Union With Jesus Christ
Union With Jesus Christ
I want to talk about union with Jesus Christ. I am still going through this right now so I hope i have the words to talk about it in a coherent way that offers some sort of information about the topic and even invitation to go on a similar journey. I know that this is the desire of Jesus for His bride the church. A beautiful journey began this past month. The Lord brought me to the writings of Jeanne Guyon and it sparked a life changing adventure. The first book I read is called " The Final Steps in Christian Maturity " quite a name, right? The book totally wrecked me. I felt a burning conviction in me. Like a call I couldn't ignore. Guyon talked about turning from the external world to the internal, arriving at yourself, pausing, and then moving past yourself and it is there that you find Christ. This concept was completely new to me and it felt like an epic noble adventure that I just couldn't help but go on. She spoke of total abandonment of self. Total submission of desires and will in order that your will would be replaced with the will of God and your desires the desires of God. So a fact about me is that I am a very passionate man. I am a fierce romantic and my enthusiasm and confidence when it comes to accomplishing a mission is always equal to the task at hand with more to spare. I do everything with my entire heart and being. I have always craved an adventure or a relationship equal to my passion. I have never found a well deep enough. In the past, Relationships with people to which I give my everything have left me feeling misunderstood and unmanageable. adventures I have gone down have left me feeling disappointed and disillusioned. I am discovering that Perfect Union with Jesus Christ is actually two things in one. A grand adventure and an engaging fulfilling relationship. It is lifelong, it is exciting, and it is not just a deep well it is an infinite ocean. I feel as though my passion can swim freely. I can run I can fly i can dive deep and even for the first time even discover how long I can actually hold my breath for. He is everything I've ever wanted friendship to be. He is everything I have ever wanted romance to be. He is everything I ever wanted life to be. He is the great adventure I have always wanted to go on. Greater than that of the most epic and exciting action movie. Our love story is the most drama filled scandalous engaging fulfilling and romantic tale of two lovers that every love story ever made as a book or a movie tries but can only grasp at touching. This kind of talk gets my blood flowing. It makes me come alive. It makes me into a broken toy that when you pull the string it only says one thing. His name. He has made me short circuit and I have cut every wire myself that doesn't connect me to him. I want to be completely one with my God. I want to breathe the air of my lover. I want to go nose to nose with my lover and breathe in when my lover breathes out and breathe out when my lover breathes in. I want to finish the stick of gum that my lover started and then have my lover chew on it some more. I want to share the milkshake of life with my lover using only one straw. I want to stand on my lover's shoes and spin around the dance floor. I want to move when my love moves and rest when my love rests. I want to be put in a blender and blended up together into one color one mass one flesh. I don't just want to be in the presence of my lover I want to be inside of my lover and I want my lover inside of me. A total blending. complete and total and pure union. assimilation. more than conformation. a melting into. The Lord desires this. We are his art. his poetry. he created us to be loved. that is our first purpose to be loved. and we love because he first loved us. we love him and we love each other. We cannot create this desire on our own. We need him to want him. He started it He brings it to fruition through himself and he sees it through to completion himself by himself. We are being served a meal at a restaurant and He is the valet outside the host the server the cook the bus boy the manager and the restaurant owner. He is also the food and the utensils and the nutrients of the food. He is within and without. We are going to the dr and he's the symptom and the cure and the dr and the practitioner that diagnoses us and the surgeon and the nurse. He is everything. Orchestrating and pushing and pulling in perfect love and fairness perfectly balancing in the tension of desiring us more than his own divinity and even life itself and respecting our free will which he gave us as a beautiful gift. Our will is a gift given to us. But the best way to see it is that it is a gift given to be regifted from the outset. it is an already wrapped gift given to us by the Father and we regift it to Jesus. Think of it as the wedding band we place on our lover's finger on the wedding day. it was never meant for us to use and wear and enjoy it was always meant to be given back and we receive a ring of freedom from the bridegroom as well on the wedding day. The ring we gift does not fit us but the ring He gives does.
"Jesus is the big spoon" - The Song of all Songs Chapter 2 Verse 6
In order for two different things to become one, we know from chemistry that there needs to be three requirements met. The first is Compatibility at the smallest level. sameness. second There needs to be a proper exchange of energy. The third subject needed for a union is that the new whole must be more stable than the separate parts. What do these look like practically? I am mixing in my own experience while paraphrasing Guyon's experience / language.
