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To Know Me is Life
“Oh, how I desire that you know me! How my heart longs for you to know my Father! ...for in knowing us, you shall jive.”
“Yeah, sure,” I answered sarcastically to this strange voice in my head. “I’m already alive. I’m breathing, aren’t I? Can’t you see that?”
“What in the world am I doing talking with myself? Am I going nuts or something?” I asked out loud to no one as I prepared for bed. “Living alone must be taking its toll on me.”
“You don’t have to be alone, I want to be with you.”
That voice again!
“And as for being alive, you are only partially alive.”
“What!?”
“You are not a complete person. There is a natural body, and there is also a spiritual body. The only part of you which is alive is your natural body... the one you can see. Your spiritual body is invisible, but it is no less real. However, that part of you is darkness—it is dead. It longs to live, but can’t,” answered the gentle voice.
“And why not?” I asked, feeling rather irritated. I wonderer how such a conversation was possible.
“Because you refuse to let that part of you live. You refuse to know me and my Father. In me is the life for your spiritual body. By refusing me, you are refusing to be a complete human being. You are also refusing eternal life.”
Why in the world would I want to refuse life? That certainly didn’t make sense. “Who are you and your Father, anyway?” I asked.
“I am Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ. My Father is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob... the Great I AM.”
The radio announcer’s voice pierced into my mind, and I slowly opened my eyes as I reached to turn down the volume. I wasn’t getting ready for bed—I was already in it. I’d been dreaming. Or had I? Somewhere deep inside me there was a gnawing sensation.
“Dreaming!” I declared to no one. “Ah, this is what I get for going to church last night with my neighbor. I wonder if the church roof fell in during the night?” I mused, chuckling as my feet hit the floor.
As I stepped in my slippers, the voice from my dream quietly and gently penetrated my heart, “I long for you to know Me!”
The words were like fire in my very bones—the depth of my being seemed to vibrate as the rest of the words spoken in the dream flooded my mind. I knew then it had been Jesus speaking in the dream. At that moment, a longing was created within me to know Him... this Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ. I knelt by my bed, trembling with anticipation, wondering if anything would really happen because of what I was about to do.
“Jesus,” I carefully said His name, “You are telling me You want me to know You and Your Father. So here I am. I ask You to come in my life. I ask You to do whatever it is that You do inside of people. Forgive me please for refusing to come to You before. Forgive me please for all the wrong things I’ve done. I want to know You. Will you show me what to do from now on? Thank You. Amen.”
I didn’t really “feel” anything, except peace; where the gnawing had been, there was a quiet... a sense of well-being. I got up from my knees and went about my business.
I soon returned to the church, whose roof had indeed remained intact. The people received me with joy and they taught me about the many ways to learn from God through His Holy Spirit. Now I could know Jesus and His Father, who is now my Father, also.
The Holy Spirit became my friend, teaching me “what it is Jesus does inside of people” when they come to Him. By coming to Jesus, I actually became a part of another world, the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is an actual territory, but it is not in the physical realm with which we are familiar. Jesus says in Luke 17:20,21 (NIV), “The Kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the Kingdom of God is within you.” The Kingdom is the dominion of the mighty God, and this dominion is inside us because of the blood of Jesus and the redemption He has provided.
Until the morning I knelt by my bed and gave my life to Jesus, I was indeed only half alive. My spiritual body was locked into death for eternity. Let me explain some of the things the Holy Spirit has taught me about the condition of my spirit, before and after I got on my knees and prayed that eventful morning.
When the first man, Adam, was created, his spiritual body was alive. The Holy Spirit of God was able to communicate with Adam through his spirit. But when Adam sinned—when he rebelled against God’s word—man’s spirit entered into a “fallen state.” Every human being born from that moment on was bound up and controlled by powers of darkness (the devil and his demon cohorts), and hence by death. The Spirit of God no longer had free access to man’s spirit.
Jesus was born on earth to be like a “second Adam.” Whereas Adam blew it, Jesus made it. Whereas Adam, in order to satisfy himself, was disobedient to God’s will, bringing death to all, Jesus was obedient to God’s will. He actually gave His life as a sacrifice, so the Holy Spirit could once again have access to man.
Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, gave His life to cleanse us from the filth of darkness. He then disarmed the powers of darkness which keep man imprisoned in spiritual death, making it possible for man to be free from their grip.
By shedding His blood on the cross, Jesus provided redemption for our spiritual body from its “fallen” state. When we accept what He did, our spirit is “regenerated”—made alive by the Holy Spirit. While I was on my knees praying that simple prayer that morning, the Holy Spirit was regenerating my spirit—making it alive for the very first time. Because I was ignorant of the spiritual world, I had no idea at that moment of all that was taking place inside of me.
Not only was my spirit made alive, but the Holy Spirit also moved (or translated) my spiritual body out of the realm of darkness and into the dominion of God. The moment my spirit was made alive at this “new birth,” I gained a capacity for spiritual things, with ability to perceive and understand the ways of God. What each person does with that ability is up to him. To exercise the ability to know our Father God, we must come before Him in Jesus’ name, seeking Him in prayer and studying the Bible—His Word. God’s desire is that our spirit become strong by knowing Him, and also that we help others to be delivered from darkness.
Jesus has paid the price of redemption and disarmed the powers of darkness for the benefit of every person on earth... but unless a human being wants to be free of darkness and asks for life, he will stay in darkness forever. Our spiritual body is the part of us which keeps living after our physical body dies. It can either live in life and light, or die in death and darkness—eternally aware, whichever our choice. We each make up our own mind and choose which we want: Life or Death.
In Jesus is life, His life is the light which shines in the realm of spiritual darkness. Jesus says in John 8:12, “I am the light of the world; he that follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” Whenever anyone accepts Jesus, then it is through His blood that he is forgiven for all the he did in the physical realm while his spirit was in death (darkness), no matter what he did. At the same time, that person is delivered from the powers of spiritual darkness as the Holy Spirit makes him alive and translates him into spiritual light.
Jesus says to each of us, “I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believes on Me should not abide in darkness,” (John 12:46). Won’t you join me?
Jesus and my Father God long for you to know Them.
Dear Reader,
What about you? Have you made your choice to be free of darkness—asking for life by coming to Jesus and accepting what He did for you? Simply ask Him, as did the character in this story, and the Spirit of God will do His part for you... making your spiritual body alive and translating you into the Kingdom of God through the blood of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ.
You must believe in your heart that Jesus is who He says He is. Then... as the Bible says in I John 4:15, “Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwells in him, and he in God.”
Once you make your decision to live in the light, allow the Holy Spirit to have access to your life so that you, too, might know Jesus and His Father. Find a church where God’s Word is taught and where you can see that the people love one another as Jesus instructs us to.
That which I have shared in this tract is only the beginning. There is much awaiting those of us who choose to advance God’s Kingdom. Won’t you join us?
© 1992 by RANAN! Publishers of Gospel Literature, a Ministry of New Life Church in Thayer, Missouri | Written by Joan M. Williams