Welcome to Episode #135 of Way of the Bible podcast. This is our seventh of eight episodes in our seventeenth mini-series, The Man Jesus Christ.
So far in this mini-series we’ve looked at the divinity of Jesus, his incarnation and early life, his transition into public ministry, his big Miracle Extravaganza splash, and the calling of his first disciples. On this episode we’re going to look at the Ministry of Jesus among the people.
I’ve also been addressing on this mini-series my own spiritual transformation. I’ve been a born-again Holy Spirit filled believer of Jesus Christ for almost thirty years. And for thirty years before that a believer in Jesus, but I did not know him. While producing and recording the earliest episodes of this podcast I began tracking the relationship of good and evil in regard to intimacy with God. What I discovered by the end of the Old Testament was intimacy with God was hindered by sin. Sin fosters lack of belief and disobedience of God’s commands. It all goes back to God’s counsel of Cain (see Gen 4:7).
I had a gut check when I finished the Old Testament. I believed in God and what he has done, is doing, and will do through Jesus Christ. Yet I did not feel the intimacy I knew others had written of feeling. Think of Teresa of Avila, John Wesley, Brother Lawrence, George Muller, Jonathan Edwards, George McDonald, C.S. Lewis, Mother Teresa, Dallas Willard, Eugene Peterson. What did they know that I didn’t. What had they encountered with God that I had not.
Now that I know what I know now [that which I did not know before I knew what I now know] is something I knew others had experienced but I thought was just for the “super” saints. Continual, weekly, daily, hourly, moment by moment intimacy with God our Father through Jesus Christ our Lord. Then I started with the New Testament.
When I started with the New Testament, I continued looking for good and evil in relationship to intimacy with God and also began including belief and obedience. It was a muddled picture until I hit the book of Romans. Paul laid it all out for both good and evil and belief and obedience. Intimacy is directly related to belief and obedience. By the power of the Holy Spirit temptations and desires to do evil and “sin” are muted while eagerness and earnestness in doing good are amplified.
There is a whole lot there, much more than can be covered in one mini-series much less the introduction to one episode. Let me cut this short and say I crested the mountain when I got to Ephesians 4:11-13 – And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
Paul was saying we are all to attain ultimately to the fullness of Christ. That is Union with God in-Christ; something that Jesus prayed for all believers in John 17. If we are all to attain to the fullness of Christ “ALL” includes all believers not just “super” saints. I’m one of the “ALL” so how do I get to Union with God?
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