One with Christ

One with Christ Studies

Geoff — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 11:20:34 +0000

1 Corinthians 2:9
Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.

In Jesus we have an inheritance that surpasses our understanding. The depths of Christ’s love, presence, nature and life are ours to experience. He has freely given us His Spirit and all the qualities that flow from His life: He has given us His love, joy, peace, healing, wisdom and more. But how do we experience the reality of what we have been given? How do we connect with God and know His power and love in a real and tangible way?

The One with Christ studies have been written to answer some of these questions. The purpose of the studies is to give keys to entering into the reality of our inheritance in God. As such, our focus is on matching a firm understanding of the truth in Scripture with spiritual experience and transformation. So do we want to experience more of God? Are we hungry for change?

One with Christ

The One with Christ studies are a series of Bible studies that can be done individually or in groups. So why call the series ‘One with Christ’?

1 Corinthians 6:17
But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.

The term One with Christ comes from this Scripture. When we join ourselves to the Lord, we become one spirit with Him. It is a promise of God that when we connect ourselves deeply and intimately with Him, we will become one spirit with Him. It is certainly one of the mysteries of God, but a promise and a reality nonetheless. We can become one with Christ.

Thus our transformation comes as we experience a greater spiritual connection and unity with Jesus. So if you want to draw closer to God and explore the idea of joining yourself to Jesus, then download the studies for free and have a read. If you want just a taste, then have a read of the first couple of studies online. If the first few studies don’t seem to help, then leave them. Find something else that does help you grow spiritually. If God wants to use the studies, then He will bring you back to them. Simply feel free to go where you sense most life and growth.

The Spiritual Plan

The first few studies of Series One lay a foundation of reality. The following studies look at our inheritance in Christ and how we can go deeper into the life that He has for us. The focus then moves on to faith and experience. Series Two continues on with growing deeper into Jesus and discovering some of the spiritual dimensions to life and the word of God. It then focuses more on actually starting to join ourselves to Jesus and becoming one with Christ.

Series One of the studies covers:

Series Two covers:

If you have any questions about the studies, feel free to contact us or go to our forums. We are active in the forums and can bounce some ideas around with you and others.

All the best for your spiritual life in Christ. May you enter into every blessing in Jesus and know Him as your love and reality.

Quick Questions

Why download the studies rather than read them online?

When people read material online, we typically read differently than we do with a real or digital book. We tend to scan material, quickly assessing key points and impressions rather than soaking in the detail. And with the studies, the detail is important. Every passage of Scripture is quoted because it relates directly to our experience in Christ. As such, we only make a portion of the studies available online, so that people can discover if the studies will be useful to them. Everyone who wants to grow through them can then download the studies and slowly take it all in. This way, each person can get the most out of the studies.

Growing in Christ

Geoff — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 11:19:08 +0000

Growing in Christ is about deepening our relationship with God. In the natural realm we have many different relationships. We have friends, colleagues, spouses, children, mentors, teachers, students and so on. If we share a mutual desire to deepen a relationship with someone, then we invest more into the relationship. We put more time, energy and resources into that relationship, and we reap the reward of having a deeper relationship with that person. By investing more in the relationship we experience greater growth, connection, fulfilment and intimacy.

The same is true for our spiritual relationship with God. If we know how to invest in our relationship with God, then we will find a greater sense of connection and intimacy with God. With this in mind, in this article we will briefly look at a few keys for individuals and groups to grow spiritually in God. Click the title of each section to read the full text.

1. Hear God

John 18:37b “Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” John 10:27 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” John 16:13 “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.

It is a promise of God that when we give ourselves to the truth, the Spirit of Jesus will speak to us. We will hear Him.

The Holy Spirit is given to us as the voice of God. He wants to teach us how to hear Him and know His voice. We simply need to share His desire and learn how to listen. Then, as He speaks to us, we will know His voice and experience the growth that comes from clearly and consistently hearing God speak.

Foster Faith

Romans 10:17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the [spoken] word of Christ.

Faith comes with hearing the voice of God. So as we hear His voice with greater clarity, we increase our capacity for faith.

Romans 5:1-2 (NKJV emphasis added) Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Through faith we access grace and experience reality. So as our faith grows, so does our spiritual experience. Thus to grow faster and deeper into Christ we need to start by seeking the Holy Spirit to bring greater clarity to the voice of Christ that we may know Him better and experience Him more.

