To Have The Person Of Jesus Is To Have Resurrection

On this second Lord’s Day Sunday, after celebrating the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, I have come very uplifted and thankful for the hope we all have in Jesus. As we share this hope, we are mindful that our hope in the Resurrection is in the Person of Jesus. We are reminded in 1 Peter 1: 3 of this precious, life-spreading truth for which we are eternally grateful. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

This fact is clearly depicted in a story about some women, which I do not hear being told, really. Perhaps it’s familiar to you or perhaps it is not. Nonetheless, may we receive from it, life-changing and life-turning treasures.

When David returned to his palace in Jerusalem, he took the ten concubines he had left to take care of the palace and put them in a house under guard. He provided for them but had no sexual relations with them. They were kept in confinement till the day of their death, living as widows. 2 Samuel 20: 3

These ten women have been given a highly favoured job of taking care of the palace while David is away. He returns to a conspiracy that hurts his popularity and his kingdom and he is forced to flee. He takes these ten, very faithful ladies, they with whom he was once intimate and puts them in a house that he has chosen for them. Please understand that he still loves and cares for each one of them, but life is different now. He gives them everything but himself. Look at what David does for them.

He ensures a Place for them to live. He does not leave them to fend for themselves. He has a special place prepared for them.

He ensures that they are given Protection, for he has guards watching them day and night. They can live in peace and safety because David has given them protection.

He ensures that they have Provision. They will never want for anything for they will have adequate supplies of food, clothing, water and all the necessities and niceties of life.

True, David has given them a Place, Protection and Provision, but he has withdrawn his Person from them. They will no longer share his ‘bed’ of intimacy that brings fruit. He has made them to live as widows in confinement. They have a husband in David, for he still fulfils a promise to provide for them, but they live without knowing him. Will you see this as David being lord and master of the ‘dead’ if we see dead in terms of these women not ever being given the opportunity to bear fruit for David? Please note that it is not that they are incapable of bearing fruit, but it is that they are not given the opportunity to bear fruit of their master.

This is not so of God, for He is the Lord of the living and not the dead. See ‘dead’ then as all who do not know the Person of God in them and they in Him. Spiritual intercourse, spiritual intimacy, spiritual indwelling, must be seen in the Person of the One God. Jesus is the Person of the One True God. To have the Person of God is to have the Person of Jesus, the resurrected One, in you. It is to know, not just His place, protection and provision, but to know the Person, not just with you but in you.

Will you listen again to this? God is not the Lord of any dead for He is the resurrection and He is the life. Where are you? Are you living a life that shows the care, protection and provision of God, but there is no opportunity to bear fruit in Him? Know that the Lord does not delight in keeping Himself from you, if you will keep yourself in Him.