The Church is in God the Father: He’s the unique Source, Originator, and Initiator

The Father’s house, the church, is in God the Father; God is our Father, we have a life relationship with Him, and we take Him as the unique source, the Originator and initiator in all things in our Christian life and church life. Amen!

Our home, our dwelling place, is not the heavens; our home is God Himself. Like Moses said in one of the Psalms, God has been and is our dwelling place throughout the generations. God wants to dwell with man.

He wants to obtain a dwelling place among men, even to dwell in man and for man to dwell in God. How can God, who dwells in unapproachable light and who is holy, righteous, and glorious, dwell with the sinful, fallen, and rebellious man?

It is only by the Lord’s coming and going. First, the Lord Jesus – the second of the Divine Trinity – came as God incarnated to be a man.

Through His incarnation, Christ brought God into man. Wow! This is the beginning of the fulfilment of God’s desire.

First, God was brought into man, and this man Jesus was the embodiment of God. When others saw Him, they realized there was something mysterious about Him – He was a man, but God was expressed through Him.

There was a man here, Jesus Christ, who was both God and man, and God was manifested and lived out in Him.

However, it was not possible for this One to enter into His believers. So the Lord had to go through death and come back in His resurrection; through death, He took care of all the obstacles between us and God and dealt with every negative thing, and in resurrection, He became a life-giving Spirit!

Now as the Spirit the Lord Jesus can regenerate each and every one of His believers to make them children of God, members of the Body of Christ, and components of the Father’s house.

Hallelujah, all believers in Christ are members of the Body of Christ and the many abodes in the Father’s house!

The Father’s house in John 14 is not something physical or outward; it is the Body of Christ with its many members.

By His coming through incarnation, the Lord Jesus brought God into man.

By His going through death and resurrection, He brought man into God.

The Lord Jesus put on humanity through incarnation, and in His resurrection, He uplifted and brought this humanity, this human part, into divinity!

Now there is a Man in the glory, whose life is for us! And this Man in the glory is the life-giving Spirit to dispense Himself as life into our spirit! Praise the Lord!

We believers in Christ are being built up together in God to be the Father’s house today!

The Church as the Father’s House today is in God the Father: we are Children of God, and God is our Father!

The Father’s house in John 14:1-2 is not just a spiritual entity that cannot be touched or seen; the Father’s house today is the church as the Body of Christ.

And the church is in God the Father (see 1 Thes. 1:2; 2 Thes. 1:1). Wow!

Not only are we individually believers in Christ in God by being in Christ, but we are also together as the church, the Father’s house, and are in God the Father! Praise the Lord!

In 1 Thes. 1:1 and 2 Thes. 1:1 Paul wrote to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Where is the church as the Father’s house? The church is in God the Father.

What does it mean that the church is in God the Father? Yes, the church is local and it is of the many believers in that locality, but the location of the church, the real location of the church, is God the Father. Wow!

For the church to be in God the Father, God must become the Father to us, and we must have a life relationship with Him (John 20:17).

What is God to us? If God is only our Creator, our Master, and our Friend, we are not in God the Father, for God is not our Father.

God must become our Father. Through regeneration, we are born of God to be the children of God; as John 1:12-13 says, we are born of God to be His children, and God is our Father! Hallelujah!

If we are the son of the president, we call the president not just, Mr. President but even more, we can dearly say, My father, the president.

No one can say that the president is their father unless they have a life relationship with him.

No one can say that God is their Father unless they are born of God. Did you know that, as soon as you call on the name of the Lord and believe into Him, you are born of God?

We don’t have to feel it or see anything change outwardly: we simply are children of God, for we are sons of God! God has sent us the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father (Rom. 8:16).

There’s a cry in us, especially as we enjoy the Lord at His table week after week, that says, Abba, Father!

We don’t just pray to God as a God in heaven who wants to care for us down on earth; we pray to God as our Father, and we come forward to Him to enjoy Him and partake of what He is.

We are partakers of God’s nature by means of the holy promises of God in His word (2 Pet. 1:4), and we have God’s life in our spirit.

The title God refers to creation; however, the title Father refers to the impartation and multiplication of life (1 John 3:1).

God is no longer merely our Creator; He is also our Father, our Begetter, for He has begotten us with His life.

His life is in us, in our spirit; we have God’s life in us, and we are the children of God.

Together, we as the church are the Father’s house, and the church is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ!

We can call God our Father because we have been born of Him, and now, as His children, we have a life relationship with Him (Rom. 8:15-16).

None but children Abba say; only we as children of God, bona fide children of God, can call Him our Father.

We thank the Lord that, through His life-releasing death and life-imparting resurrection, He has made us one with Him, and His Father is our Father (John 20:17).

Something happened at the time of the Lord’s resurrection; before His resurrection, His disciples were at most His friends, but after His resurrection, they were His brothers.

This is what the Lord prophesied in John 17:20, that in that day – in the day of His resurrection – we will know that He is in the Father and we in Christ and Christ in us.

We are children of God, we have a life relationship with God, and as the church we are in God the Father! Praise the Lord!

Hallelujah, the church as the Father’s house is in God the Father! Praise the Lord, God is our Father! What a glorious fact! Amen, Lord Jesus, thank You for becoming a life-giving Spirit to regenerate us and make us children of God! Now God is our Father and we are His many children. Thank You, Lord Jesus, for going through death and resurrection to cause us to be children of God and brothers of Christ! Hallelujah, we believers in Christ have been begotten of God with His life to be children of God! Praise the Lord, through His life-releasing death and life-imparting resurrection, the Lord Jesus has made us one with Him, and now His Father is our Father! Wow, Lord, what a privilege it is for us to call God our Father! God is no longer merely our Creator – He is also our Father, our Begetter, for He has begotten us with His life! Hallelujah! We as the church are in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ! Amen, by virtue of being in Christ, we are in God the Father!