Like the widow seeking justice or the neighbour seeking bread, we need to persist and not give up. We need to seek God until we can hear His voice with confidence and know real faith. (See the Spoken Word study in Series One for more on hearing God).

2. Foster a Passion for both the Word and Spirit of God

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

The living word of God is awesome and powerful. As we experience the living word of God, we receive His power to bring that word to pass in us. But how does the word come to life?

John 6:63 “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”

All life flows from the Spirit of God. Our spiritual life in Christ is sourced in and sustained by the Spirit of Jesus. The same is true of the word. The word of God only comes to life when the Spirit gives it life. The Spirit of God also performs the word, bringing the reality to pass in our lives. He is the active power of the word. So as we unite the Spirit of God with the word of God we enter into a new realm of spiritual experience. The word of God comes alive to us, and the Spirit of God becomes active in us through His word. Through the word and Spirit we enter deeper into the reality of Christ and grow closer to Him. Our goal in combining the word and the Spirit is to get a balance of an abundance of both. If we have been previously focused on the word, we can take time to focus on the Spirit, being filled more with His presence and life. Then we can focus on experience more of the Spirit of God in union with the word, bringing life to the Scriptures. Conversely, if we have previously preferred the Spirit to the word, then we can dive into the word of God, seeking the Spirit to bring His life, insight and revelation to His word.

3. Prepare the Heart; Protect the Word

Matthew 13:18 “Hear then the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is the one on whom seed was sown beside the road. The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away. And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit and brings forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.”

The word of God is like a seed. It gets sown in us with the potential to bring life and abundance to us. In the parable of the sower, the condition of the heart relates directly to the life of the seed. If we have good hearts, the seed will mature, bear fruit and multiply. If our hearts are not in good condition, we will miss out.

As we grow in Christ, the Spirit of God will constantly sow seed into our hearts. Every word we hear from God has the potential to take us into the reality of that word. For example, if the word of peace is sown in our hearts, we can reap a harvest of peace within us, which in turn can produce more seed to sow into others. The seed of love can bring a harvest of love. The word of joy leads us to experience a harvest of joy and so on. The degree of the harvest all depends on whether or not we prepare our hearts and nurture the seed.

To prepare our hearts we need to seek God to humble us and break up our hardened hearts, making us sensitive to His Spirit and word. We need to repent of all the things that we have let take root in our hearts that are not of love. As we repent, we need the Spirit of God to overcome those aspects of our hearts that would choke the life out of His word. We need Him to make our hearts spiritually stable, filled with love, focus, grace and resolve.

Just as the Spirit of God will constantly sow the things of Christ into our hearts, so the enemy will also try to constantly sow his seed into us. Through media, people, news, books, magazines, movies and the internet, the enemy will use any means possible to sow his seed in us. If we let this seed take root, it will also bear fruit and draw us away from God and into a life of worldly pursuits, isolation, emptiness, lust, greed, vanity and fantasy. The point here is to choose your seed.

Proverbs 4:23 Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.

The springs of life flow from our heart. Thus we need to cultivate a heart that is receptive to God and fortified against our enemy. We need to guard our hearts against the enemy by being discerning in the things we take in. This kind of discernment includes sensing the life of the Spirit in things. If what we read or watch has no life in it, then it will not lead us closer to God. In these situations, we should not waste our time on these things, but rather let the Spirit of God lead us to take in those things that contain real life and draw us closer to God. (See Series Three (when it is finished) for more on the Seed of the Word of God).

4. Get Revelation

Revelation is a gift of God that comes when God turns a light on in our heart. In this sense, revelation is like an inner knowledge of the heart. The knowledge of the mind forms philosophies and theologies but the knowledge of the heart creates life. It produces a deep confidence within us in the truth of God. This certainty of our heart in God then flows through to our minds, changing our mindsets and the way we see life. Through revelation we live more in reality.

Ephesians 1:17 …that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him.

Revelation only comes from God, so we need to seek Him to give us revelation. We need to call on the Spirit of God to establish His truth deep in our heart. As He reveals His love, nature and will for us, we will know what to focus on in our spiritual growth. For example, when the Spirit gives us a revelation of the humility of Christ, it is because He wants to form His humility in us. As we receive the revelation, we can then have faith in the power of God to humble us and lead us deeper into the reality of humility. In this way, getting revelation from God is a key to growing in Christ and staying in step with the Spirit. We learn what He is doing, receive His faith, and join Him in His work in us. (See the Revelation study in Series Two for more on Revelation).

