How does Jesus feed his life into us?

In 1 John 5:11, “God has given us eternal life and this life is in his Son.” So Jesus is feeding eternal life into us, which ties in with John 6:54, when Jesus says, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.” 

But how does Jesus feed his eternal life into us? What, though, does Jesus mean by “eternal life”? John describes it as “fellowship with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ,” I John 1:2-3, which Jesus demonstrated in his own fellowship with the Father while he was human – and in two ways: by the Father communicating his own thoughts and words to Jesus (John 8:28, 14:10, 24), and Jesus knowing his Father always heard what was on his mind too (John 11:41-42). 

Fellowship works that way on our level as well – in marriage, with our kids, in our jobs, and with each other: it comes from communicating our words and thoughts to each other, and knowing from each other that we’re being heard. Miss out either of those two points and fellowship suffers. Like the two frustrations in any relationship: “You don’t tell me what you’re thinking,” and “You’re not hearing what I’m saying.” 

And according to John, those same two points apply in our fellowship with the Father and Jesus too, because we also need to know what they’re thinking – and know for sure that they’re hearing what’s on our minds too. It was top priority to Jesus, therefore, to make that possible for us by asking the Father to give us the Holy Spirit (John 14:16-17), because the Spirit would fulfill both parts of that fellowship in us.

“The Holy Spirit,” for instance, “will remind you of everything I (Jesus) have said to you” (John 14:26), fulfilling the first part of fellowship, communicating Jesus’ words and thoughts to us. John then wrote that “if we ask anything according to his will he hears us” (1 John 5:14), fulfilling the second part of fellowship, knowing that we’re heard by God too. 

So this is how Jesus is feeding his eternal life into us: it’s by living the same two means of fellowship he experiences with his Father in us through the Holy Spirit. Jesus wants this to be real for us too, so that “we know he lives in us,” 1 John 3:24. And how do we know? As John continues in that verse: “We know it by the Spirit he gave us.” 

It’s the Spirit, therefore, that makes fellowship happen, or to borrow the words of an old hymn: “The Spirit, the tie that binds”….(next blog)