The greatest prospect ever given to man

It is all too common for people to look at the life of Jesus Christ-even we Christians who hold Him to be sinless, the perfect Man, and the full expression of the Godhead-and miss seeing the wellspring of His incredible life. It is also possible to so overemphasize the deity of Christ that the fact of His humanity is lost sight of. Jesus was a man, a man just like you and me. Yes, He was God, but he was also just a man. He was flesh and bone, he got tired, and he wrestled with every anxiety and temptation known to mankind. Jesus was fully human, the son of man.   

And yet look at the life He lived! He did wonders. He healed the sick. He loved people. He spoke with an authority no one had ever heard before. He threatened the whole superstructure of the religious system. He shook the Empire to its very core.

And He did it all… as a man. Don’t you ever stop to wonder at the source of such an incredible life?

Simply put, the source of the Jesus’ living was the indwelling life of His Father. His own confession-“I do and say nothing but what I see and hear from my Father”-signifies as much. There was a Divine life within the spirit of this simple Nazarene which moved Him to do and say the things He did. What a thought!

But that’s only the half of it. The most incredible prospect ever to graze the consciousness of man is found in what Jesus said in John 6:57:

“As the living Father sent me, and I live by the Father, so whoever feeds on me will live by me!”

Can you see what the Lord is saying here? Basically He is saying that what the Father was to Him He is now to us, and that just as He lived by the life of God in His spirit, we too may live by His life in us! No difference! No separation! No one kind of living for the Lord Jesus and another kind of living for us! The same life Jesus lived by is the life we have to live by as well! What a prospect!

The fact is most of us have never seen this. I can’t tell you how many days of my life I’ve overlooked it. Jesus of Nazareth did not get out of bed each morning and live by a certain ethical code or set of rules. He did not read the scriptures as a manual on “how to be the Son of God.” He enjoyed communion with God in His Spirit as a man just as He did in the eternals before taking on flesh, and His daily living was regulated by the flow of that life within Him. This was His wellspring for being. This too is our source of life. This is the prospect He left us with which we so often overlook. Jesus was a man, and the life He lived came out of this inward fellowship He experienced with His Father. We have been called into the same fellowship. So turn within to your spirit. Quiet yourself and wait before the Lord until you sense the presence of His life deep inside. Behold Him there. Practice turning to Him throughout the day, moment by moment if you can. Let the transformation that comes from this daily exchange be the source of your living just as it was for the Lord.