We understand that the whole purpose of the Day of Atonement, preceding the Feast of Tabernacles, was that there should be the goat of removal, Azazel (Leviticus 16:10, NAS, ASV). This meant that Aaron the high priest laid his hands on a male goat and confessed the sins of the Israelites over that scapegoat, which was then led out into a wilderness place and released (Leviticus 16:8–10, 21–22, 26). This was done, as we read in Hebrews 10:1, every year because it was only a type of something to come. There was no permanence to its cleansing. But the Lord Jesus Christ came, in order that by one sacrifice He might forever perfect them that are being sanctified (Hebrews 10:14).
Perfection was what God had in mind—to bring us right up into a state of total, absolute perfection; and that is almost repugnant to our human nature at first. It is offensive to the majority of Christians. If you talk about perfection, they say, “We all sin a little bit every day.” But that does not have to be true. This is the announcement that came in the first chapter of Matthew: … thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins. Matthew 1:21, KJV. And again, in the first chapter of John, this is the first announcement that was given by John the Baptist: … Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. John 1:29, KJV. He takes sin away!
We are living in the generation when we might well think of these things, for the coming of the Lord will trigger off a number of events, including that raging of Satan, who knows his time is short, being bound and put into the abyss (Revelation 12:12; 20:1–3). Principalities and powers will be brought down and broken, and sin will be removed until people’s inclinations will be changed. The house of the Lord will be established above the mountains, and all the people will flow into it (Isaiah 2:2). There will be an upward gravity, spiritually, instead of the downward pull that we know now. We are looking forward to this. And everyone who is looking for His coming, the Word says, “purifieth himself, even as He is pure” (I John 3:2–3).
In order to make this very plain, we need to see the true and mystical interpretation of the fourteenth chapter of John. We will see exactly what Jesus was talking about when He gathered His disciples together and told them He was going to leave them, and yet He was also going to come again (John 14:2–3). He said, “In a little while, you won’t see Me; and yet, then again, you will see Me” (John 16:17). What He was speaking about was very difficult for the disciples to understand. And, of course, the King James Version confuses us by translating a Greek word as “mansions” in the second verse: In my Father’s house are many mansions …
Does this mean we don’t have a mansion in heaven? No! But that is not what this passage of scripture is speaking about. I had a close friend who was a missionary in Africa, he had to go through some very difficult things here on earth, his fiancé died right before he was supposed to get married. But he would go to heaven almost every night when he went to sleep and told me how his fiancé, Suzan and other family’s members were building his mansion in heaven, in some detail. And he fulfilled his ministry in earth and went to be with the Lord and is living in his mansion right now.
But this is an atonement message. The Holy Spirit is working in your life to remove from you every imperfection, to bring you up to a certain spiritual dwelling place. John chapter 14 begins with the Lord Jesus saying to His disciples, “Let not your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places …” Verses 1–2.
Let’s stop interpreting this in human terms of many different mansions. You say, “Oh, the way I’ve been living, I will be lucky to get a little cubicle up there. But I know somebody who probably will get a three-story mansion.” Or, if you believe that the resurrected saints are going to live with God upon this earth a thousand years, you may figure that there will be mansions involved in it. But the future physical existence is not at all what God is concerned about here. Our Lord Jesus was not speaking about things on the natural plane; He was speaking about something else entirely.
From the fourteenth chapter of John to the end of His prayer in the seventeenth chapter, Jesus spoke about those who believe in Him coming into the glory that He had with the Father “before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24).
In the fifteenth chapter, He spoke about learning to abide in Him (John 15:4–10). In the sixteenth chapter, where He was speaking about the Holy Spirit, He said that the Spirit of truth was given to bring you into a certain place, a higher level—“to guide you into all the truth, to take all the things that I have and make them real to you, to manifest them to you” (verses 13–15). He was not talking about how you are to move into a mansion. If it were that sort of thing, you could call a moving company, and they would move you there. He was talking about a spiritual state or level that the Holy Spirit is going to help or guide you into.
“In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.” (“Wasn’t all that created in the physical creation at the dawn of history?” No, He was speaking about a spiritual abiding place.) “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” John 14:2–3.
Notice the phrase ” that where I am.” The word “am” is in the present indicative tense (the present indicative asserts something which is occurring while the speaker is making the statement.) So what Jesus was saying is the spiritual level I am living on right now with the Father, there you may be also. Because I am going to heaven to make atonement for your sins. And am going to prepare a spiritual dwelling place for you- (Ephesians 2: 6 and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.)
