Jesus Our All in All (#8)

Excerpts from chapter 8 of "Jesus Manifesto" by Frank Viola and Leonard Sweet:

The Forgotten Tree

"Jesus did not live by His own natural strength. Instead, He lived by the energy of His Father who indwelled Him...Therein lies the root of Jesus' amazing life.

We know that Jesus lived by His Father's life. But what about us fallen mortals?...The gospel teaches that just as Jesus couldn't do anything of Himself, we can't do anything of ourselves...We can try as hard as we wish to be like Christ, but the human effort will never touch the hem of that garment...The glory of the gospel is that we who are fallen, tarnished and marred have been invited to live our lives in the exact same way that Jesus lived His life: by an indwelling Lord...

What the Father was to Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ is to you. He's your indwelling Lord...But there is more. Because all the fullness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell in Christ, the Father and the Spirit also are pleased to dwell in you...allowing Him to live His life through you is one of the most freeing things that you can do.

(In the garden of Eden) God wanted humans to eat from the tree of life...(which) meant receiving the uncreated life of God into oneself...Today the tree of life is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Living by God's life is very different from living by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A person who is living by the tree of life doesn't say, 'Let me try to do good and avoid evil.' Instead, he allows the life of God to flow within and through him. He yields to the instincts, promptings, and energy of that God-life.

Religion gives people the notion that they have God under control. Religion says that we can understand God absolutely and completely...The Christian religion teaches that the Bible answers virtually every question that's brought to the sacred text. The problem with this...is that the true God cannot fit into anyone's box. God will always end up breaking out of our human expectations and understandings...

Yet many Christians have turned the Bible into a form of the knowledge of good and evil. They approach the Bible as raw material by which they gain control over their lives, so life can be more understandable and under control, less unnerving and unpredictable.

...The Pharisees' attempt to promote high moral values was based on the knowledge of good and evil. For this reason, the Lord Jesus - who had a reputation of being a 'friend of sinners' - constantly collided with the leaven-dispensing Pharisees.

Jesus pushed the boundaries of religion to their limits. He was also a fierce critic of the priestly temple system of His day...If you examine Jesus' exchanges with the Pharisees, you'll discover a common thread. The Pharisees would ask a question on one level, and Jesus would answer it on a completely different level...it would appear that Jesus was answering a different question.

Why is this? It's because the Pharisees' questions were coming from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And Jesus' response was coming from the tree of life - the life of God.

Regrettably, there is a great deal of pharisaism in the Christian family today...

The Bible teaches the highest possible moral values. But the Bible is fundamentally not about morality. Following the Lord Jesus Christ involves living out the highest moral values. But following Jesus is fundamentally not about morality. Conversion to Christ involves a moral transformation of life. But conversion is not fundamentally about morality either...It is Christ, not religion, that saves us.

...it is all too possible to confuse an academic knowledge or theology about Jesus with a personal knowledge of the living Christ Himself. There two stand as far apart as do the hundred thousand million galaxies.

...the fullness of Christ can never be accessed through the frontal lobe alone. That's why Jesus did not leave His disciples with CliffNotes for a systematic theology. He left them with breath and body. He didn't leave them with a coherent and clear belief system by which to love God and others. He gave them wounds to touch and hands to heal. He didn't leave them with intellectual belief or a 'Christian worldview.' He left them with a relational faith and an indwelling presence.

...unless the cutting edge of your life and ministry is Jesus Christ, you're building castles in the sand and skating on invisible ice. That's why...the church must be awakened to the Christ who lives within her and being to understand the limitless resources of His indwelling life."

Deliver us, dear Spirit of Jesus, from living by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and fill us with desire for the Tree of Life, Jesus Himself. Jesus, You are Life within us, Your people. Teach us to live by Your resurrected life! Thank You that You hear our cry. Amen.