It was back during the early 90's that I started watching for Jesus in earnest, seeing high watch dates in front of me, crossing off one calendar day after another.  I grew up in a Bible teaching church and so knew about Jesus coming from my early years.  Yet, it was in the late 80's and earth 90's that it seemed God revealed the reality of that to my heart.

I have a low tolerance for suffering and difficulty (I am well practiced in the art of whining to God).  My continuing to watch for Jesus ever since is a miracle of the Holy Spirit.  Seriously.

Watching for Jesus is one way God has sustained me as I live through the story He has written for me.  If I had known back then how long the wait would be, I do not know how I would have gotten through some of the things in my life.  My guess is that this understanding is not uncommon in the 'watching for Jesus' community.  I feel confident that a number of you can relate.

How God sustains each of us is a mystery.  It is something only He can accomplish.  Down here, I do not believe we comprehend the extreme by which He does this.

Prior to the revelation of God to my spirit that His Son was indeed coming for us, God had revealed to me yet another aspect of His salvation back in the mid 80's.

That those of us who have embraced what Jesus accomplished on our behalf are now in union with Him.

I Corinthians 6:17 expresses it.  "Those who are the Lord's are one spirit".

That was 40 years ago.  However, even now, I feel spiritually "retarded" in regularly resting in that Reality.  It is one thing to know something intellectually.  It is another to have a truth revealed to us in a given moment or circumstance.  It is yet another to actually slowly accept it, incorporate the truth into our visceral interpretations, and also learn to simply rest in it.  A few years ago I joked with a Christian friend saying, "Hey, today I rested in Jesus twice as long as I did yesterday.  I actually did it non-stop for a full two minutes today."

I believe that for those of us watching for Jesus, and possibly one reason why the wait has been so very long for a number of us, is that God is nurturing our hearts to simply be focused on His Son in our day by day life.  And that in some ways, this is more important to our Heavenly Father, for our sake, than trying to figure out when we might go home.  

I also understand that focusing on Jesus, along with watching for Him, go hand in hand.  

Yet, in my watching, it is easy for me to look forward to going home, not always focused, foremost, on wanting to be with Jesus face to face, but that I am simply weary of being down here in and of itself.  I am not critical of this dynamic.  I think it is part of being human.  And it is also a legitimate part of our hope of Salvation.  

And yet also, it can result in my losing focus on what really matters today, in this moment.  That what I truly long for, intimacy with Jesus, has already been given to me completely.  To us.  To everyone of us in the Body.

Over the past 40 years, since the initial revelation of my being in Union with Jesus and my extreme yo-yo of trying to live in it, I have come to see, in retrospect, that there was a very significant mis-perception that had been programmed into my mind prior, an illusion that was greatly reinforced during the years of my church upbringing, that actually undermined resting in the Reality.  It was this misperception that undermined my trying to rest in Him, live in Him, and simply enjoy the reality of Him.  

My desire is that what I am about to lay out might be a benefit to you as it has been for me.

(This is also difficult for me to put into words, so bear with me).

The problem was that after coming to believe in Jesus as my Savior and thereby now being in Union with Him, that I kept conceiving of myself as, what I call, a "stand alone" entity apart from Him.  There was Jesus "over there" and there was me "over here".

As a child and teenager, it was "Jesus is in heaven.  I am down here on the earth".

As a young adult and I began to understand God is Lord, it was "God is all around me.  I am by myself."

Later on, as I began to learn of Jesus being inside of me, it began as "Jesus is inside me.  I am full of sinfulness in my life".

I wasn't seeing Union at the extreme is was true.

In essence, it was a learned idolatry.  An idol that is actually the foundation of every heart idol.  An idol that goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden.

It was also an illusion.  A lie for those of us who have accepted Jesus as Savior.

In our Union with Jesus there is no distance.  There is no gap to bridge.  This is what God started to reveal to me in the mid-80's.

Yet, I was still confused in this way:  

On one hand, I was looking forward to finally being with Jesus after we are taken home.  My heart longing has been that Jesus and I would spend time together in my own version of a Garden of Eden in a time dimension that is outside of heaven's time flow (perhaps it will be in a forest with massive trees, an extreme variety of animals, birds, butterflies, and with a tree house 100's of feet high).  He and I would be able to talk heart to heart, undistracted, about so many things like what the Queen of Sheba did with King Solomon.  I would get answers to questions on things like His calendar (surprised?), what role I might have in heavenly places, how I might interact with what He would soon be doing during the judgement years on the earth.  We could possibly go back and forward in time for Him to reveal to me aspects of His Grand Plan across the ages. I believe that it will be important and necessary for me to witness what He went though for me at the crucifixion. And I would absorb His intense love for me, healing brokenness within my heart.