This is our objective! “Mansions” are not the objective for His disciples. He was saying, “In My Father’s house there are many different abiding places. I am preparing a place for you, so that where I am, the spiritual level that I am on, you can be also.” The place where the Son abides with the Father, there you can be. How does He prepare a place for us? He ever lives to make intercession for us, to save us to the uttermost (Hebrews 7:25).
Jesus went on to tell us, “As you keep My commandments and obey Me, then My Father will love you. My Father and I will make Our abode with you” (John 14:21, 23). “Then you will find, son, that you will be lifted right up to a higher level, and there you will dwell with the Father and Me.” That is the abiding place Jesus was talking about—far above the different levels and abiding places that people sometimes settle on.
He is saying to us, “Come on up higher, that where I am, there you may be also.” He wants us to be walking with Him. He said, “The glory that Thou hast given Me, Father, I have given to them; that they all may be one” (John 17:22).
We need to read the fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth chapters of John all over again. Jesus was saying to his disciples then and is saying to us, “I am showing you this now. And you know the way that I am going.”
How far off Thomas was when he said, “Lord, we know not where You are going, and how can we know the way?” Jesus made it very simple: “I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes” (to “their mansions”? -No!) “To the Father, but through Me” (John 14:3–6). He is lifting us up.
One of the greatest ideas that God has for us is the idea which the Feast of Tabernacles represents—God dwelling with us, with all of His glory. Jesus told the Father, “I have given them the glory We had, that they may all be one, that the world will believe that Thou hast sent Me” (John 17:21–22).
John 14:7–11: “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.” Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how do you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me; otherwise believe on account of the works themselves.” He is making it very plain: “You are going to come to the Father.”
Where is the Father? “Oh, we thought He was off in glory someplace where all those mansions are.” No! He was speaking about different abiding places. Where is it that we are to be? Is it far off, or isn’t God right with us now? Isn’t He wanting to fill us with all of His fullness now? (Ephesians 3:19.) It is not far off. The atonement was to bring us into that purity. But more than just the elimination of the negative, it was to open the door for people to live with God.
And when this very thing of atonement is described in the ninth and the tenth chapters of Hebrews, the whole idea is that now Christ has opened up “a new and a living way” (Hebrews 10:19–20). The veil was rent from the top to the bottom (Matthew 27:50–51), and “a new and living way” into that highest plane of the presence of the Father was provided so that we could abide there.
This, of course, is what the Lord is saying to us, “Abide in Me! Come on, live in Me! There are many dwelling places; but if you would only know it, you could live in Me. Come on up higher in the spirit realm. It is not a matter of distance. It is a spiritual plane; it is a removal of the thing that defiles. It is a removal of all the things that prevent revelation. If you can just abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask what you will, and it will be done” (John 15:7).
Do you know what it is like to live in that realm? Believers seldom know. They touch upon it occasionally. But God is opening up the Living Word to us in this day, and He is leading us because there is a level of living in Him that we are going to attain by His grace. This is not some sanctimonious way of living. You must understand that it is not something whereby we will get off into some spiritual orbit and forget all the rest of mankind. The very prayer Jesus made before the end of this discourse with His disciples proves it: “Father, they are in the world; keep them in the world, but not of it” (John 17:11–16). This speaks of the removal of everything that contaminates—everything that responds to the world, to the conditions round about you, to the inner nature of sin.
The Day of Atonement means more than repenting and receiving forgiveness, “O Lord, I lied, I cheated, I lost my temper, I lusted, I coveted.” That is only the beginning of it. Atonement is to remove from us the things that make us such earthbound creatures.
We have a trip to make, and that trip is into the Father’s heart. How are we going to get there? Our Lord Jesus Christ is the way! He is the truth! He is the life! (John 14:6.) There are many abiding places; but there where the Son is, in the heart of the Father, He says, “I am making a place for you, that where I am you can be there also. You can live there. You can be a part with Us.” Do you see what this means for you?
I believe with all my heart that God is opening up in the end of this age, the reality of what the Lord Jesus Christ provided for us. This involves more than the mechanics of everyday living with God: “I have to read my Bible, and I have to pray. And I had better listen to a MP3 or watch an anointed video” All that is wonderful, but don’t stop there. You must get yourself into the Spirit where you are walking with God, deeper and deeper into His heart. What will this mean? It will mean the greatest witness of Jesus Christ the world has ever had, for He said, “Father, I gave them the glory that We had, that they could all be one and that the world might believe that Thou hast sent Me” (John 17:21–23).
