Today let us think about how we can remain in God. Jesus taught his disciples about the importance of remaining in God. One day Jesus who was the master for the disciples brought a water basin and started to wash the feet of the disciples. Peter who believed Jesus to be God who came as man in the flesh could not let Jesus wash his feet who are a mere sinner. So he rejected what Jesus was trying to do to him, and said that Jesus should not wash his feet because it is a servile work belonging to a servant.
Jn 13:8 “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” 9 “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!
When Jesus said that he who did not wash his feet had nothing to do with him, Peter was alarmed because he wanted to have every part with Christ so he immediately changed his thought and asked Jesus to wash his head and body as well as feet if that is that much important. Sharing a part with someone who is important to you is natural for both of them. That is why Peter more than anything else wanted to share every part with Christ. This is also a teaching of Christ too. He taught us that if we are the disciples of Christ, we must share everything with him. And we should be completely one with Christ by sharing everything with Christ.
John 15:4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. 5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
Jesus emphasized over and over again that God’s people must remain in him and then they can bear much fruit and give glory to God. If they do not remain in him, they are like dead branches which would be thrown into fire. It means to receive salvation we must remain in Christ and Christ must remain in us. When we remain in God we can receive abundant blessings from God just as a branch can receive a lot of water and nutrients from the vine when it remain in the vine. Then how can we have Christ in us?
1 John 2:24 As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is what he promised us—eternal life.
How can we remain in Christ and Christ in us? Christ said we must have in us what we have heard from the beginning. Then what was it that the disciples heard from the beginning?
1 John 2:7 Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard.
What is the thing that they had already heard and known even from the beginning? What they had already heard is “the message” or the commands of God which Jesus taught them. Therefore, to remain in Christ, we must remain in the words of God and the words of God remain in us. Then we can remain in Christ.
1 John 3:24 The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
Therefore, it is the words of God that must remain in us and if we remain in the words of God by obeying the words, then we can remain in God and God in us. Then what is the commands of God we must have in us? In the past, God gave the old covenant to the physical Israelites, but for the spiritual Israelites God gave a new covenant. The new covenant is the words of God that must remain in us and we must remain in by obeying it.
Jeremiah 31:31 “The days are coming,” declares the Lord,
“when I will make a new covenantwith the people of Israel
and with the people of Judah.
32 It will not be like the covenant
I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband to[d] them,[e]”
declares the Lord.
33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.I will be their God, and they will be my people.
The law of God that we must remain in and that must remain in us is the new covenant and through the new covenant we can become God’s people who can receive salvation. Therefore, the message we already heard which should remain in us is the word of God in the new covenant. When the new covenant is in us, we can remain in God and God in us. Let us confirm how God remain in us through the new covenant.
Luke 22:19 And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 20 In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.
On the night of the Passover, Jesus gave bread and wine which symbolizes his flesh and blood and he established the new covenant through his flesh and blood. Then why did he give the new covenant of the Passover? Through the new covenant Christ can remain in us and we can remain in Christ.
John 6:53 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.
What is the promise of Christ in the new covenant? Through the new covenant of the Passover, his flesh and blood can remain in his people and his people can remain in Christ because they belongs to Christ through his flesh and blood. By eating his flesh and blood we can become his people and he gives eternal life to everyone who belongs to him. This is the blessing of the new covenant. Through the new covenant we can have everything with Christ and we can become one body with Christ. (1 Corinthians 10:17) Since we are one with Christ, just as God put his Spirit in Christ, God will put his Holy Spirit in us too who have become one with Christ. And through the Spirit in us we can have eternal life.
John 6:63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life.
In conclusion the words of God is the Spirit that gives life. And to those who heard the words of God and obeyed his commands, God puts his Spirit in them and they can remain in God and God in them. And the words that we must have in us is the words of God in the new covenant. When we keep the Passover of the new covenant, Christ’s flesh and blood (or the word of God) can remain in us and through the words of God in us we can receive salvation, the eternal life. This mysterious work of God’s salvation is hidden in the new covenant of the Passover. Therefore, we must keep the new covenant of the Passover.
Even though there is no other church on this earth which keeps the new covenant of the Passover according to all the regulations of the Passover, there is only one church which keeps the truth of the new covenant including the feet washing ceremony which Peter rejected to receive at first. This is the World Mission Society Church of God or WMSCOG, which was established by the Second Coming Christ Ahnsahnghong. He restored the new covenant of the Passover so that his people can remain in him and him in them. And he let us know the true reality of the new covenant, the Heavenly Jerusalem our Mother who is the true source of eternal life. Let us keep the new covenant of the Passover by obeying the words of God so that we may remain in God bearing many fruits. Amen
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