The Church is in God the Father: He is the Unique Source, the Originator and Initiator

What does it mean that the church is in God the Father? On the one hand, the organic aspect of being in God the Father is that we are joined to the Lord as one spirit, and we have God as our Father. This is wonderful!

On the other hand, however, being in God the Father means that God the Father is the unique source, the Originator and Initiator (1 Cor. 8:6).

God is our Father; the Father is the source, the Originator, the Planner, and the Designer.

The Lord Jesus took the Father as His source; He said that He is from the Father, and the Father sent Him (John 7:29).

Everything He did on earth was by taking the Father as the source.

The Father is the source, and He sent the Son on the earth.

The Lord Jesus knew that the Father had given all into His hands and that He had come forth from God and was going to God. God the Father is the source; He is the Planner, the Initiator, and the Originator, and He sent God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to carry out His purpose and desire.

The Lord Jesus said that He as the Son can do nothing from Himself except what He sees the Father doing, for whatever that One does, these things the Son also does in like manner (John 5:19).

This must be our experience today also.

Our salvation was not initiated by us; God the Father initiated it, for He is the source.

He sought us out as the Spirit, sanctifying us positionally in our environment and dispositionally to bring us to Himself.

Now that we are children of God and the church in God the Father, we need to take the Father as the source, the originator, and the initiator.

When we realize that God is the source and the Originator of all things, we will be blessed; we will realize that we are not the source and actually, we cannot do anything, for we’re helpless.

In our natural man we can do many things, and the spiritual side of our flesh is eager to do many things for God.

But when the Lord unveils us to see that the church is in God the Father, and therefore He is the Source, we will simply stop our being.

Instead of initiating something or doing something according to what we think it should be done for God, we will ask, Has God the Father initiated this?

This is what Abraham did. He learned through many failures that he is not the source but God is the source.

He offended God by trying to be the source and therefore producing Ishmael, and God did not appear to him for thirteen years.

But then God appeared to him again, and he realized, that God must be the source of his seed, in which all the nations of the earth will be blessed.

We need to learn to stop our being and come to the Lord to take Him as the source in all things.

To know God as the Father is to know that everything originates from him and that everything proceeds from Him (Matt. 15:13; Rom. 11:36).

We are not the source. The need in our environment is not the source. Our ability and skills are not the source. God is the source.

We need to learn in the church life that the Father is the unique source, and we all should be in His unique purpose and plan (2 Tim. 1:9; Rom. 8:28).

If we know that God is the Father and therefore we take Him as the source, we will not be so confident in ourselves to do something or to go somewhere, and we will not be presumptuous to do whatever we want. Rather, we will depend on the Lord.

We will take Him as the source, knowing that, if He is willing to do something, He will do it.

This doesn’t mean that we are now indecisive and not knowing what to do anything, even to dress or tie our shoes.

Rather, we learn to live one spirit with the Lord, taking God as the source in all things.

May the Lord grant us to have not just a doctrinal knowledge of God the Father but take Him in reality as our source in our daily life.

May we learn the lesson that we can do nothing without God and that everything depends on God.

May we see that God is the Father, and He is the Initiator of everything.

In both big things and in small things, in both our personal life and our family life, and in everything in the church life, may we learn to take God as the Father.

May we be open to the Lord to give us the experiences we need for us to know God as the unique Source, the Initiator, and the Originator in everything.

Lord, we want to know God as the Father by taking Him as the unique source in everything. Amen, Lord, You are the source; we are not the source of everything, but You are our source. Grant us the experiences we need for us to know God as the Father in a subjective way. Save us from only knowing in a doctrinal way that the church is in God the Father and that God is our Father. May this be real to us in our daily life. Amen, Lord Jesus, may we learn the lesson that God is the Father, the Initiator and the Originator of everything. May we realize that we can do nothing and that everything depends on God. Amen, Father, You are the source! You are the source of our life. You are the source of our work. You are the source of everything. We take You as the source. We worship You. We depend on You. We wait on You. You are and we are not. We love to be here with You, taking You as the source and origin of everything. Abba Father, we love You!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Minoru Chen in the message for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Watchman Nee, vol. 35, “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” ch. 1, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Experiencing, Enjoying, and Expressing Christ (2024 July Semiannual Training), week 11, In the Father’s House—Living in the Place Prepared for Us through the Death and Resurrection of Christ.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – O God, Thou art the source of life, / Divine, and rich and free! / As living water flowing out / Unto eternity! / In love Thou in the Son didst flow / Among the human race; / Thou dost as Spirit also flow / Within us thru Thy grace. (Hymns #12 stanzas 1-2)
  – Thou art the true and heav’nly Vine, / Our very source of life; / By Thee we live, in Thee abide, / And rest from all our strife. (Hymns #198 stanza 2)
  – So now we have to set our mind on Him; / Each day, each hour, our mind on Him must be; / That by this Spirit we’d be saved within / By life and reign in life eternally. / ’Tis by this Spirit that we shall be freed / From Sin whose law inside us death would bring. / Our mortal bodies will have life indeed; / Thus sanctified we’ll be in everything. (Hymns #1195 stanzas 9-10)