John 5:19,30-31 Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. [30] “ I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge (two separate; to make a distinction between); and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. [31] “If I testify surrounded only by my thoughts, My testimony is not true.
John 8:26-28 I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you, but He who sent Me is true; and the things which I heard from Him, these I speak to the world.” [27] They did not realize that He had been speaking to them about the Father. [28] So Jesus said, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me.
John 12:49 For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken.
Jesus modeled a life in union with God perfectly. Even though he was 100% God, He lived on earth as a Spirit-filled man in union with the life of the Father, allowing the Father to manifest His life through His (Jesus’) humanity. Jesus said a number of times that he was in the Father, and the Father was in him. I’ve used the phrase “living from the inside out” a number of times recently as a reminder to people that just as Jesus was in union with the Father, allowing the Father to live through him, we are in union with Jesus, and the Christian life is allowing Jesus to live His life through us. If all that we are will be as available to Jesus as he was available to the Father, then all that Jesus is will be available to us as all that the Father had was available to Jesus.
If you contemplate those verses above, then you get a wonderful glimpse of what life in union with the Father looked like as Jesus continued to make himself available to all that the Father was and all that the Father had. Because Jesus laid down his right to live independently as God, He, therefore, lived utterly dependent on the life of the Father within. The result was that Jesus refused to share his own thoughts about any situation or any person because he was utterly dependent on the Father to see through him. Because Jesus refused to think on his own apart from the life of the Father within, He, therefore, refused to speak anything about anything apart from what the Father was thinking and saying on the inside. Those verses, therefore, tell us that Jesus only did those things he saw the Father doing. The result of the absolute surrender of Christ to the life of the Father within, Jesus only thought, saw, spoke, and did everything from the inside out. Everything Jesus said and did as the Son of man revealed what the Father saw, and felt about every situation. When we speak and do things that flow out of our own feelings and thoughts about anything, it usually comes across as harsh and shrill and carries death, but when we speak and act from the inside out (out of our union with Christ) even if we have to give a word of warning, it always carries life. There were times when Jesus adamantly rebuked, but every time that he did, he was addressing religious people who, out of their own sense of self-righteousness, were putting condemnation and empty rules on people who were trying to encounter God. We live in a time where we do need to hear a chorus of voices being raised for truth, but let us never forget that Jesus said, he was the TRUTH. Therefore, even though filtered through different personality types, our voices and actions must sound like his, and look like Him.