That greatest witness of Jesus Christ is yet to come forth by the gospel of the Kingdom from united believers walking in His glory.
Will this include all the Church? Most of the Church is apostate. Most believers do not even believe in the resurrection of Jesus. Most of them do not believe in the Bible as the inspired Word of God. It has to be by a remnant, and maybe it is even a remnant of the remnant. But God is not limited to save by many or to save by few (I Samuel 14:6). And there will be deliverance in the remnant whom the Lord God shall call, so that whosoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Joel 2:32).
Now let us read John 14:11–12: “Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me; otherwise believe on account of the works themselves. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to the Father.”
This, alone, does not seem to make sense: “Now you are going to do greater works than I am doing because I am going to the Father.” However, it makes sense if you have listened to what He was saying. It makes sense in light of the fact that Jesus said, “I go to prepare a place for you.” That is the key! “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again” (John 14:2–3). Do not do injury to this by saying that it refers just to the Lord’s coming again. This abiding place in His presence has been the purpose throughout all the Church Age, because He said, “A little while, and you won’t see Me; and again, a little while, and you will see Me” (John 16:16).
After the day of Pentecost, I believe that the disciples were constantly aware of the presence of the Lord; He had told them, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). He is not only with the Father, but in a unique, special sense He is with us. And He has committed the Holy Spirit to us, that the Holy Spirit would guide us and lead us into all the truth (John 16:13). But His purpose is to bring us up to that abiding place in the Father. Everything that the Holy Spirit is doing, and everything that Jesus Christ is doing, is to bring us out of the old life, the old nature, the old limitations, and bring us right up into the Father. Then what did Jesus say would happen? “You are going to do greater works than I am doing, because I am going to the Father and making the way for you to come” (John 14:12).
In Jesus’ earthly ministry he had authority over the earth. But after his death, burial, resurrection and ascension, he sat down on the right hand of the Father. Then he came back down to the earth and commissioned his disciples. He now had not only authority over the earth, but all authority in heaven and earth. At the end of Jesus’ ministry the city of Jerusalem was worse off than when he started his ministry. But after the day of Pentecost, the apostles would displace fallen angels over cities, creating an open heaven over those cities and multitudes came into the kingdom.
The greater works we are called to do is to disciple cities, states and nations. Because now we have authority in the heavenly places in Christ, not just on this earth.
There must be a new and closer relationship between us and the Lord. God give us a growing discontent that grips us and throws us into fasting and prayer and seeking God as no move of history has ever known, because there is a higher level to live on. There is a close place, right in the heart of the Father, where we can live.
I know it is coming! Do you realize that we have just started, and that the greatest of all experiences and relationships with God is to break forth in our generation? This will be greater than the anointing of the Holy Spirit on the early Church. In this age of unbelief, when most Christians do not believe in miracles, there will be a miracle people who break through to greater works than even Jesus Christ did in the flesh.
Why will there be greater works? Not because the people themselves are more worthy, but because “I go to the Father,” Jesus said. “I go to the Father in that unique sense as a representative preparing a spiritual place for you and Me to fill.”
This is a great promise: Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (John 14:13). This is a stupendous statement; but it has not always been feasible in our lives. We have asked for a lot of things that we did not get, and sometimes we thought that we did not even receive a return reply. Sometimes the answer was not even “wait awhile.” But this powerful level of abiding in Him is coming. Then you can ask what you will, and it will be done (John 15:7).
I believe that the greatest promises of this we have are found in the fourteenth through the seventeenth chapters in John. These are promises that will overwhelm you.
Jesus said, “And whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” John 14:13. He was always speaking of that spiritual relationship between Himself and the Father, and this is the abiding place we are coming up to.
There are many dwelling places, but the place He has prepared for us is with the Father. And there must needs be disciples in this day who will reach that level.
“If you ask anything in My name I will do it.” This is a very big promise! How will all of this be accomplished? It has to be accomplished through the faith of people who believe the Word in simplicity and say, “Good! We see the veil taken off the Word. We see God explaining something to us. It is attainable.” Always you have to believe that something the Bible says is practical, and that it is possible to attain it. And then you start appropriating it.
This Word may disturb you. Do you wonder if you have even started well? Of course you have started; you have a good beginning.
