Recapturing Our Love Affair with Jesus

1992

“Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His likeness which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (2 Cor 3:18)

Do you remember in 2 Corinthians 3 how it speaks of being transfigured or transformed from one degree of glory to another as we behold Him, by the Lord who is the Spirit?

“Not by power, not by might, but by My Spirit says the Lord.”

Several of us were talking last night about some overwhelming temptations and deeply rooted habits of sin in a particular person’s life. He’d had them from his pre-Christ days and I said, “Would you live in whatever kind of sin -- fill in the blank -- and indulge your flesh in this or that way if three or four of us were all right there with you?” And the answer was, “Of course not -- that’s ridiculous.”

I think it’s important for us to come to grips with what this whole concept of Christianity is about. There’s a harmony when you understand that it’s about a recapturing of the fellowship that Adam and Eve had with the Father in the Garden. They walked with Him in the cool of the day through the Garden. That sort of Life is what God wants to restore to this planet.

Remember, Jesus said, “I’m not going to leave you alone. I’m not leaving you as orphans. What I’m going to do is leave My Spirit to be your Companion, your Comforter, the called alongside One, the paraclete-- the One who will always be with you by your side.” The recapturing of the Fellowship in the Garden of Eden is actually the answer to overcoming self-life and sin. It’s to know that in fact He is called alongside us. We wouldn’t possibly do this sin if Jesus were in the room.

If you’re still weak and immature, you might be sharp or frustrated in your temptation and flesh if no one is around. If there were no guests in the house and your spouse or roommate were to do something that was annoying or irritating, you might express a little bit of frustration or impatience with them. You might be a little sharp or hostile in your tone. Yet, if someone was visiting from out of state or even if some brothers and sisters were there, you might just smile and say, “Oh well, I wish you wouldn’t have done that.” You would respond a little bit differently than if no one else was in the room.

Has anybody ever encountered a temptation like that? It’s probably been years now since anything like that has happened, eh? :) We respond to personal relationship, don’t we? When someone’s in the room with us we respond to that. And our standards can be varied if we’re living selfishly and have a low state of spiritual awareness. We act differently. We could actually respond differently if several people that we respected or loved were there versus just ourselves alone with this stumbling block, whatever it is. If you hit your finger with a hammer and nobody’s there, what do you do? If you hit your finger with a hammer and the room is filled with people who have a high spiritual standard, would it be any different? We respond to personal presence.

The restoration of Christianity isn’t just to stack up a whole bunch of do’s and dont’s and obedience to a set of laws. It’s to respond to Jesus as a Person who is currently with us! The presence of Jesus and the restoration of Fellowship is in fact the restoration of Holiness. It’s the restoration of a love affair with Him as a person. It’s the sense or the knowledge of His presence as the called-alongside One “by the Lord who is the Spirit.” “Not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord.”

Turning toward Him in temptation and discussing it with Him, knowing that He is right there with you IS the ability to overcome sin in your life. And you’ll have a thousand times more the ability than if the people who you loved and respected the most were right there with you. So, you wouldn’t oversleep by an hour by beating on the snooze button. You wouldn’t do that if you knew Jesus was waiting for you in the living room. Would you keep beating on that alarm? Of course not! Well, He’s in the room and that’s the point.

The restoration of holiness isn’t the restoration of might and power and will power. It’s the restoration of knowing that He’s a person and He’s Alive and He wants to have a relationship with us. Every time we beat on that snooze alarm or every time we look at our self and love our self or spend affections or build a standard around things that we want to do, we’ve snubbed Him. Every time we build around our rights, our affections, our privileges, our whatever....every time we do that, we’ve snubbed Him. We’ve pushed Him away and haven’t drawn nearer to Him and built a relationship with Him. And in fact we’ve dulled our senses because His Kingdom is not of this world. It’s not something you can see with your physical eyes. You can only see it in the Spirit with the eyes of your heart. “I want you to be able to see with the eyes of your heart,” Paul said. (Ephesians 1:18)

There’s a spiritual awareness that can’t happen when you live in self indulgence. And every time we live in sin and indulge our flesh there’s a cloud that comes over our spiritual eyes and He seems further away and more distant. We’re less able to talk with Him. We’re less able to know Him. We’re less able to actually have a love for Him. He’s a set of principles, He’s an idea, He’s a concept. He’s a “do the right thing.” He’s infringing upon my rights and trying to boss me around. He’s a hard master and reaps where He hasn’t sown.

Our whole understanding of Him as Father is clouded when we give into sin, selfishness, impatience, lust, laziness, fear and all these other things that rob us of our fellowship with Him. What you need to understand is that it’s not by might or power that we overcome sin but by His Spirit. And who is His Spirit? He’s a person, the called alongside One, the Comforter and the Companion that Jesus sent for us to relate to and talk with. When the temptations come, you can either fight it off with will power, or you can just forget about it and dull yourself. Or, you can draw near to Him and discuss it with Him. You know you would never ignore Him if you knew He was right there with you. You wouldn’t possibly do that. Your whole standard would change.

All this was launched last night when someone said, “Never be alone and you won’t give in to those temptations.” That’s probably true but that’s not the goal. That’s only a short cut. The goal is that the Comforter, the called alongside One would be so near and so dear and so close to us in relationship that we know that He is with us. He’s the called alongside One and therefore we have no desire to indulge our flesh.