5. Pray

James 5:16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.

It really goes without saying that prayer is a key to spiritual growth. But as this verse shows, effective prayer achieves much. So what is effective prayer? How is it different from ordinary prayer?

Desire

In his book called Spiritual Progress, Francois Fenelon notes that true prayer is an expression of our hearts’ desire:

“True prayer is only another name for the love of God. Its excellence does not consist in the multitude of our words; for our Father knows what things we have need of before we ask Him. The true prayer is that of the heart, and the heart prays only for what it desires. To pray, then is to desire—but to desire what God would have us desire. He who asks what he does not from the bottom of his heart desire, is mistaken in thinking that he prays. Let him spend days in reciting prayers, in meditation or in inciting himself to pious exercises, he prays not once truly, if he really desires not the things he pretends to ask.”

With this in mind, effective prayer starts with true desire. So what is our heart’s desire? What do we really want of God? Once we know our own desire, we can test to see if it is from God. If our desire is not born of God, then we will be praying out of our will rather than God’s will. Yet if God’s desire is established in our hearts, we can pray with passion and confidence, knowing that He will fulfil His desire in and through us.

In His Name

John 14:13-14 “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.”

Whatever we ask in Jesus’ name, He will do. So what does it mean to pray in Jesus’ name?

Matthew 1:21 “She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”

Jesus was named Jesus, because He was to save people from their sin. Literally Jesus means Yahweh saves (or Yahweh is salvation). Jesus’ name is a reflection of His call, purpose, and nature. He is Emmanuel because He is God with us. All the names of God express the different aspects of His nature. Thus in Scripture, a person’s name represents their nature (see also 1 Samuel 25:25 where Abagail says of Nabal that “as his name is, so is he).

So to pray in Jesus’ name is to pray according to His nature. It is to have His nature formed in us and to speak to God from His nature. Our words will then be expressions of His love nature and within us. When our prayers flow from His nature within us, they will release the Spirit of God to fulfil His will. This is the effective prayer that achieves much; it is prayer that is made according to His nature, love and will, which is born from His desire and faith within us.

6. Get Together

Hebrews 10:23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

All through nature we can do things to stimulate growth. In plants we can add fertilizer and water, reduce competition, and increase exposure to light. As we do these things, the plant growth will naturally be faster and greater. To grow more in Christ, we can also stimulate each other. As we connect with others who share the same heart, who simply want to know, love and experience Jesus, we can share in each others growth. We can sow spiritual things into each other, help to tend those things, and then reap a harvest together.

Matthew 18:20 “For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.”

When we gather in Jesus’ name, He will be in our midst. As we have learned, Jesus’ name is His nature. It is His character, heart, life and being. So when we meet together, we need to meet in His name. We need to lose our self-centeredness and seek to connect with others in the nature of Christ. We need to relate to people in love and grace, entering into the heart of Jesus for them.

As we meet with pure hearts, Jesus will be there. It’s a promise. He will minister to us and He will meet our needs Himself. He will also minister through us, pouring out His life and Spirit into others. In this way, as we meet together, we can spur each other on to love and good works. We can propel each other into God, who is love, and into good works, which is the outworking of His love. When our heart and focus is right, we will see some great growth together.

7. Minster and be Ministered to Often

1 Corinthians 14:26 What is the outcome then, brethren? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification.

When we come together, each person will have something to contribute to others. If we are meeting with others and have no opportunity to contribute, then we are not really meeting in a Scriptural sense. Being a spectator at a church is not the fulfilment of what it means to assemble together. The assembling of God’s people in Scriptural terms is meeting where we can connect together, invest in each other’s lives, minister and receive ministry. It is belonging in a family. It is knowing others and being known. It is being connected to the body of Christ.

If we are not in such a group, then we need to seek God to lead us to join in with others who share a heart to love Christ (or to start such a group). The main thing here is to be led by the Spirit of God. Once we are in such a group, then we can start to function as a body, letting the Spirit move from person to person, allowing each to contribute and edify everyone present.

If we are hearing the voice of God with clarity, ministering to people is easy. We simply wait to sense God’s heart for the person and listen for any words He may want to speak. If God does not speak, we can’t make up anything, for our words would be dead and produce no good fruit. So we give the Spirit complete liberty: if He wants to minister through us, He can. We are available. It’s His call.

