We Would See Jesus

by Authentic Christianity

John 14:18-21

18 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. 19 A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. 20 At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. 21 He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.

1. The Gospel message is fundamentally about the Son of God coming in His Spirit to share His life with us.


2. The life that Christ reveals within us is the same eternal life He now shares with His Father. "At that day"—the day He fills the temple of the body with His glory, we "know" we are partaking in the divine life that is shared in the Trinity.


3. Jesus has only promised to manifest Himself to those who obey Him.

Matt 16:24-25

24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 25 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.

1. The form of spiritual life that is developed from the temporal things of this world is always dying. It is completely lost when the world passes away. (1 John 2:15-17)


2. We find the Son’s heavenly life by following Him through the cross. This is the final test of faith. Do we believe we will find His life if we will die to our self-life? "For if we have been
   united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection." (Rom. 6:5) Because He lives we can live in the same life.

John 15:11

11 These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.

John 14: 27-28

27 …My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. 28 You have heard Me say to you, "I am going away and coming back to you."

John 17:20-21, 26

20 I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; 21 that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me… 26…that the love with which You love Me may be in them, and I in them.

1. Jesus can share with us the love, joy and peace that resides within His divine life.


2. The fruit of His Spirit naturally flows out of our heart when He fills us with His Spirit.


3. Those who are partaking of His life reveal the holy love that He shares with the Father.

John 16:16

A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me, because I go to the Father.

1. Jesus could not share His life with His disciples until after He was in a glorified state at the right hand of the Father. "He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things." (Eph. 4:10)


2. Now that He is glorified, His "rivers of living water" can flow out of our inner being and become a display of His "everlasting life." (John 4:14; 7:38-39)

John 14:6-7

6 I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. 7 If you had
known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.

1. The Father is the original source of the eternal life. The Son receives this life from Him and then communicates the life to us through a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit.


2. He is the way, the truth and the life. It is by living through Him that we become partakers of the divine nature.

1 John 4:9-10

9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.

1. We remain filled with the life of the Son as we walk by His Spirit in union with Him.


2. Jesus set the example by living through His Father. He then instructed us to follow Him. He said, "I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me." (John 5:30)

John 12:20-26

20 Now there were certain Greeks among those who came up to worship at the feast. 21 Then they came to Philip…and asked him, saying, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus." 22 Philip came and told Andrew, and in turn Andrew and Philip told Jesus. 23 But Jesus answered them, saying, "The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. 24 Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into he ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.
25 He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.

1. Jesus had to go through the cross to be in a position to share His life with His disciples. He then instructed His disciples to follow Him through the cross. According to His promise, everyone who loses their old form of life will find His life. (Matt. 16:24-25)


2. Christ expects us to share with Him in His heavenly life. He therefore says, "Where I am, there My servant will be also."


3. When we bring people to see Jesus we must tell them what Jesus told Andrew and Philip. They too will need to pass through a death to the old flesh-life if they hope to see Him and share with Him in His life in the heavenly realms.

Col. 3:1-4

1 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. 3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

1. Those who are truly born of God are empowered to overcome the world. (1 John 5:4) They can begin to hear spiritual truths. It is then that they are taken by the Lord through a time of testing where they must learn to walk by His Spirit.


2. The eternal life that Jesus revealed bodily is now available to everyone who will take their minds off earthly things and begin looking to Him to do what He has promised.
   
3. The work of the church is to build Christians up in their faith so they will learn to walk by the Spirit and begin looking to Christ to be the source of their life. "And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son." (1 John 5:11)

Eph. 1:3-4

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.

1. It has always been God’s purpose to have many children who manifest His image of holy love in everything they do. This divine life is now available from the Son.


2. Those who have sufficient faith to die to the world and its things will receive the promise. Every spiritual blessing in Christ’s heavenly life can now be received through faith

John 3:12-13

12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.

1. Jesus lived as the Second Adam. He lived with His Father in the heavenly realms as He walked by the Spirit in this world. Everything He did was a manifestation of His Father.


2. We are to walk as Jesus did by permitting Christ to live through us as the Father lived through Him. We too can have our physical life in this world while living through the Son’s life in the heavenly realms.

2 Cor 6:16-7:1

16 …For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will dwell in them and walk among them. {KJV-"Walk in them"}… 17 Therefore "Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you…" 7:1 Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

1. The Lord wants to "dwell in" us and "walk in" us today. This is a description of how the life of God was able to dwell in both the first and the Second Adam. Christ came to restore this way of life.


2. The soul will remain separated from this life of promise while we are still in possession of "unclean things." An unclean thing in God’s sight is anything that is not fully devoted to Him and His use. These things prevent us from seeing the Son’s heavenly life.


3. The wilderness testing period is the time when every heart idol needs to be removed from the heart. While the Lord will provides periodic wells of refreshment as we pass through this arid land, we are to press forward in our faith by seeking out the "rivers" of Living Water that are to rise up from within into an endless display of His life of holy love

Matt. 5:8

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

1. This special privilege is granted when every idol has
   been removed from the heart.


2. To see God is to share with Him in His heavenly life
   and nature.

1 Cor 2:9-10

9 But as it is written: "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him." 10 But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit.

1. While man himself cannot grasp through his own reasoning power what God has prepared for us in the heavenly realms, the Holy Spirit can now begin revealing this life within our inner being.


2. We must not limit God because of our own limited understanding. Christians are required to believe what God’s Word teaches and then fully surrender to the truth that is stated.