The brothers and sisters around us are also partakers of the divine nature as Peter said (2 Peter 1). They fellowship with us and share part of His glory and wisdom with us. That’s all part of it, but what if we were all isolated from one another and never had another chance to be near to one another? That’s not desirable and as a rule not His goal for us either. He desires that we be compacted together, joined and knit by every supporting ligament, the hand not saying to the eye, “I have no need of you” but always drawing closer and closer together and sharing the various gifts and fellowship in His Spirit. That’s His goal for us.

But what if we were all by ourselves? You see, the goal of being together is so we could be by ourselves. If I need somebody to call me at 7:30 or 5:30 every morning to get me up, well alright, maybe I would be getting up. But I would be missing something very special and that would be to respond from my own heart to the called alongside One, the Comforter. The reality of His presence and fellowship with His life is all the motivation I need to get up and share a cup of tea with Jesus in His Spirit and to share time with Him as a friend to a friend. That’s the goal of all of this and you have to understand that. The goal isn’t to live a perfect life. The life will take care of itself as we know Him in the inner man. We would never want to do anything that would displease Him or break His heart.

So, it’s not about concepts but about fellowship. “Not by power, not by might but by My Spirit says the Lord.” It’s by relating to Him, as we behold Him, as we look at Him, as we see Him who is invisible, as it says in Hebrews. As we see Him who is invisible and behold Him, we’re transfigured from one degree of glory to another. How? “By the Lord who is the Spirit.” Jesus, what do You think about this temptation I’m feeling right now ? How do You feel about this? Could You show me a way out of this? What do You want me to do right now about this temptation I’m experiencing? This is really hard for me and I want to know how You feel about this. How can we overcome this thing together?”

You won’t be able to do it -- very consistently any way -- by saying, “I’m not going to sin. I’m not going to do it. I refuse to do it. I better go get some people around me.” You’ll not always have that privilege so it isn’t always going to work that way. In fact, you’re not always going to have the motivation to do that. There will be a hole in the motivation to even get anyone around you because of fear or pride or some other thing. satan is very devious, you know? If he wants to wreck you with lust, first he’ll wreck you with pride because then you’ll not be capable of confessing it. You won’t be capable of dealing with it honestly with brothers and sisters because you have too much pride.

You see, satan builds his case very carefully and there’s nothing that can break all of that except for fellowship with the Holy Spirit. A friendship with Jesus of Nazareth living, alive and well at the right hand of the glory of God and the Comforter called alongside bridges that gap to draw us up into the arms of the Father. There isn’t any other Hope apart from that. You have to see it as your personal goal to know Him and experience His Life within you and to experience fellowship with Him in the Spirit. Not by might, not by power but by My Spirit. By the Lord who is the Spirit. He’s the Lord, the Master, the King -- the One that we obey. Obedience is a factor. We have to obey Him.

“Jesus, what do you want me to do? Yes, Sir.” But it isn’t flipping through a Bible trying to find the right principles and beating them into your head. It’s “Jesus, what do You want me to do and I’ll do it. You’re the Lord who is the Spirit.” It’s fellowship and an obedience out of that fellowship and relationship and response to Him as a person. He’s a Friend, but He’s also absolute Lord. It’s not you making yourself to be a god and choosing your own path -- He’s the Lord. And if we respond as a doulos or servant, to Him as Lord and as a friend, then He’ll guide us through this path of life that has frustrated and confused and beat us down again and again. Generation after generation of people just like us have been devastated by the enemy’s attacks and by his beating them around, plowing them under and then causing them to justify. “Oh well, we’re all just sinners saved by grace and it’s ok if we’re lukewarm. Jesus won’t vomit us out of His mouth. That was only for those in Revelation 3. Lukewarmness is ok now.” We have to justify our sin. Either that or be overwhelmed with guilt.

There’s a solution other than justifying sin or being overwhelmed with guilt. It’s learning to see Jesus as a person and walking with Him along the way and discussing with Him the things that are difficult in our hearts. And then to do what He says by the Lord who is the Spirit. “What do You want me to do? Yes, Sir. I know what You want for me is Best and I’m going that way.” And then we share that life with the others around us as a part of that picture as well.

I just feel like I have to say that, that the goal in a word is Fellowship. And in that Fellowship, you wouldn’t do thus and such just as surely as you wouldn’t with two or three dearly beloved and much respected brothers and sisters around you. You wouldn’t let that sharp word come out of your mouth. You wouldn’t let that attitude be expressed. You wouldn’t let that laziness or lust be expressed, just as surely as you would never do it with a room full of people that you love and trusted. Your mind wouldn’t even be on it, would it? You probably wouldn’t even be thinking about it and surely wouldn’t give in to the temptation with a room full of people that you love and trust.

God’s goal for us is the restoration of the fellowship of the Garden of Eden where we walk with Him in the cool of the day through the garden and share with Him that kind of life that sets us Free. You shall know the truth and if the Son sets you free you shall be free indeed. That’s the reality. You shall know the truth, the aletheia, the reality and that reality shall set you free. And if the Son sets you free you shall be free indeed! There’s a lot of Promise and Hope in that.

The generation that God is looking for isn’t a generation of militant people with a principle that’s been riveted into their brain and they act like robots trying to act it out. Rather, it’s a people who are deeply in love with Jesus and know His presence and experience His Life, His Love and His teaching. He is still the Master Teacher. As we rise up, as we sit down and as we walk along the way hand in hand with brothers and sisters He transfigures us from one degree of glory to another. To His own honor and to the glory of God He does that so the people on earth would see that He’s truly Alive. It’s not just a principle we’re living by but it’s a fellowship with the Godhead that we’re living by. There’s a lot of power in that personally and corporately. And that’s what we’re after.