I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was. John 17:4-5.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
I formed you in My own image and likeness so we could link and become as one. It is not good to be alone. I made you to partner with Me in true fellowship in the most intimate sense of knowing, where each glorifies the other in true respect, honor, love, trust, and faithfulness. A relationship where each one knows beyond a doubt that the other has their best interests at heart and would never harm them or forsake them.
Adam broke that link by the treachery of sin and created a resistance and division between man and God. I tried to bridge that gap with calling you back to Myself in Covenant but the sin was still there, hence came the burnt offering, the sin offering, and the peace offering. But these lacked eternal blood and could not actually take away sin, only cover it on credit by faith until the real price due was paid by the eternal blood of My Son.
My plan from the foundation of the world, which is now in place for you, was to link you back into Me by linking you to My Son who would cleanse you and release you from your sins by His eternal blood poured out in His offering of Himself once for the sins of all.
Thus, I call you to link back with Me through fellowship with My Son.
I thank God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, that in everything you were enriched in Him, in all speech and all knowledge, even as the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you, so that you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. 1 Corinthians 1:4-9.
It is My doing that you are in Christ Jesus. I was in Christ reconciling the world to Myself in and through Him. I accounted all your sins to Him and all His goodness and purity to you and in that way I can pull you back into Me through Him as holy, blameless and without reproach before Me. In other words, as if sin had never been.
But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.” 1 Corinthians 1:30-31.
For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven. And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach. Colossians 1:19-22.
I gave you My own righteousness in Him in exchange for your unrighteousness. And then I took care of the verdict against you for sins by letting it fall on Him as your substitute, representative, sin offering, guilt offering, and scapegoat. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Corinthians 5:21.
So I draw you to Jesus to link you with Him and then in Him you are cleansed and made righteous, born again from above, and then He links you back with Me in the oneness of perfect unity.
“Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, although the world has not known You, yet I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me; and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” John 17:24-26.
No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. John 6:44.
I give you to Jesus to cleanse, make whole, and make into kings and priests unto Me to reign with Me forever.
Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood—and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father. To Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen. Revelation 1:5-6.
So you see the full circle of the end from the beginning. In Adam, you began linked as one with Me, but He severed that and unlinked himself and all those born of his corrupted seed, which by submitting to a lie birthed him anew from below of perishable seed that brought in death to all his descendants according to the flesh. But in My great and everlasting love for you I desired to link you back into Me as if sin had never been, so I sent My eternal Son as birthed from My Word with an eternal life to give for the one you lost and I called you to link (the word in the original Greek of the New Testament is “koinónia (κοινωνία),” which means partnership, contributory help, participation, sharing in, communion, fellowship in the spirit) with Him so that cleansed, forgiven, and made right with Me in Him, He could link you back in to Me in Him—perfectly One again through My Son just as you had begun.
But there is more, now that you are linked back with Me you, as the Body of Christ, the Church in the world, are called to link the world back to Me!
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Corinthians 5:17-21.
“Draw me after you and let us run together! The king has brought me into his chambers. We will rejoice in you and be glad; we will extol your love more than wine. Rightly do they love you.” Song of Songs 1:4.
Now, that said, I think you understand much better the prayer of Jesus to Me and the inclusion of all of you therein at the close of the Passover Seder the night He was betrayed just before going from the upper room to continue the conversation with Me, and His disciples, in the Garden of Gethsemane. And I would like to return to the beginning of that conversation with you in this lesson as well. There are many truths hidden within the depths of this prayer of which I want you to be aware.
Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was. John 17:1-5.
In our prior Life Lessons we went through the definition of eternal life, though there is always another level to consider. Today let us begin with what follows:
I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was. John 17:4-5.
I have plans that outnumber the sand for each of you. And that is because your life with Me is forever. The number of the grains of sand in the world, though it is impossible for man to count them, is finite and does have a number that I know for I have all the earth measured in perfection and accounted for since the beginning. But though all measured and set out orderly by Me, forever, that is eternity, has no end. And My plans for you are forever.
However, the work I have planned out for each one of you in this world, as you know it now, is finite and you can finish it. You each have a life of good deeds that I have created for you in Christ Jesus from before the world began that is all prepared in advance for you to walk it out. But whether you make the choice to walk out that plan or go another way is up to you. My apostle Paul, once Jesus had appeared to him in a post-resurrection conversation, kept to his assignment with enthusiastic joy.
For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing. 2 Timothy 4:6-8.
