Have This Mind

Part Two

The Divine Will

“I have accomplished the work
which you have given me to do”
John 17:4

The wonderful prayer of Jesus in John 17 will require eternity to reveal the depth, power and heart of our King and High Priest. This prayer ascends unto the Father from the heart of the “Man, Christ Jesus”. Here He was, the perfect man approaching the greatest of all sacrifices, standing at the precipice of becoming the sin offering. The scourge, the filth, and the shame of all humanity was to be laid upon Him. Yet in the power of faith, he was able to declare “I have accomplished the work which you have given me to do”. It is beyond our ability to understand this fulness and yet if that same Spirit dwells in us there will be the necessity to discover and finish His Will in us. Individuals who feel not the wonder of this call know little of the One in whom this fire burns.

We are afforded glimpses of the intensity of this overcoming prayer of the sinless One as he faced the immensity of the eternal contradiction: The Holy One, the sum of all purity and love exposed to the contempt, the pure hatred, and the violence of evil and ignorant men, submitting Himself to the cruelest of all deaths on their behalf.

“I have finished the work…”

Undaunted by the enormity of all that was soon to transpire He declares His faithfulness to the divine Will of the Father. Until we grasp in some measure that it was the “man” Christ Jesus who prayed and declared this with firm resolve to “finish the work” of God the Father, we will fail to perceive His purpose for those “in whom He lives and moves” to have the same intensity of heart. What was/is true in Him is to be the truth in us!

“…as my Father hath sent me,
even so send I you…”
John 20:21

The undeniable evidence of the Son living and ruling within our own hearts is in the press of Him within us to “finish the work” He has purposed for us. Those who have Him living within desire that same passion to fulfill the work He has called us to. This same intensity of purpose and over-riding cry within was evident in the life of Paul.

“Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus”
Philippians 3:12

The fire of God burning within brings an understanding that we have been “apprehended” for a purpose. There is an inextricable cry to fulfill HIS WILL. We cannot settle for a life of mediocrity. We cannot find rest in religious phrases or earthly pursuits of comfort. We desire to live fully in the same Spirit which propelled the Son unto the complete fulfillment of the will of the Father.

The cry of the Son to “finish the work” is revealed in those who are truly partakers of His Spirit. It cannot be otherwise.

“Have this in your mind,
which was also in Christ Jesus”
Philippians 2:5

⊃⊂

“My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me,
and to finish His work”
John 4:34

Brian Troxel