When we first start to minister to others it can be a little daunting. We can make mistakes. We can get it wrong. We can mishear or misunderstand God. We can hurt people or be hurt. We are not super-Christian ministry type people, so how could God want to minister through us?

If we are thinking these sorts of thoughts and asking these sorts of questions then we need to repent. Our eyes are on ourselves, our own inadequacy, our fear of failure, and our false humility, instead of Jesus and His love and ability. Our focus needs to be on God. We need to wait on Him and see what He wants to do.

As we minister to each other we need to have love and grace. We need to let others speak into our lives, knowing they could make mistakes. So we let each other know that it is ok to make a mistake. We need to be free to make mistakes, so we can grow in ministering to each other.

Making a mistake in ministry is not the end of the world. Why? Because each one of us can hear from God and let Him confirm His word to us personally. If God doesn’t confirm a word, vision, prophecy or so on, then we are under no obligation to give it a second thought. We simply ignore it and move on with what God is saying to us.

If someone in our fellowship is young or weak in hearing God and in discernment, then we need to recognize that they are vulnerable and treat them with greater respect, love and kindness. We need to encourage them to seek God to teach them to hear His voice and help them to learn to hear Him. As they hear God, they can start to minister to others in accordance to His will and with faith. Then their ministry will be powerful. It will release the power of the Spirit to fulfil His word through them.

Thus ministry is great for helping young or struggling Christians to become stronger and more stable in Christ. We can release the Spirit of God to heal, nurture, protect and grow each other in Christ. Yet ministry is not just about the mature blessing the young or the weak. Those who are doing well or spiritually prospering also need to be ministered to. Wherever we are spiritually, we can always grow more and go deeper into Christ. The harvest of 30 can become a harvest of 60 or 100. So we need to always be receptive to ministry, maintaining a heart that always wants to grow closer to Christ.

The more we practice prayer and ministry, the more natural it will become. As such, we should take every opportunity to pray for each other.

Eunuchs Wanted

Geoff — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 11:37:13 +0000

A great reward for a small sacrifice

Matthew 19:12
“For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother’s womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to accept this, let him accept it.”

There are people who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. But what is a eunuch? What does it mean to be a eunuch for the kingdom?

Eunuch for the King

Eunuch: eunouchos
A bed keeper; the superintendent of the women’s apartment or harem; an emasculated man; one naturally incapacitated for marriage or begetting children; one who voluntarily abstains from marriage

In a broad sense, the term eunuch could include someone who is voluntarily celibate, however in the traditional sense of the word, a eunuch was someone who had been castrated and no longer had any capacity for sexual desire or reproduction.

In ancient times, eunuchs were chosen as servants in the royal court. They were considered loyal, reliable, trustworthy and devoted servants. Because they had sacrificed their desire and could have no children of their own, they were entrusted to manage the royal harem.

A Eunuch’s Role

Ester 2:3, 8-9
“Let the king appoint overseers in all the provinces of his kingdom that they may gather every beautiful young virgin to the citadel of Susa, to the harem, into the custody of Hegai, the king’s eunuch, who is in charge of the women; and let their cosmetics be given them.
…So it came about when the command and decree of the king were heard and many young ladies were gathered to the citadel of Susa into the custody of Hegai, that Esther was taken to the king’s palace into the custody of Hegai, who was in charge of the women. Now the young lady pleased him and found favor with him. So he quickly provided her with her cosmetics and food, gave her seven choice maids from the king’s palace and transferred her and her maids to the best place in the harem.

Hegai was the eunuch in charge of King Ahasuerus’ harem. When Queen Vashti displeased the king, she was banned from his presence and a new queen was sought out. A selection of beautiful young virgins were accepted into king’s harem for a time of preparation. During this time Hegai the eunuch served the king by overseeing the preparation of the potential brides.
For a year the young women were prepared for the king, with Ester receiving the best preparations. At the end of the year, Ester was presented to the king. The king was immediately pleased with Ester’s radiant beautiful and he took Ester as his bride and queen.

Revelation 19:7
“Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.”

Like Ester, the bride of Christ must be prepared for her King. Just as Ester had to go through a process of preparation in order to become the bride, so we cannot become the bride of Christ without spiritual preparation. As such, simply calling ourselves the bride of Christ is not enough. A bride is someone who is actively preparing for marriage. If we are to be the bride, we need to actively get ready. If we are to get ready, then we need to know how to prepare our hearts for Christ. It is for this purpose that the One with Christ studies have been written. The goal of the studies is that each individual believer would be prepared to become Jesus’ bride and know the reality of becoming one with Christ.

