Now we are caught up to the present. We began these lessons as if we did not know each other. You came to understand that you were created for oneness with me, the one who loves you perfectly. But your sins separated you from me. The sin issue had to be removed from between us. I took care of that on the cross. And you were born with a rebel, sinful heart, forever at odds with me. That old heart had to be removed. I had to give you a new, righteous heart. I took care of that as well. My Spirit removed your old heart and birthed within you a new spirit. Finally, you had to be joined to me. You had to become one with me. I took care of that when you placed your trust in me. I permanently, eternally joined myself to you. I came to live in you.
You are one with me. One with the Father. One with the Spirit. And we are one with you.
So what does it mean that you are one with the God of the universe? It means everything. The entirety of your existence depends upon our oneness. You just don’t understand that yet. I will show you.
What you will come to realize is that, if you’ve placed your trust in me, everything that follows in these lessons is already a reality in you. It is all yours. You don’t have to work for it. You don’t have to strive to get it. You can’t make it true through your own efforts. It is already true. It is already yours. You simply experience it by faith.
Living this life operates exactly the way receiving me did in the first place. How did you receive me? By faith. Entirely by faith. You didn’t do anything to make it happen. You didn’t try hard. You simply received my free gift. Receiving it is called faith. You trusted me to do it.
That’s how this life operates. It doesn’t work by trying hard. It doesn’t work by you striving to make it happen. It works by you receiving it by faith. It all works simply by faith.
Now, here’s what you will try to do. You will take all of what I am going to tell you in the rest of these lessons and try to activate it by your faith. If you believe hard enough, you will think, it will become true for you.
But no. Your faith doesn’t activate any of what I am about to tell you. It is already activated. Your faith doesn’t bring it into being for you. It all already is. Your faith simply acknowledges what already is.
I want you to learn to count on the things I am about to tell you. I want you to learn to live fully in them by faith. I want you to depend on me to make them a living reality in your life. I want you to put aside whatever misconceptions you have had, and embrace the simplicity of what I am saying. Embrace it, and live in its fullness. In my fullness.
This is what must finally dawn on you, then completely saturate your being:
It is no longer you who live. I am the One who lives in you.
Once that awareness becomes your moment-by-moment reality, everything changes. And I do mean everything.
Is this a mystery? Yes. Would you expect anything less if God himself came to live in you? Would you expect it to be business as usual?
You have always thought of this life as something you have to live. Before you knew me, you tried to make life work through your own effort. That works poorly. You can tell it works poorly just by looking at the world around you, can’t you? Or by looking at what your own life was like. It works poorly because life was not meant to work apart from the one who is life.
But even after you came to know me, you had the same mindset about life. Life was something you had to live and make work through your own effort. Only now you were trying to do it for me. Maybe, if you asked, I would help you out from time to time. It’s hard. You struggle. You fail a lot.
Of course you do! Because you are trying to do something that’s impossible. You’re trying to replicate my life. But there is only one who can live my life. Me.
The good news is this: I haven’t asked you to replicate my life. I have come to live it in you. Living my own perfectly loving life in you is no effort for me at all.
Your life was never meant to be lived through self-effort. Your life was never meant to be about striving, self-reliance, or exercising enough self-discipline to finally get it “right.” I came to deliver you from that false life, which is not really life at all. The one who is life now lives in you. I am the one who lives my perfect, always overcoming, completely sufficient life through you.
Though you are very much alive, I am actually the one living in you. I think, speak, act, and love through you. We are so connected in our one-spirit union that we are one, just as I and the Father are one. You and I cannot do anything other than operate as one. And in that union, I am the one living through you. Right now.
But how, as someone once asked me, can these things be? Because it sure looks like you living in you. It feels like you. And you are, of course, alive. In one sense, you are living your life. But in a much deeper sense, I am the one living in you now. And that is what you count on, because I’m the only one who can live My life.
Still, though, you look at your life and you think, but how can this be? Your life seems too imperfect to actually be me living it, doesn’t it?
Yes, I realize that’s how things seem. Yet this is the truth: it is no longer you who live. I am the one who lives in you.
And here is where some illustrations help.
I’ve said all of this before:
“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me …” (Galatians 2:20)
… the riches of the glory of this mystery … which is Christ in you … (Colossians 1:27)
In Him was life … (John 1:4)
“I am the … life.” (John 14:6)
… all things belong to you, and you belong to Christ; and Christ belongs to God. (1 Corinthians 3:22-23)
“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me … and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)
For we who have believed enter that rest … For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. (Hebrews 4:3, 10)
Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him … (Colossians 2:6)
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