You are united with Christ.
Jesus says, in His high priestly prayer for unity: “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity.” John 17:22-23a NASB
Can you imagine the incredible unity that Christ is talking about? He just said that in the same way that God the Father and God the Son are one, so we as believers are to have the same kind of unity. God the Father and God the Son are the same essence. They have one will. They are one in every sense of the word except that they are separate individuals. It’s an internal unity, and it must be possible among believers, or Jesus would not have prayed it.
We see in the early church this kind of unity, where people shared everything with each other and didn’t hoard anything. They broke bread and had fellowship with each other, laughing and crying together in sweet unity. They prayed together and didn’t care about earthly objects, but only about the will of God to be accomplished. This is why they had so much power in the Spirit, because they had no idols. Christ was all in all.
Being united with Christ is what it means to be saved. When you invite Christ into your life, Christ is in you (2 Corinthians 13:5), and you are in Christ (1 Corinthians 1:30).
“But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.” 1 Corinthians 6:17
And if Christ is in each of us, of course we will love each other and have unity in the Spirit because we love Jesus. We see Jesus when we see each other. If this is not happening, perhaps you are around carnal Christians who are not allowing Christ to be their greatest joy. (I estimate that up to 90% of church-goers are not true believers. You cannot see Christ in them at all because He isn’t there.) Out of selfishness, carnal Christians live their lives for themselves. Scripture asks us to examine if we are in the faith, in case we are not actually saved. If Christ is in us, we will be excited about the things of God. It is oxygen and life and feels clean and fresh and beautiful.
A. W. Tozer says: “I will never be through talking about the union of the soul with the Savior, the conscious union of the believer’s heart with Jesus. Remember, I am not talking about a ‘theological union’ only. I am speaking also of a conscious union, a union that is felt and experienced.”
It is not just a theoretical idea that we are united with Christ—He and we are ACTUALLY one. Let that sink in… Wow!
This means that we are also united with Christ in His death and resurrection: “For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection.” Romans 6:5 NASB
When we choose to die to sin, we experience resurrection power in our lives as we see impossible things happen—changed lives, answered prayer, bitterness gone, healing from past wounds, etc.
If you want to understand the illustration of the Vine and the branches from John 15 that I explained in the video, I wrote more about that here: Abiding in the Vine.
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My daughter and I created the artwork for this series from the course {aff} “You are a Masterpiece” by Alicia Gratehouse. If you love to do art and are discovering who you are in Christ, this is a great art course for you!