I believe that all of these things which have happened—the prophesying over people, the prophetic services, the prophetic community—are the prophetic fulfillment of the Feast of Trumpets (Leviticus 23:24). The Day of Atonement now is upon us, and the Lord is bringing the “goat of removal” which removes everything that is in the way.
Notice in all that Jesus was talking about, He also said, “If they love Me, they will love you. If they keep My words, they will keep your words” (John 15:20). We are coming to the effectiveness that the early Church had, only it will be doubly so. No one ignored them. They didn’t even finish their sermons—someone would be yelling, “Tell us—what shall we do to be saved?” (Acts 2:37; 16:30.) Would you like that kind of an interruption?
What about what they did to Stephen? They stoned him to death before his sermon was over (Acts 7:51–60). Riots were the order of the day, as was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
When Peter was talking to Cornelius and his relatives and friends, who were Gentiles, he said, “Of a truth, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons.” He continued talking for a few minutes, when suddenly there came an outpouring of the Holy Spirit and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Then he said, “We had better baptize them. Who can refuse them? God is doing with them just as He did with us at the beginning” (Acts 10:34–48; 15:8–9).
Miracles kept happening because the Word was alive. It is happening now again. The Living Word is coming, and it is creating in you. I think that the time has come that for us to hear is to become. To hear is to become!
What electrifying experiences are ahead of us! And the greatest experiences will be our tabernacling with God. The Feast of Tabernacles really represents this, doesn’t it? (Leviticus 23:34.) It is God removing everything that hinders out of the way, and then His glory coming down and tabernacling with us.
Perchance it could happen this Feast of Tabernacles. If the great experience of the Holy Spirit happened to the Church on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1–4), and if our Christ was crucified at the time of the Passover (John 19:14–15), isn’t it possible that the glory of the Lord would become real to His people and that an experience of the atonement would come, also, at the specified times of the Feast of Tabernacles and the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 23:27, 34). It would be a mark, a sign and a wonder; and someone would stand up and proclaim, “Here is a fulfillment,” just as Peter did on the day of Pentecost when he said, “This is that which Joel spoke of” (Acts 2:16). Someone will stand up in this day and say, “This is that which the Feast of Tabernacles talked about! This is that which the Day of Atonement was to mean!”
Let us press onward into the greater visions of what God has for us! Every time His people stop pursuing this goal, there comes a smug complacency over them. They will become pharisees within one generation, no matter what they have, because they have become content. They have accepted something in their old nature that coexists with God. They have refused to do violence to it until the sin is taken away, until the offensive thing is removed.
Sometimes people feel they are actually moving in unbelief, that they are not really saved, if they acknowledge that they still need a real deliverance in their life, a real work of sanctification to be accomplished. They feel, “I don’t dare talk about that; I have to believe that when I said, ‘I accept Jesus,’ everything should have happened to me.”
In a sense you opened the door for all of it to happen when you accepted Christ. And in token He sealed you for it. But there is something more that you have to receive: the actual reality of it. We must become gloriously satisfied with what the Lord has become to us so far, and yet at the same time we must be completely discontented, to yearn and hunger after righteousness, to believe that God has something more for us than we have ever seen before.
“And whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” John 14:13. We have this verse well-established in our thinking now. In verse 16 we read, “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper …” “Helper” was translated from the Greek word paracletos, which means, “one called alongside to help”; and it is translated “Advocate” in I John 2:1. “Advocate” is a synonym for attorney. It means someone to stand alongside us to make intercession. This is what we literally have—we have a Helper; we have One to stand alongside us. And we also have an Advocate with the Father, One who stands alongside the Father—Jesus Christ the righteous (I John 2:1). Keep that word “Advocate” in mind. Jesus went to stand alongside the Father, and the Holy Spirit came to stand alongside us.
Jesus told His disciples, “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you, and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” John 14:16–18.
Did Jesus do that to the disciples? Yes, He did. This does not take away from the great advent of the Lord’s return (Matthew 24:30; Acts 1:11; I Thessalonians 4:16–17). But it means that we are believing in the real presence of the Lord with us now. And if we do not believe it, we should not take Communion, because this is a way of practicing His presence, of taking His provision as a living thing.
As we take Communion, Jesus is standing alongside the Father. He is the Advocate with the Father for our sins. In the meantime, the Holy Spirit is our Advocate—He is standing alongside us to help us. With all the lawyers on our side, no wonder the Judge is giving us mercy and grace.
John 14:19–20: “After a little while the world will behold Me no more; but you will behold Me; because I live, you shall live also. In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.”