Leaders of Love

Thus if the church is to become the bride of Christ then we need leaders who will focus us on love and help us to get ready for Jesus. We need people who will be like Hegai and will prepare us for love. We need spiritual eunuchs.

2 Corinthians 11:2-3
For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin. But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.

Like Paul, spiritual eunuchs labor to present each person as a pure virgin to Christ. They speak the word of love and unity, so that each individual bride of Christ might fall in love with Jesus. They speak the word of purity so that each heart may be prepared for His presence. They serve the King by serving the Bride, knowing that each bride will be an immense blessing of love to Jesus.

In 2 Corinthians Paul writes to call people away from false teachers who exalted themselves and led people away from devotion to Christ. They did not call people to love God with all their heart. Instead, these teachers led people to depend on them, rather than prepare them solely for Christ. They led people into works rather than grace and so defiled the bride and ruined her preparations. They distracted the bride away from the Bridegroom and kept her from truly loving Him.

The same is true in our time. If the church is to become the bride then we need leaders who will prepare us for Jesus. Without leaders who prepare and empower us to love, we will be like the foolish virgins who miss out on the wedding feast. We will live and die without knowing the reality of loving Jesus as our Bridegroom. So like the believers at Corinth, we urgently need correction. We need people who will call us to return to the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. We need leaders who will lead us back to our first love and who will give us a clear vision and goal: to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and to become one with Him. Will you be one of these leaders?

Unique Joy

We cannot lead others where we have not been ourselves. So if we want the ministry of the spiritual eunuch, we must first give ourselves to loving God with all our heart and becoming one with Him. Having entered into marriage to Christ, we can then become a eunuch for the kingdom. As we take on this ministry, we will discover the unique joy of serving Jesus by preparing His bride.

John 3:26-30
And they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, He who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified, behold, He is baptizing and all are coming to Him.” John answered and said, “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven. You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, ’I am not the Christ,’ but, ’I have been sent ahead of Him.’ He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. So this joy of mine has been made full. He must increase, but I must decrease.”

As we see the each bride fall in love with Jesus, we will know riches that surpass understanding. We will experience the awesome joy of seeing Jesus deeply blessed as He finds new love. Our joy will be made full as we see Jesus come to take His bride, having accepted her as pure, clean, prepared and full of love.

One Small Sacrifice

In becoming a spiritual eunuch, we must first make a small sacrifice for such a great reward. Just as eunuchs sacrificed their sexual desire through castration, so our sacrifice is that we give up all desire for the bride and live only for our King’s pleasure. So what does this mean practically?

It means that we no longer regard the affection or respect of people. We do not seek our own ministry or reputation. We do not lead people to depend on us, our message, or our ministry. We do not take the place of the Spirit in people’s lives. We do not elevate ourselves. Instead our sole focus is on preparing the bride for Jesus. At every point, we compel the bride to turn to Jesus. We constantly call people to give their lives to loving Him. We build faith and desire in the bride for Jesus. We relentlessly fight against everything that would spoil or stain the bride, striving to present her clean, pure, and ready for His love.

So please. Please. The bride of Christ needs you. Prepare your heart. Seek God to make you one with Christ. Die to yourself that you may live as a eunuch for Him. Give yourself to preparing the bride to love Jesus with all her heart and to become one with Him. Please answer His call and know the joy of seeing Jesus and His bride fall in love, time and again.

Baptism in the Spirit

Geoff — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 07:47:34 +0000

When we first enter into relationship with Jesus we are given an awesome inheritance in Him. To lead us into the depths of our inheritance, God reveals what He is doing and creates faith in our hearts, so that through faith we will enter the reality of what He has prepared for us. As He leads us into different aspects of our inheritance in Christ we will come to a place of being offered the gift of the baptism in the Holy Spirit.

Mark 1:4-8
John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the country of Judea was going out to him, and all the people of Jerusalem; and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins. John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist, and his diet was locusts and wild honey. And he was preaching, and saying, “After me One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to stoop down and untie the thong of His sandals. I baptized you with water; but He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.”

Jesus came to baptise us with the Holy Spirit. But what is the baptism in the Spirit? To understand the nature of baptism we need to look into the meaning of the Greek word baptizo.

