Being one with Jesus is our goal. This we must understand, grasp, desire and move toward. Being one with Jesus is not something we do hidden away somewhere. It is perfected in the ugliness, the noise and confusion of life.
Oneness requires us to be free from everything that would lay claim to us. It does not mean that we have no interaction with these things. We just lower their importance to the place where they have no power over us and we can take or leave them at will.
Oneness is taking place as we come to realize, accept and revel in the fact that everything we require to exist, flourish and become our potential is found only in Jesus Christ. This means that everything else becomes mere shadows, lacking importance or substance to us. We are content with whatever we have in the moment with no fear of not having it in the next because the one thing we need and can never afford to lose can never be taken from us because he promised he wasn't going anywhere.
This is the reason why Jesus said it is hard for those who are rich to enter in. They cannot imagine being without their wealth. To enter in, this wealth must become like smoke to them, no substance and the only thing to have substance must become their only reality. But this is true of many things that lie to us, that tell us we can't live without them.
Family.
Drugs.
Friends.
Alcohol.
Sex.
Careers.
Social media.
Education.
Books.
Sports.
Politics.
Television / Movies / Music / Dance / Theatre / Art
If these are not like smoke to you; if you cannot imagine being without them in the next moment; if you can't imagine existing in a world without them, how do you expect to enter in? Oneness with Jesus comes at a cost but those who discover the truth of the relationship are willing to pay any price to possess it.
But we don't see it this way. We don't see our love for Jesus reducing everything else to wispy smoke.
We live in a fantasy of having the world and Jesus. We live in the illusion of a divided heart. We conveniently skip over the parts where Jesus tells us there is a cost to following him. We like listening to those who want us to believe there is value in all this other stuff. We want to live heaven now among things that are mere shadows of what is coming by giving them substance, allowing them value, allowing them to lay claim to us.
Oneness with Jesus is his expressed prayer for us. In this oneness his will is all we desire. In this oneness we understand value. In this oneness we gladly accept as he moves smokey things in and out of our lives. What is that to us? The only thing of value to us is he himself and he isn't going anywhere. He promised. He is the air in our lungs, the reason for the beat of our heart and the cause of the electrical pulsing of our brain.
If only we could grasp this. If only we would decide to live in his realty for us and leave the shadowy things where they belong. If only we would live with a heart fully possessed by the one who longs to possess it. If only we could walk in a concrete world as citizens of the land of oneness with Christ.
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