This is the mystery: individual identity will not be the great reality among individuals in the Body; the reality will be the one entity of Spirit—the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and us—all one, one entity, all being made to drink, to be baptized into one Spirit (I Corinthians 12:13). And now you know what that verse means—all to be submerged into one Spirit.
It seems that we are being swallowed up by God, and we are so willing for it to happen. We come to a place, by the leading of the Holy Spirit, where we begin to abhor our own individual identity and what we are in and of ourselves. And it was this which the scapegoat, the goat of removal, actually took away on the Day of Atonement. It was a collective provision; it was for everyone’s sins, for everyone’s limitations, because they were not what they were supposed to be as the Israel of God. God did something for them, so that they could come and stand before Him.
And this they did every year, but not with a reality to it because the substance of that prophecy was to be with us: For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are being sanctified. Hebrews 10:14. We are being brought into that oneness.
We cannot read a message like this and accept some shallow interpretation of these verses in John. Over and over the verses are pointing toward this one thing: the Holy Spirit, our Advocate, who is standing alongside. But more than just being alongside, He is to be in us. The Advocate is on the inside. He will even do the talking when we come before governors and rulers (Luke 12:11–12). He is taking over, and we are being drawn up, up, up. It is not a matter of distance, but a matter of a spiritual plane.
This means that the world will have another view of God. This is what Paul was talking about when he said, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels. People are going to see the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in Christ in us” (II Corinthians 4:6–7). That treasure is in earthen vessels; and we will say, just as Jesus said, “Do you mean that you have seen Me, and you haven’t seen the Father? Believe for the words that I am speaking, the works that I am doing” (John 14:9–11). As He dwells within us, in that oneness, it will happen again. God will have a people who will be a delivered, holy, effective manifestation of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And the Word will be fulfilled that was promised to us in Ephesians 3:19, KJV, … that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.
Many may say, “You’re talking about some utopian thing.” Maybe there won’t be many who will listen to this Word for a while. In the past there were many who did not receive the Word, but they were not listening to God, either. What Jesus said has been true, “If they kept My Word, they will keep yours” (John 15:20). If you keep His Word, and you love Him, you will listen to the Word I am speaking to you, because these words are not mine but the Lord’s!
And they may set something before you that you walk away from, saying, “Well, we have to be practical; we have to come down to the practical everyday world.” If you think this way, then you probably do have to, because what you think you are limited to, you will be limited to it.
God grant that there will be a few who will hear this Word and know, “Lord Jesus, You went to prepare that level, that place with the Father; and You are receiving us unto Yourself, that where You are, that’s where we are going to be.” We will say, as the Apostle John said, … as He is, so also are we in this world. I John 4:17.
This is a truth that may be an ideal which some will never quite grasp, but to me it is the ideal vision that is great enough for all my efforts, all my purpose for living. O God, the scapegoat took away from me all my reasons for living, other than You.
This is the greatest thing that can happen to us. The entertaining world beckons with its false, phony glitter. There is still within us that thing which responds to the animal nature, that thing which comes so far, and then draws back saying, “O Lord, leave some of Adam still in me. Let me still be an earthbound creature. Let me still live for the passing things just a little, just enough to make me miserable. I don’t want too much of You, Lord. I’m afraid of becoming too spiritual. I’m afraid of following this thing to its real conclusion of a walk with You. I’m afraid of it, Lord.”
There will also be those who will say, “Lord, I have heard the call. I have listened to Your drawing me. There will be a people, Lord. As You have a Kingdom that is prepared, so also You will have a people who are prepared for the Kingdom. O Lord, they will not be a people who will judge according to the sight of their eyes or the hearing of their ears” (Isaiah 11:3), “but a people who will wholly follow the Lord their God” (Deuteronomy 1:36), “with His Word abiding in them, living within them, until they speak His Word and they do His works. They do the greater works” (John 14:12). Daniel said, “They will know their God and be strong and do exploits” (Daniel 11:32, KJV). I believe we can be that people.
I believe that God could start planting a hunger in your heart for this life in God that I have been speaking about. If you do not understand this message, read it over and over again, until you comprehend this truth and revelation which the Lord is speaking. And I am going to start making audios on my church website and videos on you-tube and start an internet church so that I can minister the word on a personal level having “zoom meetings.” But I am just writing these messages and getting all the scriptures, because people want scripture and verse. And that is O.K, but it is a lot of work.
