The Example Of In
When Jesus was with His disciples, He demonstrated what it means to be in. He speaks of how he is in His Father and Father is in Him.
Philip asked Jesus to show them the Father. Jesus often spoke about His Father and how He would be their Father.
John 14:9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you, I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. 11 Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves. 12 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.
"In" looks a certain way. It manifests the One in you. Jesus was in the Father, and the Father was in Him. The words Jesus spoke, and the works He did, were not His own. They were His Father's.
So much so was this the truth that Jesus told Philip to believe Him for the very work's sake.
Then Jesus speaks about those who will believe in Him. Believing in Him changes us and relocates us positionally speaking. It places us in Him and Him in us, and this is the reason for the works. We do not set out to do works to prove anything; we simply find ourselves doing His works because of our union with Him.
The works that qualify with God aren't our works to merit or to prove; it is the works that flow out of our relationship to Him because of Christ in us. The works that believing in Jesus tend to manifest as we open our hearts, souls, and minds to the Holy Spirit, who was promised.
Jesus said the works He did. Jesus was not renowned for His moral works as much as He was for His supernatural ones. No doubt that Jesus was sinless. However, when people think of His works and when they read the gospels concerning them, we find they are supernatural works that bless and benefit others by revealing to them what the Father is truly like.
It is not by believing in greater works that we do them. It is by our union with Him that they flow and are manifested. It is by believing in Him that these greater works are released in us. When we focus solely on the works, we start to lose sight of the most crucial aspect: knowing Him and realizing that our union with Him is more than just a metaphor. He lives in us and we live in Him! Everything we are called to be begins and ends with our relationship with Him. Faith in Him, believing in Him to the point we are convinced of His living in us and our living in Him in close, inseparable union, is the core of the good news.
