John 10:38 NASB but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.”
John 14:10-11 NASB Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. [11] Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.
John 14:20 NASB In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.
John 17:21,23 NASB that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. [23] I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.
I’ve been telling Christians a lot lately that they need to live from the inside out and not from the outside in. We are obviously living in some very trying times, and if we don’t know how to live from the inside out, we will get into real spiritual trouble rapidly. The verses I listed above speak about spiritual union, the union that Jesus, as the Son of Man, shared with His Father, and the union that you and I share in Christ. Jesus said over and over again in the gospel of John that He never did anything out of His own initiative, but instead, He only did those things He saw the Father doing, and He only said those things that He heard the Father saying. It is important to know that Jesus did not look outside of Himself to see or hear what the Father was doing or saying. Instead, because of His union with the Father, He saw from the Father’s indwelling presence what the Father wanted to say and do. Because Jesus always operated in concert with His union with the Father, He always responded to people and life’s situations from the mind of the Father in wisdom. Jesus never did anything or said anything in reaction to what was going on around Him. He only acted and spoke from the life of the Father within Him. In other words, Jesus never reacted to the devil or what the devil was doing; He always cooperated with what the Father was doing and saying. When you live from the outside in, you’ll find yourself living in fear and anger much of the time, but when you live from the inside out, you will walk in peace and authority. In the 3rd chapter of John, we are told that Jesus lived bearing witness of what He saw and heard from the Father’s perspective, and because of that, His words and actions released heaven’s authority and wisdom into every situation.
Just as Jesus was in the Father and the Father was in Him, you and I are in Christ, and Christ is in us. As a matter of fact, our life is hidden with Christ in God; therefore, when you and I see, feel, speak, and act from that hidden place in union with Christ, then we, too, will walk in and manifest wisdom and authority of heaven instead of fear and anger. Walking in the flesh is not, first and foremost, what you do in life but how you do it. If you live from the outside in, you are walking in the flesh, but when you live from the inside out, you are walking in the Spirit. Song of Solomon 4: 3b says something powerful about living from our union with Christ; “Your temples are like a slice of the pomegranate behind your veil.” The temples speak of our thought life, and when you live from the inside out, abiding in your union with Christ, then your reasoning will often be hidden as if behind a veil to those around you, but what they will notice is that you seem to carry an authority and wisdom that releases the atmosphere of heaven.