Exploring Jesus

What is the purpose of this compilation of teaching and song? To incite a riot in each person's heart to love, adore, worship, appreciate, and magnify Jesus... To explore the depths of His wisdom, His love, His righteousness, His peace, His patience, and His goodness... To refocus and so bring forth that fruit of true Christianity in each of our lives...

God's heart is that it not be a doing and not doing, believing and not believing sort of Christianity, but that our hearts and minds and wills would be melted into His. Not that there wouldn't be challenges, not that there wouldn't be temptations and failures from time to time, but that as a way of life our hearts and minds and personalities are melted into His. Paul wrote, "I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to Him" (2 Corinthians 11:2)-and in any marriage, "the two become one." That is God's heart for us—not just that we'd struggle through a "Christian life," but that His personality would become ours.

"Christ in you" is "the hope of glory." Christ for you is good; He can deliver us from our sins and help us in our weaknesses. But it doesn't say "Christ for you, the hope of glory." It also doesn't say, "Christ with you, the hope of glory," although He is our companion and friend. It doesn't even say "Christ upon you, the hope of glory"—Christ empowering us to do mighty exploits and to perform miracles. The most glorious promise in all of the New Covenant is to be "a partaker of the divine nature," "Christ in you, the hope of glory." It's the ability to conquer bad attitudes and moods, to withstand being pushed to and fro by persecution and failure, to not let business matters crush us or personality differences weigh us down and cause us to be less than loving with others. Christ in you causes us to keep God's commands and decrees (Ezekiel 36:27). That's the nature of the New Covenant and the hope of our inheritance!