And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14.
While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!” Matthew 17:5.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God says:
I so loved the world that I created and made through My Son that I gave you My Son as the way back to Me when you had lost your way. He is My Word and My Word became flesh and tabernacled among you. And you saw His glory, that is His goodness. And in seeing Him, I let you see Me in One upon whom you could gaze without perishing for He is the radiance of My glory and the exact representation of My nature but He became one like you in all things but sin, but though He never sinned, He became sin for you and when He had made purification of sins, He sat down at My right hand. I spoke long ago to the patriarchs in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, but in these last days I have spoken to you in My Son. Hebrews 1:1-3.
Today we continue our series on how to hear My voice with Life Lesson No. 4: “The Word became flesh—God speaks through His Son.”
Moses asked Me to show him My glory. My answer to him was, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the LORD before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.” But “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!” So what was the solution? I offered it, “Behold, there is a place by Me, and you shall stand there on the rock; and it will come about, while My glory is passing by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by.” Exodus 33:19-22. And My servant Paul confirms to you that the rock that followed the Israelites in the desert was Christ. 1 Corinthians 10:4. And when you are “in Christ” you are in the cleft of the Rock and there I show you My glory, which is My goodness. How? By beholding Him. “Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.” John 14:8-10.
So to see Me behold Jesus. “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” John 6:40. And what do you see Jesus doing? Going about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil. You see Him healing the sick, casting out demons, giving sight to the blind, making the lame walk and the deaf hear, giving food to the hungry and mercy to sinners. Giving encouragement, edification, and exhortation. Showing all the way to Me and how to access the Kingdom. Giving parents and siblings back their loved ones from the dead. Embracing and blessing the children. Sharing His wisdom and imparting new life. You see Him expending His life for the good of others. You see Him serving your needs and not seeking that you serve Him. You see Him giving His life as a ransom for all. You see Him forgiving insults, abuse, rejection, and betrayal. You see Him making peace through the blood of the cross in a work of eternal redemption. And you see Him tasting the dust of death and hell for your sins, but you see Him gloriously raised from the dead with all your sins punished and gone. You see Him returning to tell you “Shalom.” All is forgiven, forgotten, and made right between us.
To hear Me, listen to Jesus. You do not have to ask Me if it is My Will to heal you. I already answered you in Jesus. When the leper asked if it was His Will to heal Him, Jesus answered with no hesitation, “I do will it, be cleansed.” And he was healed. When the blind Bartimaeus told Jesus he wanted to see, Jesus answered “Receive your sight.” And so it happened. And as Jesus taught in the synagogue in Nazareth, He opened the scroll of the book of the prophet Isaiah and announced that He came to set you free and heal you. And so it happened.
Do you want to know if I forgive you? Hear Him assuring the woman caught in adultery that He did not condemn her but she was to go and sin no more. And listen to His parables, such as the one about the prodigal son showing you Me as the loving and forgiving father.
Do you want to know if I will provide for you? You have the answer. Jesus told you it pleased Me to give you the Kingdom. He told you that if you seek My Kingdom and righteousness first all will be added that you need. He told you that I am a good Father who gives you what you ask for—that I give you good things. He told you I know what you need before you ask Me and I will supply it. You have heard Me in hearing Him. Read what He is telling you and you are hearing My voice.
You hear Him speaking words of healing, comfort, and encouragement. You hear Him praying for you who will believe in Him through the words of the apostles that you may be one with Me and Him. And you are hearing My heart. You hear His concern over the crowd who had been with Him listening to His teaching for three days and had nothing to eat and you hear His response as He blessed the five loaves and two fish and fed over 5,000 men, not counting women and children. And gave them leftovers. You hear Him answering the concerns of a newly married couple, as brought to His attention by Mary, by giving them gallons and gallons of the finest wine. You hear His teachings on the bread of life, how to pray, how to speak to storms and mountains in your life, and the sermon on the mount. You hear Him blessing, healing, and revealing things to come. You hear His lament over those rejecting Him and His heart of compassion as He wept.
You hear Him calming storms (and asking you why you did not) and rebuking fevers. You see him casting out demons and setting people free. You see Him revealing the secrets of men’s hearts and then you see Him healing the broken hearted, like that woman at the well in Samaria. You see love in action. You see My compassion reaction in Jesus. He had great compassion for the people who came to Him for they were like sheep with no shepherd. So He filled the need and became your great good Shepherd. And He prayed and interceded for you and He still does forever as your great eternal High Priest.
You see Him emptying Himself to give you everything He had, including His righteousness. And in seeing Him you see Me. He became poor so that through His poverty you might become rich. He gave all He had and was to you.
He tells you about faith and how to exercise it. He tells you about what is of greatest importance and what is not important at all. He tells you about the narrow road and the wide one. He tells you how to live and how to die. He tells you how to be fruitful and how to have answered prayers. And what do I say about all that? “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!” Matthew 17:5. For in hearing Him, you are hearing Me.
When Jesus came into the world according to the flesh, “no one had seen God at any time; it was the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has disclosed Him.” John 1:18. Jesus shows you what I am like.
But there is more. He calls you friends. “You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.” John 15:14-15. I was in Christ reconciling you to Myself, not counting your sins against YOU, and I made you My friends. As He is in this world so are you. 1 John 4:17. And Jesus was My friend. I made everything known to Him.
But let us go deeper into the mystery of Christ in you, your hope of glory. In Jesus, I showed you the relationship I want to have with each one of you—the same one I had with Jesus. This is a oneness beyond all you can ask or imagine. Jesus prayed for you to take hold of it, “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected into one, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.” John 17:22-23.
I love you as I loved Jesus. As He is so are you in this world. I want the relationship with each of you I had with Him when He walked in the flesh as one of you. And what relationship is that? It is perfect oneness of God and man. Jesus said the devil had no part in Him that He was one with Me. “The Father and I are one.” I want that seamless oneness with each of you. There is no darkness in Me and when you are in fellowship with Me you too are walking in light alone.
And Jesus heard from Me and I heard from Him continually. There was no interruption in our flow of communication. Remember at the tomb of Lazarus? Then Jesus raised His eyes, and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. I knew that You always hear Me; but because of the people standing around I said it, so that they may believe that You sent Me.” John 11:41-42. Jesus and I spent time together and I showed Him things to do and say, “It was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God. And when day came, He called His disciples to Him and chose twelve of them, whom He also named as apostles.” And I also want to be in constant communication with you. Pray without ceasing. No interruption in our union and communion.
This oneness with Me in love and purpose, like I had with Jesus, starts in your relationship to Jesus but leads you to “grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, Christ,” “until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” Ephesians 4:13-15. Jesus explained that growth, “These things I have spoken to you in figurative language; an hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language, but will tell you plainly of the Father. In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I will request of the Father on your behalf; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came forth from the Father.” John 16:26-28. “Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” John 14:23. It starts with Jesus but its goal is to give you the same relationship with Me that Jesus had on earth. “As He is, so are you in this world.”
You may be thinking that if I love you as I did Jesus I am telling you that you must also be crucified for Me, some have gone so far as to offer themselves up to be “divine victims” of sacrifice to Me to die for others, but this is My answer to you who believe in My Son and it is good news: You already did. For when He died, you died, and when I raised Him up from the dead, I raised you too. Colossians 3:3. In My eyes, everything He did, you did, and where He is now, so are you—seated at My right hand.
I love you just as I love Christ, as if you had died for Me, for in Him, you did.