man-made clothing so that they would be presentable to God. All the while, God longed for them to run to Him in the midst of their sin and shame. What a different story it would have been if they had not run away from God to fix themselves before appearing before Him! This is religion, and it is deeply ingrained in all fallen and sinful humans. The Holy Spirit continues to uncover the subtle ways this plays out in my life, and I'm very grateful. I'm learning more and more to let Him in on everything in my life - the good, bad and the ugly. The more I let Him in on it all, the easier it is for Him to cleanse me and for my life to be increasingly filled with His light.

Lord Jesus, we acknowledge and confess that You alone are the Way to all that pertains to life and godliness. Forgive us for the folly of isolating ourselves with the intent of improving ourselves in order to be presentable to You; show us when this is happening in the issues of daily living. Deliver us by Your cross and Your Spirit from religion and from dead works so that we can freely and gladly serve the living God. Thank You that You want to walk with us each step of the way. We love Your ways, Lord!

Next week we'll cover chapter eight: Seeing Jesus as the End.

We Would See Jesus - Chapter Six

Chapter Six: Sinai or Calvary?

In this chapter the authors address the reality that although God has made the way simple into His fullness through the Door (Jesus), the enemy is very astute in presenting truth in twisted ways in order to afflict the hungry heart and prevent him/her from entering in through the Door.

"Whenever a sense of sin lies upon our conscience, two persons fight to get hold of that conviction - the devil and the Holy Spirit. The devil wants to get hold of it in order to take it and us to Sinai and there condemn and bring us into bondage. The Holy Spirit, however, wants to take us and our sin to Calvary, there to bring us through the Door into peace and freedom."

Mount Sinai and Calvary represent the two covenants: the covenant of the law and the covenant of grace. This seems simple when we hear or read this, but in practice there is great struggle in that the enemy "simulates the voice of the Holy Spirit in order that the uninstructed Christian will think it is God who is taking him to the place of condemnation and bondage, and that he must, therefore, follow."

The covenant given on Mount Sinai is still the one that fallen humans find easier to understand and to follow and to which our conscience most readily responds: "Do this and you will live; don't do this and you will die." In our daily lives now this is represented in the whole system of moral and religious standards that we each work out for ourselves.

Whenever we have some sense of failure, the devil works hard to take us to the law in order to accuse us based on the standards that we have adopted but have failed to keep. So the higher our moral and spiritual standards, the more room there is for the devil to accuse us. The very thing that gives strength to the accusations is the law! (I Cor. 15:56)

These accusations usually have 2 effects on the believer, which is just what the devil wants:
1. Self-excusing (Romans 2:15). When we attempt to excuse ourselves, the enemy has succeeded in provoking us to stand before God on the basis of our own righteousness and innocence. This, of course, is sinking sand because anything we have from and of God is only on the basis of our acknowledging our true condition and depending utterly on the righteousness and innocence of Jesus.
2. Self-effort and striving. "He (devil) tells us what we are not in order to get us to struggle in our own strength to make up for it. He accuses us that we are not praying enough, or not speaking enough to others of their need of Christ...The whole purpose of the devil...is to get us into striving and self-effort, and thus into real bondage."

Though the enemy's accusations have the appearance of truth, they're half-truths, which make them all the more deadly. We desperately need the discernment of the Holy Spirit to recognize the difference between the voice of the accuser and the voice of the Spirit.

The half truth that the devil speaks is that we are sinners and he leads us to the law; he leaves out the truth that Jesus died for us and did a complete work on our behalf. When the Holy Spirit points out sin in our life, He leads us to Calvary and magnifies Jesus and His work on our behalf.

This revelation of the Spirit has two effects on the believer when he truly receives it:
1. Acknowledgment of his sin; whether it be true conviction of sin or false accusation of the enemy, the blood of Christ is the solution for either one.
2. Rest from self-initiated activity to get himself right. With a revelation of the work of Calvary, the believer is empowered to simply repent with no arguments or defenses, and in repenting (turning), he can rest because he has no need to waste emotional energy on self-justification.

(As I was reading this chapter, I remembered reading years ago about Madame Guyon, a saint from centuries past who, when she was accused of evil, said something to the effect, "You would say much worse things about me if you really knew me." What a way to silence the accuser and throw one's dependence onto the righteousness of the only Righteous One!)

When the Holy Spirit points out a lack in our life, He doesn't mean for us to start striving to correct that. For example, if we see that we lack love for another in our life or if we are prayerless, the way out is not to strive to make up for this in our own strength.

