When Christ walked on the earth, crowds of people followed Him for the healings they needed or the miracles they wanted to see. They pursued Him for the fish and barley loaves without realizing where the flow of life was coming from (John 6:2-13). That is still true of Christianity today. We often come to God thinking, “I need a miracle. I need a healing. I need some bread.” In our immaturity, we tend to see Yeshua (Jesus) in the context of what He can provide for us. Of course, we look to Him for our healing and daily bread (Matthew 6:11). But if we are not careful, we will miss the reality of what a walk with God is all about. Yeshua had a relationship with the Father. Christ said, “No one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him” (Matthew 11:27).^[1] So the only way we can come to know the Father is by Yeshua opening the door for us to have access to Him.

It is easy to have head knowledge about the Lord or the Scriptures. But Yeshua knew the Father and had a relationship with Him. Likewise, we must seek a relationship with the Holy Spirit, with Yeshua our Messiah, and with our Father. We need to have a hunger in our hearts for something more—to really know God and to have a relationship with Him. However, there is no way to get this relationship with the Father, other than through a relationship with Christ Himself. Yeshua said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (John 14:6). The Father and Son have such a deep relationship of oneness that Yeshua told Philip, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). As we mature in Christ, we will come into this same relationship as well.

When we read in John 17 about Yeshua praying aloud to the Father, we can hear and see this deep relationship between them. In this prayer He asks the Father to open the door for the same relationship with us. “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me” (John 17:22-23). This relationship with the fullness of God is what I want. I want to know Him. I want to have a relationship with Him. That is what really matters. We may serve Christ and do what He tells us to do, but those are just the works. We are not after works; we are after the source. And the source is a relationship with the Father, “the fullness of Him who fills all in all” (Ephesians 1:17-23).

Yeshua prayed, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3). He also said, “Greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father” (John 14:12). How will we do the greater works? By having a greater relationship. Yeshua had a relationship with the Father, but we will have a relationship with Christ, the Father, the Holy Spirit, and the Body of Christ. That adds up to greater works because it is born out of greater relationships.

^[1] All Scripture references are from the New American Standard Bible 1995 (NASB1995).