To baptise: baptizo
1) to dip repeatedly, to immerse, to submerge (of vessels sunk)
2) to cleanse by dipping or submerging, to wash, to make clean with water, to wash one’s self, bathe
3) to overwhelm

The Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon clearly describes the difference between dipping and immersion in baptism:

The clearest example that shows the meaning of baptizo (as opposed to bapto) is a text from the Greek poet and physician Nicander, who lived about 200 BC. It is a recipe for making pickles and is helpful because it uses both words. Nicander says that in order to make a pickle, the vegetable should first be ‘dipped’ (bapto) into boiling water and then ‘baptised’ (baptizo) in the vinegar solution. Both verbs concern the immersing of vegetables in a solution. But the first is temporary. The second, the act of baptising the vegetable, produces a permanent change.

This difference is also used of dying garments. A garment can be dipped in dye, but it is only baptised when the dye has saturated the garment and the dye is no longer separable from the material. All that remains is the united product: a dyed garment.

In this way, baptism means saturation, a total immersion such that every part of the object is overwhelmed with the medium. The same principle applies to the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Through baptism in the Spirit we become immersed in God. It is not just a one-off event, but a continual, ongoing soaking in His presence and life to the point where we become saturated and overwhelmed in Him. This is when every part of who we are is infused with Him and we become inseparable from God’s Spirit.

Ephesians 5:18
And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit…

In this passage, Paul uses the present continual tense to call us to ‘be [continually] filled with the Spirit’. This is a call to stay immersed in the Spirit. A pickle is not dipped in vinegar every Sunday and then taken out. Likewise, when we are dipped in the Spirit, we need to stay immersed in the Spirit. Baptism does not end with receiving a single filling of the Spirit, but rather it is a continual way of life. Only by constantly saturating ourselves in Him do we really begin to live and walk in the Spirit.

1 Corinthians 6:17
But the one who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him.

The ultimate goal of being baptised in the Spirit is to become one spirit with Jesus. In Scripture, the word heart is used as a metaphor for the spirit. The spirit within us is our inner life, the heart and character of who we are. Thus to be one spirit with Jesus is to share His heart. It is to be united with Him in nature and life. It is to be so immersed in the Spirit of God that we become one with Him.

One God

It is important to note that being immersed in God does not mean that we become God. As with the garment and the dye, the garment simply soaks in the dye. It does not become dye. In itself, the garment cannot claim to be vibrant and colourful for these qualities come solely from the dye. Yet by being immersed in the dye, the garment is changed. It now radiates the colour of the dye. Through baptism the garment is transformed.

The same is true of our baptism in the Spirit. Being immersed in God does not make us God; it simply means that we have begun to soak in His presence and life. And like the garment, by soaking in God we will be transformed. His presence and life will soak into every part of us. Then we will begin to radiate His nature: His love, life, joy, character, and power. In this way, we will find that the more we soak in Him, the more we are conformed to His image.

Notes for Leaders

Geoff — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 07:43:52 +0000

Understand the Point of Ministry
We need to be clear about why we are doing what we are doing. At its essence, Christian life is about loving God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, and loving others as ourselves. Therefore the goal of our ministry should be to call others to love God completely. To do this with any sense of authenticity, loving God with our absolute entirety needs to be our focus and goal. If we are given to loving God, we can be genuine in our call and ministry to others.

So we need to strive in ministry to be like Paul. He labored to betroth people to Jesus. His ministry propelled people into a deeper love of Jesus. In 1 Corinthians, Paul lamented that the people he had prepared for loving Christ were so quickly turning their affection and becoming dependant on other leaders. So as leaders, we need to realise that we are here to see people fall in love with Jesus. If people start to become our ministry groupies, if they start to idolize us or become dependant on us for spiritual guidance or support, then we risk taking the place of Jesus in their lives. Jesus is our everything. He is love untold, He is our joy and life. We are nothing apart from Him. So may it never be that we start to take His place in people’s lives. To protect against this, we need to continually push people back to Jesus. For the spiritually immature, a little more support is ok. Bottle feeding babies is fine, but people are not designed to stay spiritually babies for long. Our ministry should quickly grow spiritual babies into children and children into adults. And these adults should have one love in their spiritual life: Jesus.

