Everything about religion, everything that we tend to do to relate to God is from a place of being separated from God. Our very form of worship recognizes our distance from Him, and we excuse it by thinking, “I can’t be like God. I’m not supposed to be like God.” Yet when Yeshua (Jesus) was here on the earth in human flesh, He said, “I and My Father are one” (see John 10:30). By saying that God was His Father, Christ rejected the entire religious system of His day, which was based on the concept that mankind could never be one with God (Hebrews 10:1–4). But it was not only people in His day who had this problem. A great deal of Christian doctrine right now is incorrect in that it separates Yeshua from being a man who was just like us. Yet in that state, He and the Father became one.
What we need is access to the Father. What we do not need is a religion that keeps God as someone who is absolutely unattainable, a religion in which we are believers and worshippers but never enter into a relationship with the Father. Yeshua came to break down the walls and barriers between us and the Father, but satan wants us to do the same thing with Yeshua that we have done with God. And that is to keep us relating to Yeshua as someone who is afar off and just as unattainable in our minds as God. Yet everything about Yeshua coming to earth was to end that condition.
The purpose of Yeshua coming to earth was to end the isolation between God and man. Yeshua said, “My Father and I will come and take our abode in you. We will abide in you, and you will abide in Us” (see John 14:20, 23). Again, He said, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” (John 15:7).[1] Christ is looking for us to abide in Him. Still on a daily basis, we tend to live and move in isolation from Him. We need to get rid of this false picture of who and what Yeshua was, how He functioned, what He did, and how He did it. Yeshua was abiding in the Father, and the Father was abiding in Him.
Get out of your mind that the goal is to grow into being spiritual giants with powerful gifts. Our testimony to the world will not be that we perform great miracles out of our ability to get God to move while we are separate from Him. That is not what the Lord is looking for. Read in the Gospels how the works of Yeshua were always a testimony that He was abiding in the Father and the Father was abiding in Him. And the Lord promised, “My Father and I will come and take up our abode in you.” Not only will Yeshua and the Holy Spirit abide in us, but the Spirit of the Father will come and abide in us also (Romans 8:11).
Come to the Lord and say, “Lord Yeshua, You have already walked this through. You came into the earth as a man, and as a man You were perfected by that which You suffered (Hebrews 2:10, 5:8). You were disciplined by the Father that You might become my Savior. And You are saving me from being isolated from the Father. Therefore, I will abide in You and abide in Your Word. And as I do, You will teach me how to abide in the Father.”
[1] All Scripture references are from the New American Standard Bible 1995 (NASB1995).