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Coming to the Father: The "Final Frontier"

In recent weeks, I was narrowed to a place of spirit where the Lord left to me only two words: “Stay in the Spirit” and “Wait for the Spirit of wisdom and revelation.” Outside this, I was to do nothing. There was nothing I could do. All natural hope in my situation(s) was lost.

 

In the face of many other apparent significant prayer relinquishments and “losses,” the Lord then magnetized my spirit to the words of John 14:4

“And where I go you know, and the way you know.”

 

It’s the final night before the Crucifixion. The Last Supper has just finished. Judas has departed. Now, Jesus turns His attention to the remaining eleven to leave with them His final will and testament.

 

In this ending chapter of His ministry concluding with His prayer for His disciples (Jn. 13-17), Jesus is leaving His choice followers a blueprint outlining a purpose designed to be achieved over an untold number of centuries and generations to follow. It is that purpose He has in view all along for them.

 

Jesus tells the disciples He is leaving to prepare “a place” for them, including for all those who will believe on Him in time to come because of their testimony. Thomas says, “But we don’t know where you are going, and how can we know the way?”   

 

Jesus makes it clear that the final destination is not a continent, nor the moon, nor even heaven itself. The final destination is none other than the Father Himself, and that He Himself is the way to His Father, “I AM the way the truth, and the life; no man comes to the Father but by me.”

 

Many things were yet to transpire in the lives of these disciples. Once Jesus had left, they were destined to receive the Holy Spirit. And upon this, they were further to do many things and to suffer many things. All of the Book of Acts was going to ensue—all the ministries to develop, all the journeys to be made, all the reaping of new converts and the forming of new churches throughout the known world, the crossing of the spiritual frontier to the Gentiles with all the attendant battles to follow on that, all the nitty gritty issues that were to be hammered out—the ministry to the widows, the collections and offerings, the “cares of all the churches” with the new polities to be established—and then of course all the betrayals, the defections, destitutions, “church splits,” broken families, decimated communities of faith, and even the martyrdoms to occur down the line.

 

In the course of His final discourse that night, Jesus told the disciples there would be much to ask for. “Ask, that your joy may be full….whatever you will ask in my name, I will do it…..” And so it was that countless prayers would be offered by these men over the next thirty to sixty years, not to mention the prayers of all who would follow them. That night Jesus saw the whole book of Acts and church history beyond before it ever happened.

 

But yet, for all of what was to come, His ultimate view is not of their lives here to follow. It is not of the great commissioning nor of all the ministries and churches and journeys and sufferings that are to be theirs and those of their followers. No. Christ’s view is an eternal one. His view is to a destination far beyond and above anything here that they will be able to think to ask or pray for. Jesus is preparing them, and all who follow, for rendezvous with the Father.

 

In our late culture, a certain science fiction television series has spoken of “space: the final frontier.” But space is not the final frontier in the mind of our Lord. The final frontier is found neither in space, nor time, nor matter. The final frontier of our journey, which is to “go where no mortal has gone before” is none other than of our appearance before the Father, in union with Him and with the Son. As Jesus prayed it,

 

17:20 "I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; 21 that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. 22 And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: 23 I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me. 24 Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. 26 And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them."

 

This is the view our Lord Jesus had that night. He was seeing way before and way beyond anything that would engage His followers in the years to come of their mortal sojourn.

 

Why is that important to us? It’s important to us because we living today in these short few decades of years are embraced in that same vision and prayer. All of us born and living since that night as believers in the testimony of these men through their scriptures are included in the heart of Jesus. He sees each one of us. This single prayer gives every one of us living and believing in Christ today our direct nexus with this New Covenant.

 

When the Constitution for the United States was written in 1787, it began with these words, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, ... Secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity…”  The men who drew up this trust document were thinking ahead to all future generations to follow them such that all who live today under it see themselves as having a direct ownership relative to that document.

 

This is the same thrust of the trust Jesus was establishing with the Father through this prayer. This prayer is our “constitutional preamble.” The ultimate frontier envisioned by this prayer was not of all the things we were to be commissioned to do and to fulfil here and now, but of our coming into full union with the very Father of creation at the end of all this. We were made to be the beneficiaries of this trust unto this everlasting purpose and intent.

 

The reason we may find ourselves at a loss in this present time of frail sojourn is to keep us from ever losing sight of that last frontier laid before us. Our lives in Christ here and now are so involved in so many things and events and prophecies and signs and passions and purposes. But the Father is always present to remind us that none of these define our destiny, and that without grounding, they may actually become distractive from our destiny.

 

When we are young in life, our sense of purpose is inherently more geared to what we are to become and accomplish here below. But as we grow older, we begin to realize that we must have an anchoring purpose that exceeds our hopes for this present life in Christ. Blessed are those who find the grace and power to temper all their earthside callings under the Constitution of this New Testament with its ultimate hope in our final union with the Father.

 

“Father: the final frontier….”  





Chris Anderson
New Meadow Neck, Rhode Island

First Love Ministry
- a ministry of Anglemar Fellowship
http://www.firstloveministry.org

09/17



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