Bible

Union with Christ in John’s Gospel and letters is the in-one-another relationship of believers with the Father and Son by the Spirit—the intimate, loving, relational participation of the believer and God, each in the life, affections, ways and work of the other.

The following 15 quotes are from Clive Bowsher’s new title Life in the Son: Exploring participation and union with Christ in John’s Gospel and letters.

For Expectant Mothers ONLY. Who knew a parking lot could be so cruel? It was like I just got rejected from the Mommy Club. “No barren women allowed.” The sign could have said: For women whose bodies work right. For women who have had their prayers answered. For women who have something to look forward to. For women with something to expect.

God is our Shepherd. This truth is not for mere intellectual assent, nor a kind of badge to hang on our own board of orthodoxy. To know the one who is Shepherd is a precious reality from which the believer draws strength, comfort, and life.

When we see the radiance of the sun, we meet warmth, and light, and life. Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God. A God who does not need to take from us, but loves to give and give himself.

Dear ones, you are promised so much in this life, but freedom from suffering is not one (Phil. 1:29). Where will you turn when the high tide of illness, injustice, persecution, poverty, or any other kind of evil or unease brings you to an abrupt stop? Let this be an encouragement to warm your souls afresh at the white-hot flame of the Trinitarian love of God. Enough to turn your eyes from the pressures, performance, pain, and problems of this world, is he who wins us again and again by his heavenly kindness. It is this God who desires to be known in Christ and experienced within the deepest recesses of our souls. So it was for the Apostle Paul, and so it is for all of God’s dearly beloved children.

God’s mission in creation and redemption is to bring men and women into the fellowship that Father, Son, and Spirit have always shared.

The invitation of our Good Shepherd does not make that valley disappear, nor does it mean we are exempt from walking through it, but even as we do, we need not fear. Why? Because Christ, our Good Shepherd, is with us. … Oh, what precious realities are ours right now for we who have heeded the call of our Good Shepherd!

The following recordings were given for the European Leadership Forum on Steffen Jenkins’ new book Imprecations in the Psalms: Love for Enemies in Hard Places.

Jesus really came to give us what Adam did not receive in the garden. Not just “no more death,” but constant fellowship with the source of all life. No unclean place outside the camp, because the whole earth will be the camp of Heaven, where God the giver of life dwells with us. There will not merely be no deaths; the very notion of death will be nonsense. The obituary columns will not be blank; they will be inconceivable.