We Are One With Christ

Speaker: Archbishop Loren Thomas Hines

June 01, 2022

in Spritual Growth

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May 29, 2022:
7th Sunday of Easter
Readings: 1 Samuel 12:19-24
Acts 16: 16-34
John 17:20-26

The Gospel today is an awesome message to the people. To most of us, Easter meant the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and it is. But the fullness of Easter means so much more because Christ came to destroy the power of the enemy. Man may have given authority to the devil and the ability to rule because of sin, but Christ came to take that away, and in doing so has given us more than enough.

John 17:13 “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them.” Christ’s prayer for the disciples was that God would restore everything to them. Christ was concerned for them. He was there to bring life to them.

God in the beginning would walk and talk with Adam in the Garden. This was God’s relationship with man. God wants our relationship to Him restored so He could communicate with us. Easter therefore, is the foundation of all this. Being restored to the Father, our communication with Him should be made even closer. In His prayer, He also prays for those who are to follow. The necessity of reaching out to others. The necessity of sharing. We are to let people know how great God is. We were baptized into Christ and raised with Him through the resurrection. Colossians 1:27 “To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” There is no power in division. We are One in Christ. We should respect each other’s tasks. Unfortunately, we see division when we fight against one another. “We are one with the Father” is the power that we have in Christ. We have to believe that we can do it, that we can have that which we think we cannot have. This should be our attitude. Can God dwell in me? Are we worthy? This is how we see ourselves. We need to renew our minds. We have to get rid of the attitude of “we cannot do it.” If we have the right attitude and not deny Easter, the world would not be in the condition that it is in right now. Just like Adam who did not have anything to hide before sin came.

Seven weeks of Easter should make us understand that Christ not only died and was raised from the dead, but our lives have been restored. Jesus prayed that as He was going back to the Father, He desires that He would be restored to the former glory, the original glory even before the world began. Christ is giving us an opportunity to share His character, His glory. Christ wants us to know that the fullness of His life has been given to us and should be applicable NOW. In creation after 7 days, God rested. Our task? Receive, believe, and walk in it. Realizing how much He loves us and not wanting us to be lost. He does not want us to belittle ourselves but realize how much He truly loves us. We are not to be living in poverty because He has supplied all things for us.