The past couple of weeks, my posts have focused on content related to watching for Jesus' return.

This is a good thing to do, watching for Jesus, along with anticipating us finally going home while also receiving our new bodies.  We rightly long for this.

And, as one sister of (Rapture Kitty Youtube) expresses well, being rapture-centric is not for wimps.  It is hard because it is not about being correct in our anticipations timing wise, but about a fulfillment of our hearts' longings.  Our true Hope finally coming to past.

How we live day by day in the mean time is what I want to focus on in this post.

Jesus is fully present in each one of us now.  Jesus is in the Father, we are in Him and He is in us.

Last night and today, it is like Jesus is pressing me to simply rest in the fact of this truth.

Prior, and over decades, it has been easier for me to think in terms of relating to Jesus in intimacy yet while still imagining a "seperation" at some level.  But the truth of each of our unions with Him, in our spirits, our core inner person, is actually greater than the intimacy as I had conceived it to be.  "Those who are the Lord's are one with Him in spirit".

God understands this confusion or lack of comprehension.  He does not have a problem with our need to become increasingly aware over time of what He has given to us in total Grace.  He continues to reveal to us, but it is what has already been true for us from day 1.

It is this union with Jesus, that is being pressed onto my heart to rest in.  Abiding in this "already true fact" means I accept it as a Child because Daddy says its true, and enjoy it even though I cannot comprehend it.

Instead, it has been an easy habit of mind over the years for me to relate to what God says is true by not really believing it until I can fully understand it first.  I can rationalize this twisted thinking by holding to the illusion that somehow in doing this I am maintaining my own "integrity".  However, the lie that undergirds this is, "I am seperate from Jesus and not really already in union with Him."  What entity's (or self-concept's) "integrity" am I trying to maintain?

The fact is that the only truth-based "integrity" I am to embrace is that I am a new creation being who is in complete union with Jesus.

I am convinced that over the decades, "some" of my suffering in particular circumstances was actually almost amplified because I was believing the lie of seperation.  I concieved of myself as alone, apart from Jesus in some way, at some level.

When Paul finally got a clue about union, he proclaimed, "I have been crucified together with Christ and I no longer live (seeing himself as seperate from union with Jesus) but Christ lives in me."  He explains this in Colossians 3, "your life is hid with Christ in God".

One way I have tried to picture this union is in terms of how I drink coffee.  I drink coffee with cream.  (Some of the old residents I serve at work think I am a major wimp because I cannot handle it "black" like them. Of course, I jokingly retort that the only reason they can drink black coffee is because the part of their brain they use to experience taste has been severely atrophied with dementia.)

While I am sipping coffee laden with cream, someone could ask me, "What are you drinking?"  And I would simply reply, "Coffee".  Yet, that is not exactly true.  The fact is, I am drinking coffee mixed with cream.  Two liquids, not just one, yet once mixed, the two are also one.

How is it that I can genuinely reply to the, "What are you drinking?" question by only saying, "Coffee" while not being precise in what I answer?  It is because it is the coffee that is the main thing about what is in my cup, or vessel.  Yet, the coffee and cream are in union where the two are also, at the same time, truly one.

Now, what if the person who asked the question states, "You liar, you are not just drinking coffee but are drinking coffee and cream!"

Well, I can simply hand them my cup and say, "Yes, what you are stating is correct, but here is my cup, can you now seperate them into two seperate liquids after they have been brought into union?  Where does the coffee end and the cream begin?"

Being a union of "one" with Jesus means that even though on one level I know that there are "two" (I never become Jesus, or God, as the lie-based "new age" teachings would like folks to believe), the union of the "two" is so amalgamated together that in my spirit I cannot tease apart where my spirit ends and Jesus begins.  So, there are "two" or a created being and the Creator.  And yet, the two are also "one", where the created being is granted all that the Creator is in a shared Life.  This is what it means that Jesus is our Life.

So, all that Jesus is, in terms of His Love, His Peace, His Joy, His perfect trust in the Father, His Absolute Righteousness, is also who I am, not because I am the source for any of this but because of my intimate union with Jesus.

This truth, that is also a present fact for every "new creation" in Christ Jesus, is what Jesus is pressing me to rest in as a child at this time.

So, as I anticipate this upcoming weekend and week as a watcher, wondering what might take place circumstancially based upon what I and other watchers are having revealed to us, it is easy for me, if I embrace the lie that "I am not in union with Jesus", to worry, wondering how am I going to be able to handle it.

Instead, right now, in this moment even while I am typing this post, Jesus is experiencing my very typing as if He is the one doing it, because in fact, He is, through me.  And because He is the Great I AM, Jesus is not stressed at all about what may unfold in the very near future because He is Lord of all lords and King of all kings, reigning on the Throne as God Most High, being given a Name above every name.  In other words, Jesus is the absolute embodiment of PEACE.

And, because I am in union with Him, my spirit is totally consumed with His Peace.

Walking by faith in this Fact is simply saying to God, "OK, that is really cool. Thank you Daddy."  And He replies, "Keep this in mind.  Now, go out and play."

True abiding in Jesus is like what we experience when we are wake up in the middle of the night after having a dream in which we are alone, exposed to the elements, abondoned to sleep on a sidewalk while a predator is lurking in the shadows.  When we "wake up" to the truth, we realize the entire time we were having the dream, that we were, the entire time, safe and sound in a warm cozy bed.  The facts of what God has accomplished and given us only because of what they pulled off in Jesus, are the only REALITY, not our very limited perceptions in a given moment.  Abiding in Jesus means that my perceptions do not impact nor undermine Jesus who is the TRUTH.

No matter what unfolds in the near future, we are in union with Jesus.  We cannot obtain a better place to be in the entirety of creation.  And we have been given this union with Jesus forever!  He is our exceedingly great reward, even before we get home.

He has truly "got us". 

Praise our mind-blowing and heart-blowing God for His plan of total Grace for us in Jesus.  He truly loves us.

See you soon,

Douglas Henney