And the glory which thou hast given me I have given unto them; that they may be one, even as we are one;

John 17:22

We are to be one with Him.  Whether or not this is attainable in this life in practice is NOT the question, but to deny that it is theologically the goal would only guarantee that no one would try.  You might as well make it your goal, because you’ll get alot further along at it than if you hadn’t.

Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God.”  Pretty simple, we’re all sinners.  But, what does that sin separate us from?  What have we fallen short of?  His Glory of Course!  So, since Romans 3:24 says we are reconciled, it would follow that what we are reconciled to is, of course, His Glory.

Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”

John 14:23

Jesus said that Eternal life is this, to know the only true and living God, and to know Jesus Christ whom he sent (John 17:3).  One of the names of Jesus, given to Mary by the angel was “Immanuel”, meaning, “God With Us.”

The whole meaning of salvation is the restoration of us to God.  God has reconciled himself to us through Christ.  The goal, according to John 17 is that we become one, even as Jesus was one with Him.

Jesus, fully one with Him,  still prayed to the Father.  Jesus still submitted to the Father, and, though He was God Himself, He was man, and lived as a man.  Somehow, He was both here AND there, as John 3:13 indicates (“the son of man who is in heaven”, as some translations have, and some leave out).

The mystery is this, how can we be with Him, and He with us, both here and one with Him there?  The mystery is, how can he be on earth and in heaven?  Where is heaven?  What is heaven?  What is this Eternal life to look like?  If flesh and blood will not inherit the Kingdom, is it even perceivable from here, or, is it complete mystery?  Yet, Paul wrote, that while before Christ, it did not even enter the mind of man what God had prepared for those who love Him, we who are in Christ now DO know, because we have the mind of Christ, we do have the Spirit, and it searches all things (1 Corinthians 2:9-10).

This is the mystery, that we can be one with the Father, even now.  One with the son, even now.  This is the humility of the Gospel, that God dwells within.

You see, we are not our own anymore.  We are bought with a price, and, even as after God slew the first born of all of Egypt to liberate the Israelites, He expected all of their first born as well, God gave His own life, the life of His Son, and now expects not only our lip service, but our whole hearts, for, whatever has your heart has all of you.  It is the wellspring of all life (Proverbs 4:23).

This is the verdict, that light came into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil.

John 3:19

The result, plain and simple, that our flesh was not slightly bad, but was thoroughly corrupt.  We were fully dead in our own trespasses and sins, not sick, but dead.  God didn’t come to prop up the corpse, or to re-animate it.  He came to kill us, the old us.  For, it is written, we were co-crucified with Christ, and it is no longer us that live, but it is Christ that lives in us (Galatians 2:20, paraphrase, portion).  The word for crucified is “co-crucified”, meaning, the cross upon which Jesus hung is the cross where my body of sin hung, and it is dead, buried with Christ, so that I am I am now raised and seated with Christ now.

[A]nd, confessedly, great is the secret of piety — God was manifested in flesh, declared righteous in spirit, seen by messengers, preached among nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory!

1 Timothy 3:16 YLT

God wants to be one with us, to be with us, and in us, and move through us.  He didn’t come to fix us, He came to give us life in His Son.  And, the only way to do that, married to the law as we were, was to kill us  (Romans 7).  The life we live, we live not to our selves, unto God, fully servants, fully bound to His love that contrains, governs, rules, and controls us.  Our only right is this, “Jesus is Lord!”

We are are both individually and corporately temples of the Holy Spirit.  He choses to indwell us, to renew us, to change us.  He desires to have our full attention.

If we have not seen ourselves fully “there” yet, it is probably due to some level of unforgiveness.  If we don’t see it as deeply broadly in ourselves enough yet, it is probably a need for some deeper level of reliance upon Him.  If we don’t understand, He will make it clear in time, so long as we continue to see Him to be perfected in us.

The salvation to which we cling is knowing God and Jesus.  It is in knowing Him, creator, author, sustainer, perfect, holy, gentle, humble, strong, righteous, perfect, and beautiful by which we live.

It is in living in His Presence daily, flowing in His Anointing constantly, and abiding in His Words consistently, that we are His Disciples, and we are truly followers of Christ.

If we are not there, we must seek until He comes.  We must cry out, out of desperation, until we taste of His sweet honey, until we eat of His true counsel and eat of the Bread of Life.

Without trying to question the legitimacy of any believer, have you really tasted of that vine?  Do you continue to every day?  Does it strengthen your heart?  Does it satisfy you?  Does it change you?  Is the life of God flowing through your body, your mind, your soul, like a river all the time?

If not, why not?  If someone distracts, stop it.  If you find it undesirable, take some lessons from Luke 14:26, and hate that part of you.  If you think something else, mixed with God, will be better, go read Matthew 13:44, enough times to convince yourself that you’re wrong.  The Word says “sold all”, because it simply could not compare with the treasure.  God doesn’t want to be your primary husband, he wants to be your ONLY husband.  He doesn’t want you to have a lover on the side, He wants to be your all in all.  And, if He allows you comfort by enjoying something along the way, it is always within Himself, stemming from Him indwelling you and you indwelling Him, and never separate.

His word, His love, His Spirit, dwelling in us to change us, to motivate, to equip and sustain us.

My proposal is this…  If we were created to live in fellowship with His glory, and sin took us from it (Romans 3:23), and Jesus has paid the price to reconcile us back to Himself, then what remains is a walk, fully justified, but one of continually being changed from glory to glory, until we are like Him.  That, except by fact of length of life, we come to be like Him in this life.  Not out of legal requirement any longer, but solely as our only devotion, our only desire, and our only passion.  We, who were so created to be in union with Him from the beginning have been given a new chance at this, and yet, it is only by hotly pursuing His heart out of purest love, begun by Him, that we are made perfect.

This is the beginning and the end of the matter, and the direct desire of our Lord Jesus Christ.  To stay “merely saved” is a glorious thing, but let us never ever again be entangled by the things of this Earth, as if they are worthy of our attention.  Only His glory, the thing to which we have access to once again, is worth anything anymore.  Let us know Him, even as we are fully known, so much as our lifetime permits.