Can you imagine sitting around the Christmas tree with abundant presents carefully planned for you. The giver is eager to see you open them and respond with excitement at what He purposely picked out for you to enjoy. Yet for some reason in this scene, you are only admiring the beautiful wrappings, but not actually participating in opening the gifts. There is a disconnect, and you won't let yourself really believe these are all for you.
Many people look at Jesus in this way. We say He is good and has done wonderful things, but somehow it doesn't translate to working directly in our lives. Something has to change!
Consider how Jesus spoke to His disciples the night before He was crucified (John, ch. 14-16). He shares that He will not leave them orphans, that He is going to prepare a place for them, that He is going to the Father, but will come back to get them. He desires them to be with Him forever. Then He promises to send another comforter, the Holy Spirit, and makes this amazing statement, "He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has is Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you." (John 14:15-16) It is not hard to believe that Jesus is worthy to receive all that the Father has, but none of us have totally grasped that Jesus has also given that same gift of "all the Father has" to us. Yet the Holy Spirit is declaring that it all belongs to us! The Holy Spirit glorifies Jesus by revealing to us what Jesus has accomplished and has given to us as His joint heirs.
In this light, Scriptures like "all power and authority are given to you in My name" or "He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ." have awesome reality. Clearly we have been given glorious life and position in that He "made us alive together with Christ and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:5-6). Who can fathom that the Father loves us with the same intensity and perfect love that the Father loves Jesus? With this resurrection life, the love of God, and the power of the Spirit, we are able to fulfill the instruction of 1 John 2:6, "He who abides in Him ought himself to walk just as He walked."
Wow! We need to quit just looking at the gifts, and begin to open them up and enjoy His wonderful provsion. It is important, even crucial, that we let the Holy Spirit show us the reality of who we already are in Christ, what we already have as heirs of God, and how to live in this fullness of life. Colossians 3 reminds us that we are to set our minds on the things above, rather than letting our minds and hearts be consumed by thoughts and feelings from our flesh. The flesh represents all the doubts, fears, condemnations, and negative thoughts that make us "feel" unworthy and rejected. As a man thinks, so is he. It tries to convince us that "God doesn't love me enough to give all He has to me." On the other hand, Romans 8:13 provides hope in declaring that by the Spirit we can put to death the deeds of the body. We can put on the new man where we have the mind of Christ. We can let the Holy Spirit renew our minds with the Word of God so we can demonstrate the perfect will of God.
One ultimate motive: we exalt the Lord Jesus by receiving His presents and using them to not only walk victoriously, but also to be a light to a darkened world that needs to see what a great, loving God the Lord Jesus really is. He is worthy to be praised!
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