"The Holy Spirit...is not concerned primarily to get us to try to be better, but to repent deeply of the sin there is; not to try to be more loving to that person, but to repent of having been jealous and critical towards him, etc. Having repented, the Holy Spirit would bid us rest as sinners at the Cross, where sin is cleansed away, and so be at peace. As we rest as sinners in that low place, Jesus pours into our hearts His own love for that person..."

The authors tell a story of a place in Africa that had been a center for revival in the past but spiritual coldness characterized the place with the passing of time. This was recognized by the Christians and they had prayed and repented of it but the spiritual famine continued. A visiting Christian from another part of Africa came and charged them with their coldness and told them they needed to get out and witness to the unbelievers. A wise leader in the local group answered him in this way: "You are quite right - we are cold. We have acknowledged that to God and have been repenting. But we are not going to start striving to do this or that to bring the blessing back, not even street preaching. Having repented, we are going to rest as sinners under the blood of Jesus until God is pleased to meet us again." God soon met them and spiritual renewal came to that place.

Lord, have mercy on us and our bent towards trying to fix things with fleshly activity. Grant us the grace to turn and repent and wait and rest until You move on our behalf. Thank You for Your great kindness and patience. Thank You for Calvary and for the righteousness that is ours in Christ Jesus alone. Thank You that we don't need to excuse nor defend ourselves; our defense is found in You. We love You!

Next week is chapter 7: Seeing Jesus as the Way.

We Would See Jesus - Chapter Five

Chapter Five - Seeing Jesus as the Door

Last week we looked at our need to see Jesus as the Truth and how, in His light, we see our true condition even after we have come into the Kingdom. Seeing this about ourselves can leave us with a sense of despair unless we understand that Jesus is not only the Truth but He is the Door by which we can enter into God's life and fullness and out of our lostness.

Jesus as the Door is a reality that we believers need just as much as those who enter in initially to His kingdom through Him. We keep entering in to all that God has in store for us through Christ alone, no other way; so we need to see Him as the Door throughout our entire journey in this life.

The fact that Jesus calls Himself the Door implies that there is a barrier, a wall, that hinders us from access to all that God is and has. Anyone who has seriously gone after God has encountered this wall.

I was struck by the authors' language about how often believers encounter this wall between the soul and God, because lately I've been pondering the fact that being a "prodigal son" doesn't just apply to those who have wandered away from God through blatant sin but also to those of us who wander away from Him in more respectable or disguised ways: "Though we have been restored from the 'far country' of original sin, sin may yet come in, perhaps in more subtle forms, and we find ourselves as a result in other 'far countries', smaller but none the less real - the 'far country' of jealousy, or of resentment, or of self-pity, or of compromise with the world. And there always arises 'a mighty famine in that land' (as it did for the Prodigal Son), and we begin to be in want.

It is not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord (Amos 8:11). Who of us does not know the coldness of heart towards the Lord, the apparent deadness of the Sacred Page and the accumulating defeats in other areas of life..."

The authors point out that the way back is not through trying to stop the sinning but through humbling ourselves and turning to Him as the Door into fellowship with God: "Jesus does not merely show us the Door; He Himself is the Door. This is God's great gift of love to a prodigal world - a never-failing Door back to peace and satisfaction, if we will but turn and see Him standing so near and accessible to us. And such a Door is He, that neither preparatory steps nor subsequent steps are necessary to enter into what we need. In simply coming to Him we have passed from one spiritual condition to another, for He is Himself both the blessing needed and the Door to it."

Although this sounds academic to those of us who have been around the Gospel a long time, it is a profound and offensive truth to the flesh! It takes the revelatory work of the Spirit for this to renew our mind related to the Gospel and God's ways. The words "neither preparatory steps nor subsequent steps are necessary to enter into what we need. In simply coming to Him we have passed from one spiritual condition to another" are profound. As fallen and sinful humans we want to present ourselves as deserving to God and then come to Him for salvation; or once we have entered through the Door initially, we keep wanting to fix ourselves before approaching Him. The irony of this is that only He can "fix" us, so we must come to Him just the way we are without being fixed if we are to receive His life and blessing and fullness.

