This lesson from John is one of my Dad's very best and a favorite of mine:


The Hand of Jesus

And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me. John 17:22-23

Jesus told us that when we pray, we should pray this way, “'Our Father in heaven....” (Matthew 6:9) In other words, our relationship with God is the intimate relationship of child and parent. When you see a child take Mommy or Daddy’s hand, and walk with security amidst other people or anything that might threaten them, you know the child is being protected by the parent. Everyone does that. You may have your own children and you’ve done it yourself.

What you don’t realize most of the time as a Christian—and sometimes I don’t stop to think about it either—is that in Jesus Christ, God has given us his hand. He is walking with us through the world, through our tribulations, through our trials, through all of the things which come upon us, through the attacks of Satan—he’s there. The hand never lets go. You may sometimes try and wiggle out of it, but your security rests in the hand that holds you. That’s the intimacy of parent and child.

In this chapter of John, Christ is talking about intimacy between the Father, the Son and the Church. He’s saying my father and I are intimately involved in an eternal relationship—and you are now involved in our relationship, too. His prayer is that we will be in union with him and with the Father, the same way he is in union with his Father. This a revelation: We are in union with God in a way that had never been known before. We have an intimacy with him that had never been disclosed before. This was a New Testament revelation.

You and I can’t ever be gods because there is only one God. We can’t be God because God alone is eternal and we’re finite. So, what is it God’s trying to tell us here? He’s trying to tell us that he has adopted us into his family and bestowed upon us his family name. We are not deity, but we are his children and we inherit as his children exactly what his Son inherits.

In Jesus Christ, we are the inheritors of the glory of God. That may come as quite a jolt to our rather stunted minds, at least it always has to mine. But, nevertheless, it’s true. It is so wonderful, so incomprehensible that it’s truthfulness sometimes slips by us. It shouldn’t. When God says we will inherit and sit with him in his throne, by throne he means the center of authority, the center of power, the center of glory. The very center of Heaven itself is the throne of God. Now, angels sing his praises around his throne, but the Church inherits to sit with him in his throne. That is a stunning fact and it escapes us most of the time.

You may say, “Do you mean that some day I am going to sit at the center of authority—all power, all knowledge, all wisdom? That I will sit in the midst of the Shekinah of Yahweh Elohim, which destroys anything that looks at it? I’m going to be there in an immortal body?” Yes! And not only are you going to be there in an immortal body, but you’re going to judge the angels! I can’t wait until Lucifer comes before me—I’m going to get my licks in, then!

You see, we don’t understand. We don’t understand that we have been destined for the throne of God; that we have been predestined to his glory. The glory that Christ and God had before time began has been given to the Church when we enter his presence. We are not gods. We are not goddesses. We are not deity. We are redeemed children of our Father, and as his children we are heirs and joint heirs with Christ.