These things are revolutionary, and you may have to pray, “O God, give me ears to hear Your Word; give me a heart to perceive what You are trying to bring forth within my life” (Matthew 13:16; Proverbs 22:17; Isaiah 32:3–4; I Corinthians 2:9).
“In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.”
Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make Our abode with him.” John 14:20, 22–23.
This is exactly what God is speaking to us now. He is going to come and reveal Himself to us, not to the world.
Why won’t the world be able to see Him? He said in essence, “The key is that people are going to love Me. They are going to keep My Word. And that will be the way into the heart of the Father. My Father will love such a one, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.”
“He who does not love Me” (that is the world) “does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me. These things I have spoken to you, while abiding with you. But the Helper” (this One who is going to stand alongside us), “the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.” John 14:24–26.
Do you see what Christ was saying here? Isn’t this why we have the Holy Spirit—to bring revelation upon this Word, to teach us all things, to guide us? He says, “I will stand alongside you. I will help you.” Just pray, “O God, give me that atonement experience; let the ‘goat of removal’ start taking these things out.”
The Holy Spirit will help you as you begin to confess your need, as you confess your inadequacy, as you confess that you have come to the end of all human existence having meaning to you, because you want to abide in Him. You do not abide in the world and abide in Christ at the same time. You are in the world, but not of it (John 17:14–16). The world is not to be your abiding place or your level of life. Your level of life is to be the Father. It is to be Christ. You are going to abide in Him. Your level of living has to be something different entirely—you are in the world, but you are not of it.
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth (abideth) for ever. I John 2:15–17, KJV. A man who does the will of God is not just living; he abides in God. He abides forever!
The Holy Spirit is saying, “Let Me guide you.” Christ has prepared a place for us right with the Father; and He is saying, “Come on, let Me abide with you; let Me draw you, let Me live with you.” The Holy Spirit is wooing us today to a much higher life. And there will be some in this generation who will not forget this Word. They will contend for it, and they will have it. It is worth all our effort.
O Lord, what other goals do we have but Thee? We count all other things but loss. We say, like Paul, “I am pressing toward one goal. The things which were gain to me are rubbish! What am I after? I am pressing toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God—that high calling of God in Christ Jesus. And as many as are mature, let them be like-minded” (Philippians 3:7–8, 14–15).
Come on! Come up higher! This is what the Holy Spirit was given for. Were you told that you received the Holy Spirit so that you could speak in tongues once in a while? No, He was given to help you, to guide you into all truth (John 16:13). Jesus said, “He shall glorify Me; for He shall take of Mine” (of My fullness), “and shall disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said, that He” (the Holy Spirit) “takes of Mine, and will disclose it to you.” John 16:14–15. This is what He has been doing to your heart.
This Word is basic to the coming great revelations of the Lord; it is basic to what God wants of all of us. We pray, “O Lord, seal this Word to our hearts. But let it be more than a memory of a message; create it in us, O God. Do this thing within our very being. There is a place with You, Lord, that we have not attained, a level where we can abide in You. The Holy Spirit bears witness to our hearts that none of us need live on the lower spiritual level. We can come up higher. You have prepared that place for us to live, Lord; and we are going to live there. Your Spirit will bring us into it. We don’t know how, except that You said, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life.’ No one comes to the Father, but by You” (John 14:6).
May the Lord deliver us from a casual approach to this Word, and yet a strain or a struggle to walk in it will not avail much of anything. What we need is an awareness that Christ is standing alongside the Father and the Holy Spirit is standing alongside us. God is working to bring us closer, and we are willing to be drawn. We say like the lover in the Song of Solomon, “Draw us, and we will run after Thee” (The Song of Solomon 1:4). We plunge into Thee, Lord. We open our hearts to be drawn up into Your life.
Being one in the Father and the Son can be a permanent residence.
When God says, “Come, abide in Me,” it is not by overcoming time and distance. It is only a breath away: “Come in, Lord.”
We have a trip to make; that trip is into the Father’s heart. How do we get there? Jesus is the way.
When believers live in the Lord, they will make believers of the world.
Be more concerned with your “abiding in Him” than “asking of Him.” When the asker is an abider, the answer is unlimited.
To hear was to strive; now to hear is to become.
Christ is our Advocate; the Holy Spirit is our Advocate; the prosecutor is the accuser of the brethren. We pled guilty and our fine was paid. The Father’s verdict was, “Innocent by grace.”
Thus, saith the Lord ” come up higher!” Can you hear His voice!