Drop Everything - The Stance of the Beloved [Mandy Mullikin]

Mark 1:9-12, John 5:19, Philippians 2:6-7a, John 17:23+26

"In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.  And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” Mark 1:9-12

“It doesn’t mean that Jesus saw a little door ajar miles up in the sky. ‘Heaven’ in the Bible often means God’s dimension behind ordinary reality. It’s more as though an invisible curtain right in front of us, was suddenly pulled back, so that instead of the tress and flowers and buildings, or in Jesus’ case the river, the sandy desert and the crowds, they’re standing in the presence of a different reality altogether. “ NT Wright

John 5:19, Jesus tells us “the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does.” 

BAPTISM = REPENTANCE = TRANSFERRING IDENTITY 

“Repentance means reorienting our values, habits, loves, thinking, and behavior according to a different understanding, one rooted in the revelation of Gods nature and coming reign” -Johnathan Pennington

    Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;  rather, he made himself nothing,by taking the very nature of a servant.” Philippians 2:6-7a

“I in them, and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. I have made you known to them and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.” (John 17: 23 + 26)