Saturation

“A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I in you.” John 14:19-20.

Jesus is foreshadowing here to the Apostles that he is going to die soon, but He will be resurrected. And because of this, we will have everlasting life.

Then he goes on to explain a Mystery of the Gospel. That He is part of the Father; when he says “I am in My Father”. We can sort of grasp this concept, like one of those Russian nesting dolls. But that vision diminishes Jesus’ part in the Trinity. Nonetheless, we understand that Jesus is explaining to the Apostles he is more than just a man.

But then he adds “…you are in Me”. How does that work? If He is in the Father, and we are in Him, are we ‘in’ the Father? Well, we are certainly in the Father’s thoughts. In His heart. And in His plans. But we are not part of God. God is God. And there is only one God. But we are made in His image. In the same way that we are a spirit, with a soul, living in a body; God is essentially the Father Soul, the Holy Spirit, and Son in Flesh and Bone.

So we can understand a little easier the next part: “…and I am in you.” Because we’ve been taught that He, in the form of His Spirit, lives in some measure in everyone who accepts that He is the only begotten Son of God and died for our sins and rose again. We understand that once we are Born Again, a piece of God lives in us.

The hard part is comprehending the final two parts together. We are in Jesus. And Jesus is in us. How can something be ‘in’ something that is ‘in’ it? To be ‘in’ is to be completely surrounded by the other. How can one thing completely surround something that is completely surrounding it?

Then the Spirit revealed it to me. When a sponge is fully saturated, is the sponge ‘in’ the water, or is the water ‘in’ sponge? It is both. They ‘fill’ each other.

There’s something cool about this. We are the sponge, and the Spirit of God (and Jesus) is the water. Like the living water of life (John 7:37-38). In order to be FULLY saturated, we must first be squeezed. Hard. We have to drive out all the dirty water that was in us originally. Then we must be fully immersed in clean water before the pressure is released. We expand finally to our full designed dimensions. We soak in all the living water we possible can take. Every available pore of our being gets filled up with His Spirit. Until we are saturated. Then we are truly IN the living water, and it is truly IN us.

Bob Lund