Always Work from a Context of Reality
In this sense, we need to start with ourselves. There is no point in teaching theory without reality. So if we aren’t connected to Jesus in a real and living way, then we cannot really lead others into a deeper relationship with God. If we are called to lead, then we need to be living in reality, actively striving against religious pretence and false presentation of ourselves. We need to love God and be real about it.

Empower, Empower, Empower People.
A key aspect of a living relationship with Jesus is hearing His voice. If we are hearing His voice, we can easily be spiritually led by God. So, to start empowering others, we need to teach them how to hear God. We need to teach them how to love, how to enter His presence, how to encounter and commune with Him. Once they learn how to connect with Christ, then we need to keep encouraging people to gradually increase the time they spend in His presence, with the goal being that we would all learn to live continually in His presence, constantly communing with Christ in everything we do.

Ask More Questions Than Give Answers
To empower people, we need to teach them how to learn on their own. Our school and graduate institutions spoon-feed students and so people learn to simply ask questions and get answers. They don’t really expect to have to think for themselves, after all, why think when you can just ask?

So when people ask you a question, even if you know the answer, encourage people to seek out the answer for themselves. If they don’t know how to search out the word, then teach them (see this study for a short introduction to searching out the word). Initially people can be a little lazy when it comes to thinking, but this will fade as they find the thrill and life in searching out the word and discovering truth for themselves.

Go with the Seasons
Often if God establishes us in a particular ministry or group leadership position, the temptation can be to hold on to that position, or try to keep the group going forever. God works in seasons. People grow, life changes, the Spirit works then moves. So we need to keep in touch with the Spirit. Plant the seeds and move on. If we can keep in step with the Spirit, we will often find that the sweetest part of a season is the end. We know that we have completed the tasks given for the season, and we can enjoy the expectation of what God has for us next.

The Essence of Faith

Geoff — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 07:46:13 +0000

If we were to reduce our faith into a single principle, what would it be? What’s the essential point of being a Christian? Why are we here?

Mark 12:28-34a
One of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that he had answered them well, asked Him, “What commandment is the foremost of all?” Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘Hear, o Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ “The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” The scribe said to him, “Right, teacher; you have truly stated that He is one, and there is no one else besides Him; and to love Him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as himself, is much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that he had answered intelligently, He said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

Here Jesus says that to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind is the greatest and most important command. We are brought into relationship with God to love and live. So if there is only one call in life; if only one principle to remember, it is that we love God with everything we are and have. Every breath, every moment, every thought and feeling we are to devote to loving God. From the center of our being to its every extreme, every part of us is to resonate with love for Jesus.

But is it really possible? Can we love God with our whole being? Or is this command intended more as an ideal, like a guiding principle in life?

Deuteronomy 30:6, 11
“Moreover the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live…For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach.”

These verses confirm that the greatest command in Scripture is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach. We can love God with all our heart and soul, not because we can do it, but because He can do it in us. He is the One who circumcises our hearts, cutting away everything that cannot love Him. He heals us and makes us whole, that by His grace and power we may love Him with all our heart and soul, and live in Him. He makes our complete love possible.

We can be sure that the command to love is attainable as it would also be against the nature of God to call us to do things that were impossible. For if He gives us a command that we cannot keep then He is consigning us to a life of disobedience, which is sin. This is contrary to the nature of God, for God is love and by His power He leads us into righteousness rather than into sin. Jesus came and died to free us from sin, not to bind us in it. Thus the command to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength is a promise that God can bring to pass in us. Through the indwelling life of Jesus, He can do it. He wants to do it. But will He?

If we want to love God with everything, we need to know how God makes it a reality in us. How do we enter into the experience? How can we love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength? And what would that love be like? How would life be if we could live in the reality of loving God with all our heart, soul and mind?

Think about it. Imagine it. Dream it. And then pursue it.

-/-

Entering into the reality of loving God with our entire being is essentially the goal of the one with Christ study series. And while this post may seem like a sales hook to get you reading the studies, it is not. This post is a seed. It is an opportunity for you to define the vision for your spiritual life. But if you are not ready to give your life to loving God right now, that’s absolutely ok. But would you like to be ready? Would you like to be able to honestly say, “Yes Jesus, I want to give my life to loving you”?

If so, simply present that desire to God and see what He does with it. Don’t give up. Keep seeking Him until He forms the desire in your heart. And once that desire to love Him is there, flow with it. Go with the natural momentum that comes with spiritual desire. Build your relationship with the goal of experiencing the overwhelming, awesome, and life changing love of God within you.