We are not the same as our Lord. We are made in his image but because of the curse brought on by Adam and eve that affects all sons and daughters of eve we are at a molecular level different from our Lord. At a base level incompatible for perfect union. I am not promoting a works based salvation. He did the work that saves us. However we still need to confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe what He did for us and seek him with all of our heart. So, in my experience this is how the process of union with Jesus Christ goes. The Lord makes the first move. He always does. The Lord gets your attention He is a gentleman lover who makes the first move. he shoots his shot. He does so in a visible way. right in front of us. he meets us where we are on our terms and in a visible tangible way. He will do this for every human being at the most opportune time for them to respond to him. We must understand that the reality is souls are both the pawns and the prize in a cosmic battle between good and evil. the battle has already been won. the devil is doing the only thing he can in his pride which is buy time. The lord however is perfectly patient and longsuffering. He is not willing that anyone should go without a fair chance in the end. that is true of every human even if we are not able to imagine such a scenario for a person. Since we are most likely focused on the external and the 5 senses that's how he shows up. and he does his big one. it's an epic miraculous and supernatural display. perhaps a lifelong illness healed or a major chain broken. He gives us two gifts. A sign, and oil. the sign is exactly that. A sign points to somewhere. it points to him. an act only he could have done. and the oil. Oil is the fuel that sustains our relationship with the Lord. oil only comes from him. we cant generate it on our own. in that beginning phase we only get a little bit. only enough to come to him again. many try to give it away but oil cannot be shared in it's base form. It was meant for you and is best understood by you. it is a personal personalized gift. Oil is best shared as light and warmth when you light it and burn for the Lord in public through speech and actions and love. His glory flows through love. Oil isn't comforting to anyone. it is a power source not the power itself. it is the potential not the life giving life promoting final result. so it is important during this first phase to run toward him with total abandonment and arms wide open and not to go off on any side adventures like trying to be the thing that wakes others up or trying to give your oil away or just in general being drunk on the entire situation and doing and saying in the moment things. This first phase is so amazing and beautiful and to the senses it is incredible and amazing and it's very tempting to want to just indiscriminately explode and have everyone around you see what you're seeing and feel what you're feeling. Ideally in this first phase you understand what is happening and enjoy it and steward the glory properly as much as it is possible to know how considering the maturity of the person and the surrounding council. It is also important not to put these situations into a specific box as the Lord can do anything but there are certainly phases to this that can be observed in life and in song of songs.
One Look From Jesus Changes Everything
The Exchange of energy. So you've gotten your initial big bang moment with the Lord and you're not trying to throw oil on everyone and you're managing the exploding emotions with grace and you're running at Jesus with open arms. You will then find something shocking and jarring. He has retreated somewhere. You cannot find Him. This is because perfect Unity with Christ in the external plane is not possible and it has to do with the exchange of energy. the external is the realm of the 5 senses and the place where desires push and pull and blow one living in the external like a flag in the wind. That's also why that initial show from the Lord is to potent. It so excited 5 senses and it seems to be the things the desires have always wanted and He is but it cannot happen on that plane. Much has to be accomplished. This is only the beginning of a lifelong Adventure. At this point, though you are ruined for the Lord. What once entertained, what was once enjoyed, what once you did no longer satisfies. Friends, habits, mindsets, affections, drop like flies. relationship with addictions become complicated as they no longer satisfy but you go back still to what you once knew after you just cant seem to find Jesus in anything you once felt him in such as music, Christian groups, prayers, and even just everyday life. This might seem cruel or even manipulative of the Lord but do not believe these lies. as you will see his timing and wisdom are perfect. He is interested in all or nothing. He is leading you to that and along with it an understanding of that. The next step is to turn from the external world and look at self. Ultimately a purification process is required. So you turn inward and come face to face with yourself and your desires. It is ugly. You understand what needs to go by the power of his spirit and you surrender it and give it up to him as a sacrifice. This sacrifice of our desires is truly costly and weighty and beautiful and it is so so hard. Even painful. I am giving up not just the perverse desires like watching pornography but also my pure desire to be a husband and a father one day. All must go. we must be completely empty. we must die completely. to be filled with him. he knows your pure desires. He gave you them. He is the fulfillment of them not what we think is. he may return marriage and sex in their proper context down the line but I must give up even my hope that eh will do that. prayers asking for things even need to go because they reveal a still divided heart. only then can he return things like marriage and sex and they will then be in their proper context and desired and appreciated with pure motive. It is so important during this time to recognize that he is doing all the work not you. you're strapped into the ride don't try to change anything. don't change seats don't adjust your harness don't try to hop off because you can in your free will but you need to trust him. So you look at yourself and your desires and you give them up one thought at a time. with the goal of knowing he is doing the work and it is leading to fruit. it is leading you to him. he will sustain you in this too. it's not impossible. just hard. you've built a kingdom yourself and now it has to come down so he can build his. you've climbed a mountain but it's the wrong one now you have to climb back down and ascent his. As this happens you move past yourself and into the place that He is. When you are truly empty of your own will and desires then you are ready to be filled with Him. There is no longer apposing energy to his and vice versa. the two can perfectly blend as two like things easily do. like two drops of water or one flame to another. Things are always drawn to their center. That's why Jesus retreated to your center. So you would be one there. Untouchable, rooted, grounded, established in a secret place that is sustainable and covered and personal. Another note on surrendering and sacrificing desires. We get to fellowship with Jesus through his sufferings because he was tempted in all ways as we are. we get to understand each other through that. also see it this way. peter said silver and gold i have not but what i have i give to you. these are worthy costly sacrifices for him. something truly of weight we can give. what a blessing to be able to have something to give the one who gave it all for us. he gave it all and didn't want it back he died for people who might never choose him. he died for people just to give them the chance to choose him. if he died to not only his desires but his motives behind his desires then surely we can do the same for him. the asking stops. I have stopped asking for a wife. My desires already cry out. I give it all to him. The asking, the crying out, the desire, the motive itself, and I even give him the hope that he may fulfill that desire in the way i want. I give him my preference. I know he can but I also know he is the ultimate fulfillment of that desire and I will not make my wife or sex God. apply these principles for any desire or addiction.
