To live within the pleasure of the Father is a lesson my Teacher (Prof. Holy Spirit) has been cultivating within me specifically for over a year now. I am convinced the more we become aware of our individual belovedness, the more we will truly look like Jesus Christ. And what follows as we imitate and reflect Him is a world that will take note that we have been with Him.
"And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Matthew 3:17
"Here is My servant, whom I have chosen, My beloved, in whom My soul delights. I will put My Spirit on Him, and He will proclaim justice to the nations." Matthew 12:18
Before Jesus performed any healings, before he cast out one demon, before accomplishing any miraculous work or speaking a gracious word to the public, before He gave Himself on the cross for mankind, and before He came back from the dead, the Father expressed His sheer delight and pleasure in His Son. Jesus knew His Father loved Him and was pleased with Him. He beheld the reality that He lived, moved, and had His being within the smile of His Father. What would change if we believed this to our core? What if we hung on His every word? What if we really believed it all?
What change really took place in our LORD's human nature when the Father bestowed His Spirit like a dove to rest on Jesus? When this bestowal of the Spirit of God occurred, so did the ginóskó (the understanding through personal experience) that He has and will permanently please the Father. We see in the very next chapter that He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. I would venture to say that Jesus then beheld an even greater intuition, power, and gifting after this encounter in the wildnerness. Although His human will was already in step with the Divine, He was brought into greater awareness of that present harmony through suffering and trial. His prayer life and His actions intensified. He was in greater harmony with the heartbeat of God the Father... crying "Abba Father!"
As a young [human] boy, Jesus was aware that God was His Father as we see in Luke 2 (Did you not know that I would be about my Father's business?)... but there is a greater intensity in this experience that had not been felt before. There was a conviction in His human soul that He is the SON... the BELOVED.
"For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand." John 3:34-35
Ephesians 3:16-19 says: “I pray that he may grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner person, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith (you having been firmly rooted and established in love), in order that you may be strong enough to grasp together with all the saints what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, in order that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
Take another look at the last verse. Does it leave you breathless, baffled, perhaps even a bit confused? Filled up with the fullness of GOD??? Seriously?
It seems all too wonderful at times to believe God desires to fill us with the fullness of Himself. The apostle Paul prayed this over the church in Ephesus two thousand years ago and it still remains true for us today. If you know you have given your life to Jesus, the fullness of God is for you to behold. The Maker of the Universe offers us something we cannot comprehend. But the question remains: what does this even look like and how does this happen?
Jesus Christ is someone who showed us what it was like to be filled with the fullness of God as a human being. He walked out what is possible for us as God’s kids.
Jesus prayed for both you and me in John 17. He prays in verse 26, “I made known to them your name, and will make it known, in order that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I may be in them.” This means God the Father loves you as much as He loves JESUS! He is just as pleased with you as He is with Jesus! (This is not even a joke!). When God looks and thinks of you, He sees the righteousness and loveliness of Jesus... and He smiles. He is proud to be our Dad. And this is all because Jesus paid for us, made us new, and set us free.
If you will let the LORD sing this over you in secret, you will tap into one of the keys to life… “knowing the love and pleasure of the Father.” Faith is what pleases God, and if you will have the wild faith to believe that God's passionate affection for you is for who you are today and not for who you think you should be, your whole world will be flipped upside down in the most beautiful way. You will live as one who is FREE. Free from offense. Free from enslavement to the opinion and approval of man. Free from your OWN thoughts. Free indeed.
Your identity and value is not defined by your yesterdays. Your identity is not in who other people say you are. Your identity is not even who you feel like you are. Your identity is who God says you are. And when you choose to believe this, you will begin to experience the illogical love of God in places you thought He couldn't reach. Experience is what transforms mankind. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. He will breathe new life in you in order that you might be filled up with His fullness. Will you let Him love you today??????
"In loving me, you made me lovable" -St. Augustine