In The Father with Full Understanding – 3-15-23

“Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.” John 14:10 NKJV

RELATIONSHIP:         

Do you already have a relationship with a powerful God who cares about your every need because He loves you? Did you know my God can communicate with you and protect you – He has a plan for you to prosper if you just submit to His will and let His plan play out in your life!!! God wants a relationship with you and has already made a plan for your life. He loves you so much He sent His son to this world, to die as a sacrifice for your sins and rise from death with victory over sin and the ability to have a personal relationship with you.

Do you want to know truth? Be able to discern lies? Know how to figure it all out in these confusing times and have peace? The Bible says Jesus is the truth. I have experienced it and it has changed my life. I was once a hot mess of sin, promiscuity, drug and alcohol use and so much more. But I was lost and when I could not find my way, or find a truth, I numbed it with bad choses. When I found Jesus, and truth – I found peace and deliverance from those things.

If you want a relationship with God without truth you will get the counterfeit, hypocritical Christianity that has kept some of you away for too long. You need truth and relationship. You need to be honest with yourself and God (including honest repentance) and God will reveal truth to you. It becomes the two way, interaction that your relationship with God is built on. This is why Jesus is called the truth, because he is our only way to the Father. 

“If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.” Romans 10:9-10 NIV
Here is a prayer for you to pray:
Jesus, I believe you are the way, the truth, the life, and the only way to the Father. I believe you are the son of God, you came to Earth and lived. That you died on the cross as a sacrifice for my sins, and rose again so that I may be saved from my sins and be able to get to know you. I declare: Jesus, you are Lord!
Therefore, I confess that I am a sinner and I ask that you forgive me of my sins and come into my life. Help me to turn away from my sins and transform me into what you have lovingly created me to be. Help me through a real personal relationship grow and accept your will for my life – that I may live in your blessings. Please walk with me, and talk with me – I accept a relationship with you and with our Father God, through you. In the name of Jesus I pray ~ Amen

BIBLE READING:

Dear Heavenly Father – Please give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of who you are, who Jesus is, and who the Holy Spirit is. Open the eyes of our understanding, please, so we may know the hope of our calling and the vast sovereignty and power of the grace of the cross. Please do not let us miss out on what you want and need from us today. Lord, I pray that your word prepares us and not scares us! We forbid the works and influences of fear over your word and our sound mind. And please keep us and bless us and shine your face upon us and pour out grace over us and give us peace! And we pray for the peace of Jerusalem! Thank you! – In Jesus name we pray, Amen

Today’s reading we will re-read the same passage in the Gospel of John, chapter 14 at verse 7 (embedded below for your convenience in the NKJV).

The Father Revealed

⁷ “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”
⁸ Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.”
⁹ Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? ¹⁰ Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. ¹¹ Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.

The Answered Prayer

¹² “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. ¹³ And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. ¹⁴ If you ^[c]ask anything in My name, I will do it.

John 14:7-14 NKJV

MEMORY VERSE CHALLENGE:

“And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” Luke 4:8 KJV

BIBLE DISCUSSION:

Yesterday we spoke of believing in Jesus like you believe in the Father, as the answer to troubles. The only flaw in that argument is – what if you do not know or believe in the Father? I mean we are 14 chapters into John this year and ALL we have studied is who Jesus is. How and where do we get the revelation of God the Father?

I mean God is this distant aloof being, unseen, only somewhat interested and angry, always ready to punish us for something if he finds out – right?? Did you know the majority of people raised in the church, interviewed for a poll, have admitted to having bought into this lie, some saying they see signs of them believing it at a subconscious level? I will honestly tell you that I too believed these lies of the Father! Consciously, I could tell you of His goodness and of the balance of His justice. But the way I behaved and acted upon my faith was more consistent with the lie. It took a lot of soul searching and some help from the Father to find this out.
I remember doing the Romans chapter 1 exercise – the one we have done together for the last couple of years. It is where we go through the flesh listed in Roman’s chapter one daily for a while to really spend some time soul searching and letting God reveal anything inside us that needs to die. Anyway, one year, not with you, I was really dreading it. I knew I had pride and self and it was strong and I wanted it – and I know that going through Romans would convict me to die to myself in those areas. I said I wanted to serve God whole heartedly, but I thought when we have to confront this God will be so angry, and I was scared of God!!!
On one hand, fear of God is good – but I was not applying the fear of the Lord the correct way!
I was already convicted. God knew before I knew that I have flesh and sin in me! And God was lovingly and gently trying to help me get freed from it. There was no punishment while I went through the exercise. There was only love, refreshing, cleaning and new life! And I learned that I had developed some stinkin thinkin about who my Father is!

