Keeping Us Alive

"In a little while the world will see Me no longer, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live too. In that day you will know that I am in My Father, you are in Me, and I am in you." - John‬ ‭14‬:‭19-20‬ (HCSB)

Jesus had been speaking to His disciples for a little while now. It's the evening of the Last Supper, and Judas has already gone out to seek the Pharisees, and Peter's denial of Jesus has been predicted. Now, Jesus takes this quiet time to speak to His disciples about a great many truths. From chapter 13 all the way through 16, Jesus talks pretty much non-stop. In chapter 17, Jesus prays for Himself, His disciples, and other believers. And then in chapter 18 Jesus is betrayed.

By the time we reach the Scripture we're looking at, the disciples' minds are already struggling to grasp the profoundness of what Jesus is saying. As truth tumbles from His lips, the most they can do is try and memorize all that Jesus is saying, and then go back and chew on it later. Remember that they had no spiritual discernment; the Holy Spirit hadn't come yet. Jesus had to boil things down for them.

And then they're hit with this verse; the world won't see Jesus, but they will, and their life is only possible because of Jesus's life. And then a string of intimate connections including the Trinity and the believer: Jesus is in His Father, Jesus is in us (through the Holy Spirit), and we are in Jesus. Through faith in Jesus Christ, a believer enters into a hierarchy of relationship, and becomes inseparable from Christ. 

How does this work? Colossians 3:3 tells us that we are HIDDEN in Christ. That our life is so bound to Jesus's that they cannot become two entities again. We are one. At the moment of salvation, our spirits became bound together. And since God is outside of time, this binding actually means that our lives, as believers, are tied to Jesus's. So when Jesus died on that cross, not only did He remove the penalty of sin from those who chose to believe, we actually died spiritually with Him. And on the third day, when He came back to life, we were brought to life as well, because our spirits were/are bound to His. That's why when we accept Jesus, we don't just die physically on the spot, because Jesus physically lives. Binding our spirit to a dead Jesus would result in a dead us. Thank goodness He lives!

Christ's spirit lives in us; the Holy Spirit. The medium of relationship between Jesus and the Father while Jesus walked the earth has now become OUR medium of relationship between us and Jesus. Jesus is our intercessor before God. There is the hierarchy of relationship that grants us access to every part of the Trinity, because we have been bound to Jesus. This is crazy stuff! The song "Keeping Me Alive" by The Afters portrays this amazing truth well:

"My heart is in You,
Where You go, 
You carry me!
I bleed if You bleed,
Your heart beats inside of me!
You're keeping me alive!" - The Afters

Jesus is in the Father via the Holy Spirit. He is also in us, and us in Him, because we exchanged, or bound, our spirits; Holy Spirit and mortal. Now we live in Christ quite literally, and Him in us quite literally. We are NEVER separated from Christ now, because if He chose to withdraw Himself from us, we'd die. We entered into a dependent relationship with Him when we chose to believe in Him. He is a faithful God, no matter how we act, so putting our lives in Christ is more than a safe investment; it's a beneficial one.

So when we mess up, or fail Him, or spit in His face, it really is amazing grace that He doesn't just separate us from Himself and leave us dead in the streets. He has an IMMENSE amount of patience and forgiveness to hand us! He'll never run out!

The world doesn't see God, but we do. We can approach His presence and seek His will through prayer. We have been granted special access to the most wonderful place ever: Heaven's courts. We get the opportunity to stand in His presence and praise Him, because when He looks at us, He sees His Son! Our binding of life has saved us from condemnation; since Jesus died, and Jesus's life has become bound to ours, we are counted as having paid the penalty. We are free from the bondage of condemnation.

Wow guys! Jesus is keeping us alive! He freed us from sin's power! And like the song says, He carries us with Him. He does not need our help in His will. But He will invite us to join Him in what He is doing because He loves us, and wants us to be with Him while He is at work! So when Jesus is working in someone's life via the Holy Spirit, we will feel led to be a part of that work because we are drawn to our own life; which is in Christ, which resides wherever He is.

As we grow in our faith, this relationship deepens. What hurts Jesus begins to hurt us. Unbelievers begin to sadden a believer's heart. And what gladdens Jesus's heart begins to gladden our own! With every second, our heart beat is dependent on Jesus's life; if He were to disappear or die (which He won't!), we would die instantly.

Jesus wasn't speaking metaphorically. He was very literal in His intent, I believe, in this verse. Our lives are literally tied to Christ. And while sometimes we chase after the sin of this world, we always have the choice to turn back to our God. And since His Spirit lives in us, we are enabled to #LiveItLikeJesus, if we would just choose to do so.