Encouragement

Works of God

by Lawrence Walkup 
09/17/14
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WORKS OF GOD

By

Lawrence Walkup

Jesus Christ gave his life for us, in order to give his life to us, in order to live his life through us. Most of the teaching of Christianity that I've heard deals only with up to the point of Jesus giving his life to us. I've heard only two other men teach that Jesus gave his life to us in order to live his life through us. It's amazing to me that this hasn't been seen, when it is right there in the Scriptures in plain sight. I think the Church throughout its history has been so conditioned to rely on church leadership for the final say so, that they have quit listening to the Holy Spirit wanting to reveal truth. Wouldn't me not listening to the Holy Spirit directly, be the same thing as me having a relationship with my child through another person? God wants a direct relationship with us just like we have a direct relationship with our own child. How does that not make sense when God is the one who created relationships in the first place?

Jesus gave his life to us in order to live his life through us. The example of that is our example himself...Jesus. You do realize that Jesus did not perform one miracle, right? In order to be a legitimate example of how a man is to function in relation to God, Jesus willingly relinquished his diety. Even though he was God, he never acted in the capacity of God. He acted in the capacity of a man like you and I. Now stand back and observe his life and see a demonstration of God's original intent for man. If Adam had never sinned, he then would have also been a demonstration of that. Jesus came to demonstrate to us...first what faith is...and then demonstrate how to exercise that faith in an invisible God. As a man he came to demonstrate through faith, dependency and trust...the works of God the Father. It was God the Father living through Jesus who performed all the miracles of the Gospels (John 14:10-11); (Acts 2:22).

Now that Jesus has showed us, we in turn do with him, as he did with the Father. We through faith, dependency and trust...let Jesus live through us. The process between Jesus and the Father was so natural and done with such ease is why it seems like Jesus performed the miracles. We now with Jesus are to have that same kind of natural and easy relationship. In fact, a perfect illustration of this kind of relationship is found in John 15 when Jesus is talking about the vine and the branches. We as Christians are the branches and Jesus is the vine. The branches are attached to the vine. The branches are only alive because they are connected to the vine...whose life is pulsating through the branches. The life of the branch is in the vine. The natural and easy process is that the branches bear the fruit. They don't do the work; the vine does all the work. The branches simply bear the fruit of the work of the vine. All done so naturally and with such ease.

I know it may seem that I'm harping on this, but maybe it needs to be harped on because the church is still not getting this. I mean look to your own Christian history. What is it that you've heard most of your life? The Catholics still have Jesus on the cross. They haven't gone beyond that because of being sidetracked with Mary. I don't want to be that Christian who has only learned the gospel up to the cross and not beyond it. The point of his resurrection was for us to do just that. If our Christian life is lived only up to the cross then the only real power we possess function wise is ourselves. These are the branches that have dried up and are to be thrown away (John 15:6).

In John 6: 28-29 when Jesus was asked by the crowd: "What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?" 'Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work (singular) of God, that you believe in Him who He has sent."' In order to do the works of God, the first thing you have to do is get God inside of you, which is what would be happening on the day of Pentecost, which this crowd had no clue about. This crowd only knows religious stuff...they themselves working the works of God. No. Jesus is saying to them: 'When you come to find out what I mean by 'believe' then and only then will you be doing the works of God. It is only when you come to find out that God is living in you, for the purpose of living through you, that you will actually be doing the works of God. They are the actual works of God because he is actually doing the work. The vine is doing all the work through you branches that simply bear the fruit. Your concern and only concern is to do the one work of staying attached to me. This is accomplished through faith, dependency and trust in me. From there everything will flow naturally and with ease.'

The crowd had a good excuse because of not knowing the Holy Spirit yet. Yet we the church, who do have the Holy Spirit have a long history of not acting any different from the crowd. We have become complacent in our understanding of the word 'believe' because we have heard it repeated so many times. Believe in the fullest sense of the word means 'life.' It means the Christian Life. It means the life of Christ, and it is only he who can live that life. Get out of his way and let him live it through you!

The works that the Father did through Jesus at the time were physical miracles. They were needed, as far as the people were concerned, to give credibility to Jesus. They were done to draw attention to Jesus, so people would then listen to what he had to say. Once he had their attention, what he had to say was more important than the miracles themselves, because what he had to say brought them salvation (John 6:63). At this time also the very beginning stages of the foundation of the Church are being laid. Jesus being that very foundation...the Rock.

God may not do physical miracles through us because he doesn't need to. If he does or doesn't, isn't our concern. That's his business. The only business we need to be concerned with at our end is making ourselves available. Besides that, the greatest miracle we could ever experience happened when we became born again. Give it some deep thought; God actually lives inside of you!!