Psalm 31:8 NASB95
And You have not given me over into the hand of the enemy; You have set my feet in a large place.
John 14:1-4 NASB95
“Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. [2] In My Father’s house are many abidings; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. [3] 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. [4] And you know the way where I am going.”
Jesus went to the cross to secure for each of us a place in Christ. Being in union with Christ is what makes you a Christian and abiding in that union is what makes you a fruitful Christian. This place called “in Christ” is the large spiritual room that Psalm 31:8 was foretelling. Being in Christ is such a large room, for indeed, it is there we discover all the unsearchable riches of Jesus that are ours in Him. I love the way Isaiah 33:17 puts it, “Your eyes will behold the King in His beauty; they will see a land that stretches far.” I believe that we are living in a season when Jesus is calling His Bride to a Larger experience of the large In Christ room we inhabit and are inhabited by. It is a spiritual land that stretches far, for it contains the very existence of Jesus we are called to participate in. Think about that statement.
To be in Christ means that we have been included in the existence that Jesus enjoys. All of his illimitable resources are ours, and the intimacy He has with the Father is ours to participate in. Jesus’s intimacy with the Father is so special it is almost impossible to come up with sensible words to explain it. John 1:18 says that Christ is the only begotten “who is INTO the bosom of the Father.” Have you ever held someone close to your chest? If you have, that gives you an idea of what I’m talking about except that Jesus and the Father’s relationship is so otherworldly intimate that it can only be described as Jesus existing INTO the bosom of the Father. As people in Christ, you and I participate in that relationship. I think we often get deceived into thinking that we have to patiently move forward while standing in line as we work our way one step at a time towards a place of deep intimacy with God. The truth is because you and I are “in Christ,” we have already been moved to the front of the line, and it had nothing to do with our performance. It has everything to do with our position in Christ. We don’t pray and fast or read our Bibles to get more intimate. You can’t get any more intimate than living into the bosom of the Father. We do the spiritual disciplines because we ARE intimate (we are in union with Jesus’s intimacy with the Father), and the disciplines are our way of opening our eyes to see how far this land actually stretches. When you understand this, then you will discover the joy of living from intimacy instead of striving for it, and when you live from intimacy, you emit the fragrance of the experience of God everywhere you go. In the atmosphere of the fragrance which is so intoxicating to others, you are able to tell them that they, too, in Christ, have been reconciled to God so that they, too, as a free gift of grace, can dwell between the Father’s shoulders.