There is one “either/or”
scenario that never sits right with me. It is characterized by statements like,
“It’s all about me,” vs, “It’s not about you.” It is the belief that the
highest experience of knowing God involves the deepest experience of losing ourselves.
Obviously, if we are only able to be about one person at a time, we will either
be about Christ, or we will be about ourselves.
At times,
this Either/Or exclusivity is validated with John the Baptist’s expression
that, “He must increase, but I must
decrease.”[1]
The sense is that we must choose between whether it is about us, or whether it
is about Jesus (whatever “it” is).
When we take
a step back from misapplied quotes like the words of John the Baptist, we
discover that the Bible is not written in Either/Or terms. It is written in a
mindset of fellowship that can only be understood as This/And. Scripture tells
us that there is a “this” we can focus on at the same time as there is an “and”
that goes along with it every single time.
John 15:11
gives us a wonderful demonstration of this. Jesus said, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that
your joy may be full.” When a disciple is conscious that Jesus is speaking,
he is also conscious that his own ears, and heart, are hearing. When people are
conscious that Jesus is speaking, but with no consciousness that they are
hearing, we call them deaf.
In this
relationship where we are conscious of Jesus speaking, and conscious of
ourselves hearing, there is a wonderful thing that happens. Through receiving Jesus’
words in the conscious-of-each-other way of fellowship, Jesus’ joy may be in
us, and our own joy may be full.
It is
impossible for us to have Jesus’ joy in us and not be conscious we have Jesus’
joy in us. In Jesus’ own words, we are
able to be conscious that his joy is in us, and that our own joy is filled to
the full. Knowing the joy of Jesus means knowing our own joy in Jesus at the
same time. We cannot “rejoice in the Lord
always,”[2]
without knowing we are rejoicing, and that it is in our Lord and Savior that
our joy is filling up.
Jesus was not
introducing a distinctive characteristic that would sometimes happen, but one
that is universal, all the time, for every Christian, in every situation. We
would always be able to have an experience of Jesus Christ where his joy and
our joy were fully conscious of each other at the same time.
This This/And
focus begins in the very first chapter of the Bible. Genesis 1 begins with, “In the beginning God…”[3]
and leads to the final work of creation in which, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male
and female he created them.”[4]
From that point on, everything God’s book reveals to us is a relationship
between God and man in which both are always fully aware of each other.
Of course,
sin came into the picture very quickly and ruined the fellowship.[5] However,
God’s work of redemption continues to tell us how much God is focused on us in
order that we can know him in his knowing of us. We cannot dissociate from how
we feel when we set our minds and hearts on him, since focusing on his glory
causes all kinds of good and wonderful feelings to take place inside us. We
cannot delight ourselves in the LORD without also feeling that he is satisfying
us on the inside with the real desires of our hearts.[6]
Why is this
so important to me? Because the Either/Or mindset robs us of the personal
experience of our joy filling up as we focus on Jesus’ words that fill us with
his joy. If we think we must deny our joy while focusing on his joy, we lose
the gift of God so graciously given to us. How can we so focus on God’s work
that we are unaware of ourselves when God’s work is for our joy?
Think of it
this way: God the Father and God the Son are always fully aware of each other.
They always know each other. They know and are known all the time, in a level
of perfection that we cannot comprehend.
The Triune
God made us in their image (note the plural “OUR
image and likeness” of Genesis 1:26-27). Their image includes relationship
in the very essence of who God is. None of the members of the Godhead, Holy
Spirit included, are ever unaware of themselves in their being aware of the
other two. They share a God-consciousness that is supposed to be in us as well.
God so loved the world that he gave us his Son in order that we would not
perish but have eternal life,[7]
and Jesus said that eternal life is to know God the Father and God the Son.[8]
Which means
that, Jesus wants us to know that his joy is in us, and he wants us to feel our
joy rising to the full. It isn’t just about his joy, and it isn’t just about
our joy. It is a fellowship in which, when his sheep hear his voice, his words
cause his joy to enter us, and permeate us through and through, resulting in us
being fully aware that our own joy is coming to life, and growing, and
maturing.