I think you get what I am trying to say.  However, the above means that I am relating to Jesus as a Being apart from me.  Separate.  He is the Great I AM.  I am a created being.  How can there not always be a dominating sense that we are not in Union?

I also have desires within me wanting to relate to my Heavenly Father similarly.  Perhaps Abba will take on a "reduced form" for my sake, so that I can relate to Him like I want to with Jesus, condescending to me in my very puny "created-being-ness".  I think now in terms of what Jesus said to Mary as the first thing to then pass onto His disciples, that He was not only going to His Father but their Father.

But again, this desire within me, in terms of relating to God as my Abba, also presupposes that He is "other" than me.  How can I then conceive of being in Union with Him there, let alone down here?

Why does it matter so much to me that I also know of Union with God beyond an interactive relationship as I pointed to above?  Because knowing another in the union of intimacy is my deepest heart longing.  I believe that is what each of us are designed for.  I am simply not content to call it good that interaction with God is enough.  It's not.

And Jesus doesn't think so either.  Look at what He asked of His Father prior to His crucifixion in the gospel of John.  He asked the Father that we would come to know Union with them as they know with each other. 

Recently I came across a verse that gave some clarity to all of the above.  It was like "a hint" from God as to what the Reality is now and how it might be understood and experienced when I get home.  I John 1 says:

1What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life— 2and the life was revealed, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was revealed to us— 3what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. 4These things we write, so that our joy may be made complete.

What struck me is who John did not mention.  He left someone out of the fellowship relationship.  Someone very important.  

The Holy Spirit.

We are in Union with God because we are in Union with the Holy Spirit.  From this Reality, we can then interact relationally with Jesus and the Father as "other", while also knowing Union within the Godhead because of the Holy Spirit.

For those of us as members of the Body of Christ, if I do not conceive of myself as a "one-with-the-Holy-Spirit-being", I will be, by default, embracing the lie, the illlusion, that I am a "stand alone" being apart from God.  I will invariably then grab some form of law-system (from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil) to bridge the illusionary "gap" between me and God.  For example, "Those who are watching for Jesus will go at the rapture and those who are not watching will be left behind."

Now, I am thinking that what I just expressed is not that much of a stretch for folks.  But I as consider the scriptures, I am going to take it a step farther than what some may conceive.

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live"

"You have died and your life is hid with Christ in God."

Prior, I took those verses as being rather symbolic but not literally.  But the reality of coming into Union with God via the Holy Spirit means that the "self" I conceive of as being "me" has ceased to exist.

I still have awareness, but that experience of awareness is directly and only the awareness of God Himself.  I am simply riding on the coat-tails of it.

Right now I am at a cafe.  At the counter is a young Asian gentleman.  Looking through my eyes at Him is simply the Holy Spirit.  That young man is greatly loved.  Jesus died for him.  

Now, I am thinking of someone I know who has been cruel to me.  Someone who is also a member of the Body of Christ.  With the eyes of the Holy Spirit, I see her as totally forgiven, being before the Father and the Son with the same righteousness as I have.

My longing for Jesus and the growing love I am experiencing for Him is simply the Love of the Holy Spirit for Jesus spilling into my awareness.

The things I have learned and have been revealed to me from the scriptures is simply the thoughts of the Holy Spirit flowing into my awareness.

My burden for others that leads me to sincerely pray for them is the heart of the Holy Spirit entering into my awareness.

During my life review once I get home, the only things that will be reward worthy are what the Holy Spirit did in me, through me, as me.  The Holy Spirit is the only One capable of performing acts of righteousness that will withstand the "fire" of God's review of my life. 

The Holy Spirit is our only Reality.

How accepted is the Holy Spirit before Jesus and the Father?  I am that.

How delighted is the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit?  I am that.

How pure and righteous is the Holy Spirit in the eyes of the Father and the Son?  I am that.

Where does my love for Jesus and the Father come from?

Another way to look at this: picture a two year old child being squeezed within the love embrace of their mom and dad, with a big smile on their face.  That is our reality within the Godhead.

For what it is worth.

God bless you.