2002-01-01
Good Morning Faithful Readers,
God is leading me to spend time delving into how He has told us we can become one with Christ’s divine nature. All of this is with the idea in mind of becoming active, willing, and cooperative participants in the Covenant of Grace. The more we look into this issue, the more convinced I am that, while hard for us at times, the changes we must make to conform to the Son’s standards [RO 12: 2] and to shuck off the agendas of the world bring copious blessings. Pastor Bruce Wilkinson gave us a real gift when he spoke of “abiding with” God in his recent book “Secrets of the Vine.” His point is that it is not enough just to work for God. God wants us to be His friend too. That means we need to know God well and open ourselves to Him too, as we would with our closest friends. The bottom line here is to trust God and to love Him. JN 14: 21, “Whoever accepts My commandments and obey them is the one who loves Me. My Father will love whoever loves Me; I too will love Him and reveal Myself to him.” That means we are vulnerable to Him. When a person gets married, he gambles that his knowledge of his new spouse is good enough that he is willing to trust that person not to hurt him. Sometimes this is true, and sometimes it is not. With God there is never a gamble of this sort when we open our hearts to Him. The reason for that is that He is always righteous, compassionate, just, and loving.
Both attitude and actions matter. Christ really is our covenant Partner. It was no small task for Him to become incarnate, so that He could have real empathy and understanding of our suffering. HE 4: 14-16, “Let us, then, hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we have a great High Priest Who has gone into the very presence of God-Jesus, the Son of God. Our High Priest is not One Who cannot feel sympathy for our weaknesses. On the contrary, we have a High Priest Who was tempted in every way that we are, but did not sin. Let us be brave, then, and approach God’s throne, where there is grace. There we will receive mercy and find grace to help us just when we need it.” One passage in which God reveals His desire for what attitude we should take is PHIL 2: 5-8. “The attitude you should have is the one Jesus Christ had: He always had the nature of God, but He did not think that by force He should try to become equal with God. Instead of this, of His own free will He gave up all He had, and took the nature of a servant. He became like man and appeared in human likeness. He was humble and walked the path of obedience all the way to death-His death on the cross.”
We should never forget the goal that God wants us to work toward in making these changes in the lives. That is why He reminds us in passages, like the two that immediately follow, of the reward His Son was given. PHIL 2: 9-11, “For this reason God raised Him to the highest place above and gave Him the name that is greater than any other name. And so, in honor of the name of Jesus all beings in heaven, on earth, and in the world below will fall on their knees, and all will openly proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” HE 2: 9-10, “But we do see Jesus, Who for a little while was made lower than the angels, so that through God’s grace He should die for everyone. We see Him now crowned with glory and honor because of the death He suffered. It was only right that God, Who creates and preserves all things should make Jesus perfect through suffering in order to bring many sons to share His glory. For Jesus is the one Who leads them to salvation.”
As I read on in this section of the book of Hebrews, even more of Christ’s attitude toward us and toward God was revealed. That is why I would like to cite it through its end. Savor these precious words: HE 2: 11-18, “He purifies people from their sins, and both He and those who are made pure all have the same Father. That is why Jesus is not ashamed to call them His brothers. He says to God, ‘I will tell My brothers what You have done; I will praise You in their meeting.’ He also says, ‘I will put My trust in God.’ And He also says, ‘Here I am with the children that God has given Me.’ Since the children, as He calls them, are people of flesh and blood, Jesus Himself became like them and shared their human nature. He did this so that through His death He might destroy the devil, who has the power over death, and in this way set free those who were slaves all their lives because of their fear of death. For it is clear that it is not the angels that He helps. Instead, as the Scripture [NU 3: 16-18] says, ‘He helps the descendants of Abraham.’ This means that He had to become like His brothers in every way, in order to be their faithful and merciful High Priest in His service to God, so that the people’s sins would be forgiven. And now He can help those who are tempted because He Himself was tempted and suffered.”
The attitude toward God and mankind that Christ modeled for us is the same attitude that God wants us to take to be active participants in the Covenant of Grace. We must delve deeply into our own attitudes and agendas to see where we stand in relationship to the paradigm set for us by the Son. This isn’t always easy for us, because sometimes subtle, yet toxic, sin is sometimes revealed-sin that we must expunge from our lives. But, consider the reward. There has never been any goal more worth it.
PRAYER: O Lord, our actions are sometimes easier to see and understand than our underlying attitudes. For, Dearest Abba, it is our attitudes that determine what our actions are likely to be. You have not only commanded us to trust and obey You, but You have also given us the example of Christ’s attitude, so that we will know what pleases You. You not only love Him deeply as any Father would love His only son, but You have told us that He is the “first among many brothers [RO 8: 29; HE 2: 10], so that we would understand that the reward given to Him for His faithfulness could also be available to us. You confirmed that in RO 8: 17 when, through Paul, You told us, “Since we are God’s children, we will possess the blessings God keeps for His people, and we will also possess with Christ what God has kept for Him; for if we share Christ’s suffering, we will also share His glory.” We are humble and grateful for Your willingness and Christ’s to go through the temptation and suffering He endured on our behalf. We acknowledge Your compassion in preparing Him to be our High Priest in heaven, so that He could be our Intercessor with You. We acknowledge with deepest reverence, humility, praise, thanks, and adoration the opportunity to share in His glory that You have given us. We dedicate ourselves to trusting, being loyal, and obeying You in Your efforts to bring us to identify and confess any sin remaining in our lives. You have our adoration and worship. In Christ’s name, amen.
Tomorrow, we will look at more aspects to the covenant relationship we have with God that give us a deeper understanding of what a great privilege it is that He has called us to lives of faith. The more that I learn about God’s love for me personally and for each of us, the more humbled I become at its depth. Our God is a awesome Being Whose greatest delight will be to live in joy and eternal fellowship with us in heaven. To that end, He corrects us, teaches us His word, communicates with us through prayer, places us in congregations with the goal of furthering our spiritual maturity, heals us, helps us when we are troubled, and most remarkably, gave His Son on the cross for us so we could be saved. We need never question whether we are loved by Him or not! Peter and I send you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn