One of my favorite “fathers” in the faith was Brennan Manning, who endeared himself to more than one generation of believers seeking intimacy with Abba. One of his contagious habits was that every morning as his first utterance and every evening as his last was this:

“Abba, I belong to you!”

The repetitive remembrance of this fact fosters security that is so deep and rock-solid that it becomes impossible to even consider that Abba is distant from us!

But there is even deeper blessing in this declaration, as I am sure Brennan would agree. Namely, belonging to Abba implies a belonging to Jesus as well, since Jesus and the Father are one [see John 17:22-23]! Our belonging to the Lover of our souls contains blessings too numerous and profound to even imagine, and yet, there is even more blessing that awaits.

As the perfect unity among the disciples of Jesus that he prayed for in John 17:20-23 becomes a reality, we will experience an incredible “belonging” that Abba intends for us as an expression of his incredible love. Namely, because of our perfect, complete unity we will, in effect, belong to each other!

This is one of the amazing blessings of complete unity among the saints, an inter-connectedness that is a core characteristic of the unified Body of Christ! [See several of the writings of the Apostle Paul, for example.] In other words,

I belong to you, and you belong to me!

One of my favorite conclusions stemming from this “belonging” is that my expression of Jesus belongs to you, and yours belongs to me! Seeing Jesus in each other is my strong recommendation to facilitate love for one another.  Even if I don’t seem all that “lovable,” Jesus in me certainly is! Hallelujah! ☺

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