It is so easy to think Jesus is Love and the Father is Punishment – while the Bible says Jesus is the Just Judge and the Father is love!
And so I wonder how we see Jesus as love when he turned the tables of the money changers and publicly defied and challenged the Temple leaders, religious leaders and the government! He said: now I came to save you because later I am coming back with a sword of judgment! (Not so comforting or empowering – that is why we have the Holy Spirit, but we will get into that tomorrow!)

“⁷ “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”

Wait a minute! I thought the Bible had NO contradictions and Earlier John said NO ONE has seen God:
“No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.” John 1:18 NKJV
So why is John contradicting himself? Well, let’s take these verse back to the original Greek scripts and learn stuff.

1. ‘No one has seen Him’ – Moses was the closest to seeing God. He sat and talked with him in his presence and received the tablets and the laws and learned and fellowshipped with God. There is even evidence in the New Testament that He knew Jesus as well. They were all friend. But Moses never saw God. He was in His presence and never saw Him. So one day, Moses asks to see God. And God told him to hide in the rocks and peek out at His back, because man cannot see God’s face. Isaiah said He saw God high and lifted up and His train filled the temple, but the vision matches up with John’s vision of Jesus on the throne, So Isaiah probably saw Jesus. Daniel saw angels. The point is – no one has actually seen the Father except the Son.

2. ‘Jesus has declared Him’ – This word, declare, is a poor translation. The Greek word is: ἐξηγήσατο (exēgēsato) meaning ‘has made [Him] known’. In Strong’s 1834: To lead, show the way; met: I unfold, narrate, and declare. Which is why the NKJV uses the word declare. In modern English declare is an action one person takes… in this sense declare is an action two people take, meaning one says and does in order to teach or reveal and the second person receives in active participation. This is because it is from the root word ek and hegeomai; which means to consider out, i.e. rehearse like a play or performance, or unfold. It is lending to an experience. Now back to today’s verse.

3. ‘You know and have seen God’ – to know is to have a personal intimate knowledge. And ‘have seen’ is ἑωράκατε (heōrakate). In Strong’s 3708 it means properly, to stare at, i.e. to discern clearly; by extension, to attend to; by Hebraism, to experience; passively, to appear. That definition is not very clear. Although this definition means to clearly and actually see something tangible, it also means to discern it, to attend to it in a physical or non-physical way, and to experience!

So at the beginning of this book John explains that Jesus is about to reveal, explain, show us and introduce us to The One True Living God The Father through His actions, His love, and His life. And now moments before Jesus was betrayed John shows us that Jesus believes He has completed this mission as we now successfully know The Father, because we know Jesus.

Philip however did not have this book of John and the resources we have so poor Philip still doesn’t understand.

“⁸ Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.”
⁹ Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?”

I mean, fair enough. After all this time, they should understand and Jesus has precious little time to get the rest of his MOST IMPORTANT pieces of informant out before He dies! And Philip is slowing us down with his questioning.

“¹⁰ Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.”

This is a great question! With all the questions about how do we have ONE God and He has a Son who is Also God and a Spirit that is Also God and there is three in one and all that. I have often, as well as many of you have, just taken it as something we’ll have to understand that later and try to avoid ever having to explain it!
But here is a good beginning for understanding it: Jesus is speaking acting and being in and under the authority of God, because He is in God and God is in Him. I think this authority idea makes explaining easier. God is the Army and Jesus is the commander and Jesus can do nothing without the Army’s say so. The Army is in Him and He is in the Army!
Now let’s personalize this verse. We say we have accepted Jesus, to come inside us and be our Lord. Except our modern culture does not have Lords and authority under them like they had until the end of Victorian England. So we say this, but what do we actually know of this authority structure and how we are to act if this has really occurred inside of us? So let us look again at modern authority structures we do understand to some degree.
In the Army soldiers train to be less of them and more of the Army. Less of their own will and more of the will of the Army. More disciplined and more obedient. They accept Army into them as well as over them. If it was over them and their own self did not break under the authority (or submit in full surrender to it) then they never accepted and let it in to change them. Army must get inside and change them as well as rule over them.
Now if we accept Jesus like a recruit accept the Army, then we like a good solider would not speak except under authority, and it would be that authority which gets the credit for the work, and does the work through the good soldier. Have we accepted Jesus in this way? Less of me and more of Him?!

“¹¹ Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.”

If someone is or was in the military, you can still tell they are or were in the military even in civilian clothing. Military people just carry themselves differently, and they behave differently – they even fight differently. They always seem to have the greater good, safety and a bigger picture in mine and are acting on behalf of it.
Here Jesus is pointing out how if they could not see He is a soldier based on the way He carries Himself, then His actions definitely show it and point to God.

At this point, the disciples’ foundations for their belief in Jesus was just that He called them and they already believed in God. Jesus now has precious few minutes to sure up that foundation. Going forward the disciples cannot say, I believe because He called me. That experience is enough for each of them – but not enough to stand up to what these disciples are about to go through.
Same with you and me. We each have a valid experience that turned us to Christ – but we cannot live without the solid structure in place and coming under the authority correctly and understanding it. Once we are correctly under authority with our experience… it straightens our experiences and adds to them in a powerful way!

“¹² “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.”

Belief is not just a theme of a sweet feel good Christmas movie. Belief is actionable and it MUST BE within a structure of authority. I can say I believe the sky is purple and I can imagine it until I convince myself that it is. and that belief is completely useless to anyone including myself who would then be delusional. HOWEVER, If the sky is dark and threatening and I am under the authority of God who DID NOT call for a storm, and God is in me and I am in Him so I know the storm must go, then I can say I believe the sky is blue and clear and the sun is shining. Then from the position of belief, I can tell the storm to dissolve and be gone. Immediately the clouds will evaporate and dissipate until they are gone.

“¹³ And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. ¹⁴ If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.”

Now, this verse makes so much more since under authority! In Him!
We just need to get in Him and get it done!

Please join us tomorrow as we continue to discuss the Book of John.

On a side note for those who may have missed it (I will not continue posting this permanently). I am now also making Christian T-Shirts!! Some of you have reached out in interest of blessing me, however, these studies are made available free! Freely I received and freely I give. However, If God is moving you to bless me, be blessed with a t-shirt as well. T-shirts and other merch are for sale now. (As well as some other fun things people have asked me for.) Right now they are only available for sale and shipping in the USA (free shipping). I will need to learn more about international commerce in order to sell internationally. The link is on the Facebook page with examples of some of the products – I encourage you to follow this blog over there as well. And I’ll give you the link to the Christian T’s and my other silly designs here as well: https://www.etsy.com/shop/JessicasSillyStuff
On Facebook I am explaining which verse each one came from. This makes these a powerful encouragement for others as well as a clean word, and least offensive, means to open a conversation and share the good news (without soliciting or preaching). Although there is a time and place for that, you catch more flies with Honey – we are drawn to Jesus because of His love! I hope you enjoy them!

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I also wanted to remind and inform all of you, that instead of writing a book on fasting (since it is the topic I get asked the most about) I have created a Facebook group that is designed to be interactive and give you all the Bible verses on fasting, all the types of fast, and how to fast. In the group are specialist to help us along the way, like the creator of The Fasting Protocol (fasting for health and weight loss; which is part of fasting and important to know about – He can also speak to fasting in a healthy manner). The group is new and other experts are invited, I am hopeful they will join. So let’s join the group and see what we will learn about prayer and fasting. Here is the link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/509149707741862

Thank you for reading in 2023 – a Year of Grace and Provision
May the God of peace keep you and bless you. May you stay focused on Christ and covered in grace. Walk in wisdom.
Maranatha ~ Come Lord Jesus!

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