Union with Christ is a life of a different caliber. Jesus situates you into the first stages of bridal Union. You are subsequently espoused to your Devine Groom at this point. He has given you an engagement ring, irradicated your sinful nature, and He looks at you and says, “My Bride!” as you are now espoused to Him.

When the engagement enters the stage of a wedding, and through many more levels of impartations, you arrive at the wholeness of Union; you have gradually become an entirely different kind of being. You are still human, a Christian, but God so consumes you; you do not think like people think on this earth. Jesus thinks through you and feels through you. You do only what His Spirit gently leads you to do. He totally possesses and owns you. You walk in divine love; you live in divine holiness; you love righteousness; you are pure as the driven snow. He speaks of this higher place as a place of “Extreme Ownership.”


SINFUL NATURE ERADICATED:

You no longer have what the Bible calls a sinful nature or the spirit of iniquity! Wow! It was eradicated; it is gone! You must travel through a crucible of some sort to deal with that thing. Look at Christ. You can pretty much guess what the Bride will experience. Of course, it will not entail suffering of that caliber, but it will ultimately be quite painful. If you don’t understand, you won’t be ready. So be eager to learn.

You have to prepare for Union. You have to have intense times of repentance over sins that have been with you for so long a time that you don’t even think about them. Some people have deeply rooted wounds in their souls or deeply rooted transgressions that they have never gotten victory over.

I can remember living in Omaha. I liked a program with a preacher - a Baptist. I heard him say to his large congregation: “You are a Christian. Jesus is love, but if you think you are expected to love with Divine love while on earth, you are wrong. God does not expect that of you. You are saved, and that’s all you need.” Here I am thinking, ‘I liked you so much yesterday.’ I cried.

God sent His Son to pay the price to do the whole job while you are HERE!

He does not look at it as, “If you don’t want to do it, that’s okay.” No! “My Son came so you could have divine UNION, so you walk, talk, and believe like My Son on this earth.”

You must believe there is something good at the end of life’s marathon, right?

I am so proud of my daughter and several staff members. They want to go for Union and are wise enough to understand that God has supercharged us for that quest. Therefore, they are going to make the best of it.

Meditate on it. Let yourself believe that He has supercharged you with the Great Awakening - to fly with wings of eagles INTO HIM, to enter into Him and become a new creation, that of which Paul wrote.


BECOMING A NEW CREATION:




In the Greek, it does not say you HAVE BECOME a New Creation, but the Greek reads: BECOMING a New Creation. We can all get there as fast as we want to - within reason.



PSALM 23 AND UNION

LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

I loved reading this as a kid. I made it my first challenge to memorize, and it stayed with me.

What we use it for is to console us in trouble. We need the consolation, but this passage is so much more than that.


He’s our Teacher, Guide, and maybe 700 other names that tell us of His character. We see how He takes care of us; He is so gentle and kind. We know our Shepherds’ voice; He was talking to a nation of shepherds. The sheep will not follow another Shepherd. Some hear it and say, “I will follow to great places.” Only time will tell if they will be able to FOLLOW Him.

He is also our Master and has the right to the final say. He understands how to work with sheep. I said to the Lord, “The sheep are so naive, so precious to Christians - it is interesting that You would call yourself a Shepherd. What did you have in mind when you did that?”

He said the strangest thing: “Do you know why My sheep need a Shepherd?” He knew the answer I did not know. He continued, “Because they are one of the most ignorant animals I created. They are not genius animals, a little above the ostrich! The same is true of the child of God toward spiritual issues. They need spiritual training by a loving Shepherd.

COUNSELOR:

How many have thought, “I wish He would sit down with me so I could list all my problems. I am here for a counseling session.” But did you notice He never comes like that? Still, He does counsel us through:
● the Word,
● Dreams,
● Visions,
● Intuitive understanding of which way to go and how to go.

At one time, my list of questions grew to the point that I thought if He ever let me talk, it would take a long time. He gave a 5-minute vision and answered every question. No two questions were interrelated, but He answered every question! Isn’t that amazing? After He answered all my questions, I heard angels. They sounded like hundreds of voices of these angelic beings: “You see how He answers all your questions and prayers.” He can do it all in 5 minutes.

TEACHER:

Job says, “Who is like Him? He is a Teacher of all teachers. Who is like Him?” None. His ability to teach us the lessons of life – we may not ever stop to think that the things in our lives are means to teach us about Him and ourselves and how He deals with people and helps them through their problems.

He teaches us, and then we move on, again and again, if we understand that what He has been doing is teaching us. Some think, “Why does He not answer my prayers and give me the deep answers?” He is trying, but we must learn to hear His voice and learn His ways in how He works. Once He accomplishes this, the program you are in as a student and He as the Teacher will move along quickly. We have to learn because we are temporal, and He is Spirit. Big difference, right?

HE IS OUR GUIDE:

Jesus doesn’t say, “This is what you will do the next two years. You will be lonely, but just keep walking down this road, then you’ll see a strange tree and turn left onto a road. In a short period, the desert road will turn into a jungle with mosquitoes,” and so on.

No, what He does say is, “FOLLOW ME, I will lead you down this terrible desert road. We will be turning left up here soon into a jungle. Now, there is a large serpent that tends to guard the entrance into this jungle, but you do not worry about him. You let ME deal with him.” You might think, ‘That is great. I always wanted to go to the jungle.’ The point is that He is our Guide. He is not sending us but walking with us. He wants to help us hit the right places in our growth at the right time. He wants to prepare us for everything that we will encounter.

I am not like some people who don’t want to know if something bad is coming. They’ll just “deal with it then.” No, I like to know ahead of time. If I am on the freeway, I like to be on the exiting lane two or three exits before my exit.

I like advanced information. He has always been kind to me to talk like that so that I can prepare myself. How do I prepare myself? I dig deeper into the Word. I spend more time in prayer. I often seek His approval of where I am in the preparation process.


BECAUSE HE IS ALL THESE THINGS:
I shall not want. What do we fear the most? That we will “want” or “need” and the provision will not be there. But He promises us: If we will follow the Guide, we shall not want. Where is He taking us? TO UNION. The great maturity, UNION. Wonderful, blessed place to be.

GREEN PASTURES: UNION AND REST

he leadeth me beside the still waters.

The green pastures are symbolic of Union.

What is this telling us? He is going to cause us to LIE DOWN in the green pastures. It is not that He will take us there to eat. No - TO LIE DOWN. This Scripture speaks of the REST, and the REST is Union. This Psalm is about UNION.

The still waters also speak of UNION.

To be continued

In Him,
Nita Johnson