The last part of the chapter presents four essential things that we need to understand about Jesus as the Door in order to experience Him as such:

1. We must see Him as the open Door. Through His death, He ripped open the veil that separated the sinner from God. "What appear to be the obstacles - man's coldness, unbelief, and such sins, are the very things that qualify him for this Door, provided he will acknowlege them, for it is a Door for people who are characterized by just such sins..."
2. We must see Him as the Door which opens on street level. In other words, "...open for the failure as a failure, and not merely for us when we have become a little more successful. The Jews in the New Testament could easily believe that there was salvation for the Gentile, if he was circumcised and became a Jew. What they could not and would not believe was that there was salvation for the Gentiles as a Gentile, without becoming a Jew at all."
3. We must see Jesus as a low Door; in other words, we must bow low in repentance in order to enter through this Door. "So often the way in which we repent to God and sometimes apologise to another shows that we have not truly judged ourselves. We betray the fact that we feel...that we have acted out of character with our true selves...The truth is we have not acted out of character but in accordance with our true form, as declared to us by that Figure hanging on the Cross for us!"
4. We must understand that this Door is a narrow Door. "As we get nearer to that place of repentance the path gets narrower...We can no longer be lost in the crowd...At last when we come to the One who is the Door Himself, there is not room even for two...If you are going to enter, you will have to stand there utterly alone.

Lord, grant us revelation of our need of you always and the grace to simply come to you as we are. I ask you for an increase of grace in my own life to enter into the fullness of God through the Door, Jesus Christ, and not through my own self-righteousness. Thank You that this is what You do so well! Thank You, Lord Jesus, for being the Door and for being so accessible because of Your blood and sacrifice. We love you!

Next week - Chapter Six: Sinai or Calvary?

We Would See Jesus - Chapter Four

Chapter Four: Seeing Jesus as the Truth

In the previous chapter, the authors spoke of Jesus as the One Who fills every human need; in this chapter they begin to focus in on what some of those human needs are.

"What, then, is our first and basic need? It is to know the truth - about ourselves and about God. Until we do so, we are living in a realm of illusion and we are impervious to the word of grace; it seems largely irrelevant to our case. The breaking in of the truth about ourselves and about God, and the shattering of the illusion in which we have been living, is the beginning of revival for the Christian as it is of salvation for the lost."

The writers go on to speak at length of the self-deception that we live in and how much we need a revelation both of our own sinfulness and of God's love for us. They give a brief study on the Old Testament sacrifices and of Jesus being crucified "outside the camp" (Heb. 13:11-13), and the implications of that related to the profound fallenness and sinfulness of humans. (I hope you have the book and will read this chapter, because I'm not going to try to summarize it much this time.)

I want to focus briefly on the opening quote above from this chapter; I'm finding increased desire within me to be filled with light, the light of God in Christ Jesus. And so I've been asking the Holy Spirit for the gift of conviction and of contrition, true godly sorrow over my condition apart from Him.

As the authors suggest, truth must break in by the power and grace of the Holy Spirit, or we "live in a realm of illusion" and grace seems irrelevant to our situation. Why would I need the grace and mercy of God if I have no revelation of my need and my lostness even as His child?

I've lived many years in the Lord without a deep appreciation and desperate sense of need of His grace because I have ignorantly lived in the world of religion, my mind darkened by the illusion of being right because of adherence to the law (religious conformity). I'm grateful for the measure of light I've had but am increasingly desirous to know Jesus (the Truth) more fully.

Getting a doctrine correct is not the same as knowing the Truth, Who is Christ Jesus; I've discovered that any clever person can manipulate truth when it's just words. But when I encounter Truth as a Person, I find He cannot be manipulated and won't be conformed to my image.

And so I love how this chapter ends with John 3:20,21 "...everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth come to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen..." The authors point out that while we would expect the contrast of "practicing evil" to be "doing good", Jesus doesn't say that. He says that the contrast of practicing evil is to "do the truth," in other words, it's to be honest in regard to our evil.

This honesty about our evil must be the work of the Holy Spirit; we can be just as religious about saying how bad we are (when there is not true conviction by the Holy Spirit) as when we deceive ourselves about not having sin.

And so we are happily at the mercy of God, and the best thing we can do is to cry out for His break-in of truth, and He will do it in His time and in His way. All He asks of me is that I obey whatever I believe He is saying to me (within the boundaries of His Word and of His nature).

So, Spirit of Jesus, Spirit of Truth, come and fill us with Light...once again I ask you for the gift of conviction of sin and a godly sorrow that empowers us to "do the truth" so that we are a people who can more fully receive and celebrate Your grace and love! We love You, our Lord...thank You for hearing our prayer.

Next week's chapter is chapter 5: Seeing Jesus as the Door.