In the same
way as a branch abides in the vine, and the vine sends life into the branch,
the believer in Jesus Christ is always aware of himself and God at the same
time. We are conscious of how we work out our salvation with fear and trembling
as we are also conscious of how God is working in us both to will and to work
for his good pleasure.[9]
Whether we
think of Isaiah knowing how he felt as he witnessed the glorious holiness of
God,[10]
or Peter being fully conscious of what he felt inside himself the moment he saw
Jesus looking at him after the rooster crowed,[11]or
Job regretting that he had ever spoken a word questioning God the moment that
God began speaking to him,[12]
or the “sinful” woman knowing the salty release of her tears as she came into
the house overwhelmed with her love for Jesus,[13]
or how Jacob felt while wrestling with the angel of the LORD and his hip
suddenly went out of joint,[14]
or the way David felt in himself as he poured out his heart to God in songs of
worship,[15]
the consistent picture in Scripture is that, ever since Jesus breathed life
into the corpse he had made out of the dust of the earth,[16]
man’s consciousness of God has always made us conscious of ourselves at the
same time.[17]
Some time
ago, while completing a series on the first chapter of Genesis, I suddenly
realized that there was a distinct message in the creation account that began
with, “in the beginning God,”[18]
and ended with God creating man in his own image and likeness.[19]
The message about God was that he is the center of everything, and the message
about man was that we are the center of his attention.
Ever since
that time, I have been growing in my understanding and appreciation of the
fellowship that God wants with his people. John describes it as, “that which we have seen and heard we
proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed
our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.”[20]
The apostles wrote the churches so that everyone could share in a fellowship
with each other, and with the Father and Son, at the same time. John continued
writing this letter with many assurances of how we could know we were part of
this wonderful fellowship. He wanted us to experience the feeling, the certainty,
of knowing we had fellowship with God.
And then John
tells us what he was aiming for in his letter. He said, “And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.”[21]As
we saw earlier, Jesus had told John, along with the other apostles, that the
things he had spoken to them on this night of his arrest were for his joy to be
in them, and their joy to be full. John fulfilled his apostolic ministry by writing
those things that would complete the joy of Jesus’ brothers.
The reason we
cannot separate our joy from Jesus’ joy is because God created us to be in his
image, and in fellowship with him. The more conscious we become of him, the
more conscious we become of our own joy in him.
This also
explains why so many people talk about facing deep, inner troubles as soon as
they begin opening up their hearts to God. The explanation? That Jesus, in order
to bring us to have wonderful fellowship in his joy, must bless us with the
consciousness of our poverty of spirit, and bring us to mourn anything that is
empty of knowing him, and lead us to that meekness that agrees with him that we
can do nothing to fix what is wrong within our souls, and to awaken within us a
hunger and a thirst for the righteousness we see in him, joyful as it is, only
experienced by faith in him and his salvation.
When we have
felt this transformational work, what I refer to as the Beatitudinal Valley, we
understand why we must feel the weight of our distance from God if we ever want
to know what closeness feels like. We must feel the weight of our emptiness if
we will ever know the satisfaction of fullness. We must know what poverty of
spirit feels like on our way to experiencing the richness of Christ in us, the
hope of glory.
I will leave
it at that for now. I hope that you can see that knowing God is not a matter of
being conscious of him and unconscious of ourselves. To know God in the eternal
life he has given us means that the more we truly know him, the more we know
that we know him. He wants us to be fully aware that we are his beloved
children so that we are able to imitate the wonderful gift of love he has given
us in his Son.[22]
So, seek to
enjoy God with all your heart. Listen to Jesus’ words so that his joy can be in
you, and your joy can be full. Read I John (along with all the apostolic
letters, of course) and see what fellowship you can have with the apostles in
their writing that brings us into deeper and better fellowship with the Father
and the Son, and an ever increasing awareness of how wonderfully good this
fellowship is.
One day, any
experiences of this fellowship of joy will be superseded by the perfections of
heaven where, as Paul put it, “then I
shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”[23]The
best thing to do while waiting for that grand crescendo eternity of knowing God
is seek to know him so fully now that we cannot separate how much we are feeling
Jesus’ joy, and how much we are feeling our own. God’s will is that both happen
at the same time, so let’s enjoy them both rather than trying to decide which
one to focus on.
© 2015 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517,
Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted,
Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good
News Publishers.)
[1]
John 3:30
[2]
Philippians 4:4
[3]
Genesis 1:1
[4]
Genesis 1:26-27
[5]
Genesis 3
[6]
Psalm 37:4
[7]
John 3:16
[8]
John 17:3
[9]
Philippians 2:12-13
[10]
Isaiah 6:1-5
[11]
Luke 22:60-62
[12]
Job 40:3-5
[13]
Luke 7:36-50
[14]
Genesis 32:22-32
[15]
I’m quite sure that any of David’s psalms would do.
[16]
Genesis 2:7; John 1:1-3; Colossians 1:15-17
[17]
Who can enter into the beauty of Psalm 8:1-9 without feeling wonderful things
at the same time as consciously recognizing wonderful things in God?
[18]
Genesis 1:1
[19]
Genesis 1:26-27
[20]
I John 1:3
[21]
I John 1:4
[22]
Ephesians 5:1-2
[23]
I Corinthians 13:12
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