You have the freedom to choose the pathway upon which you walk out your days in this world. Adam and Eve did not live out the plan I had for them and you see it had disastrous results for them and all their descendants. Watch carefully how you live, it has vast repercussions. They started out well, as Saul (the first king of Israel), Solomon, and Judas did, but none of those finished well. And the finish is more important than the start. But the best is to start well, maintain it throughout life, and finish well. And that is just what Jesus did and I am seeking to conform you all to the image of Christ. And the good news is that I have given you Jesus that you might live your life through Him. Even now, if you will receive the gift of righteousness in Him and the abundance of grace you can reign in life through Christ Jesus your Lord and finish well no matter where you began or how much off course you have gone. Just link back in.
Jesus knew His hour had come and His work of redemption was soon to be accomplished. In fact, He sealed it that night at the Seder with His blood and in the Garden of Gethsemane by taking all your sins into His own sinless and eternal flesh as your sin offering before Me. And so He spoke to Me as He lifted His gaze to Me:
“I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.” John 17:4-5.
When you purposely walk out My plan for your life with love and trust you glorify Me upon the earth by accomplishing the good deeds I planned for you to do.
“You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” Matthe 5:14-16.
Jesus preached and taught the good news of the Kingdom, of salvation, of eternal life, and He healed the sick, provided for the needy, cleansed the lepers, forgave sinners and called them to follow Him, made the mute to hear and the dumb to speak, opened blind eyes, brought the lame to walk and the maimed to be made whole, raised the dead and gave children back to their grieving parents, cast out demons, crushed the head of the devil, and demonstrated to all that I was with them and nothing was impossible for Me. Wherever He went, lives were changed, the lost were found, and new life, hope, and peace was given to all who would receive Him. He came to bless you and He did that. He came to give you abundant life that overflows, and He did that. He came to save you from your sins, and He did that. He did everything and more that I had revealed the Messiah would do. He fulfilled all of the prophecy of Isaiah that He read at the opening of His public ministry in Nazareth. He alone is the master teacher and all of you are His students.
His life glorified Me. Does yours in what you say and do? Jesus was very careful about how He spoke and where He walked each day. He kept on course and let no distractions from worldly people take Him off His path. He had a journey to make and nothing was going to stop Him, no matter how fierce the opposition was.
He had set His face like flint.
“The Lord LORD has given Me the tongue of disciples, that I may know how to sustain the weary one with a word. He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear to listen as a disciple. The Lord LORD has opened My ear; and I was not disobedient nor did I turn back. I gave My back to those who strike Me, and My cheeks to those who pluck out the beard; I did not cover My face from humiliation and spitting. For the Lord LORD helps Me, therefore, I am not disgraced; therefore, I have set My face like flint, and I know that I will not be ashamed.” Isaiah 50:4-7.
And from the beginning those who linked with Me have committed to My plan for their lives in season and out of season, in times of praise and in times of persecution. Daniel let them throw him in a den of hungry lions rather than stop worshipping Me each day in prayer. And the same for his three companions who went into a fiery furnace rather than bow to an idol in worship. And many today, go weeks, sometimes years, some a lifetime, without praying or conversing with Me in any meaningful manner. People perish for lack of knowledge, but many have rejected knowledge.
Jesus told the Pharisees and priests that I was with Him because He always did what was pleasing to Me. And you know what pleases Me: faith and obedience to My Word by faith. And what do I tell you My Will for you is in Christ Jesus? To rejoice always, pray without ceasing and give constant thanks. Jesus did just that and it kept Him right on course to the finish line. Faith keeps you rejoicing in My promises that are sure to come to pass (such as healing, provision, all working together for good for those who love Me and are called according to My purpose, forgiveness, prosperity, shalom). Praying without ceasing give you the answers you seek and the solutions to all things that rise against you and keeps you strong in hope of the manifestation of the promise received in your spirit by faith as you speak it out and cast your cares on Me. And giving thanks constantly is the expression of love for all that I have promised, have done, am doing, and will do in your life. It is the giving of thanks that seals the harvest of the seed of the promise in which you have put your hope by faith.
How are you sure that you are on the right path that I have set out of you? Simple: Rejoice always, pray without ceasing and give constant thanks, and I will lead you and guide you to all truth and the truth will set you free to be the wonderful you that I made you to be.
I love you. Look up at Me and smile (take off your worried frown) and your faces will never be ashamed. You will be radiant. And that is My Will for your life—that you let My light in you and on you shine upon the path to Me in the darkness of the worldly. Link in the world to Me by love, My love shining in you.