Either Jesus meant that our full salvation (justification, sanctification and glorification) was accomplished in the It-Is-Finished event on the cross, or it is "almost" finished. Either we are blessed in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, or just some. Either nothing can be added to the completed work of Christ on our behalf, or it is missing something -- like our repentance, our obedience, our faithfulness (prayer life, Bible reading, tithing, small groups, and a boat-load of heavy disciplines from Richard Foster’s book, and more that the preacher lays on us Sunday by Sunday).

So, instead of looking at prayer, Bible reading, serving, and church-going as ways to inch our way closer to God’s blessing and affection, Christian disciplines, to be “Christian,” are pried from the hands of “you must” and “you ought” and completely redefined to be the grateful responses to God’s prior love. They don’t get us to God because God has already gotten to us. Instead they serve to describe the grateful ways we live, we who know the love of God, that will eventually result in our greater consecration, but not to lesser dependence on him.

Repentance and faith in Christ do not bring us into God's love, they are responses to his love. Knowing this, breaths enjoyment into the sometimes-dusty spiritual disciplines. We do them now, not because we must, but because it is the natural outflow of changed hearts and wills. We do them, not to draw closer to God (because there is no "closer" than “you have died and your life is hid with Christ in God”), but to revel more fully and deeply in the finished work of the Lover of our souls. To grow more deeply into who we already are “in Christ” is the spirit of discipleship.

This means that John 6:56 (eat my flesh and drink my blood) is not specifically about Holy Communion, the Lord's Supper. Otherwise Jesus instituted Communion at the beginning of his ministry, according to John. But, rather, John 6 and the sacrament are both about the most profound mystery in the universe: that we have been put into Christ, and Christ in us. That we were joined with Christ in his death and resurrection - the hope of glory! We are already there, now Lord, will you please open our eyes to see this reality: the hope, the riches, and the incomparable great power that is ours “in Him.”