2002-01-01
Good Morning Dear Friends,
For the last three days, I have been sharing some of what the Scriptures say about justification, the process of being deemed acceptable by God in response to true faith, and sanctification, the process by which we are being perfected by God in preparation to inherit His Kingdom as joint-heirs with the Son. For the faithful, justification was done in the past, and sanctification is going on in the present during our earthly lives. All of this is being done to prepare us for glorification, the process of being taken up into heaven to share eternally in God’s glory. This is to happen to us in the future. My faith in the ultimate consistency and truth of every word in the Scriptures assures me that my strong hope that this will happen is well-founded and God-driven. Here are some of the Scriptures that I hope will help you to better understand this wonderful reward that is ours for our faith. It is my profound hope that they will encourage you to know that your Father in heaven loves you to the very depths of your soul.
RO 8: 16-17, “God’s Spirit joins Himself to our spirits to declare that we are God’s children. Since we are all His children, we will possess the blessings He keeps for His people, and we will possess with Christ what God has kept for Him; for if we share Christ’s suffering, we will also share His glory.” RO 6: 5-6, “For since we have become one with Him [Jesus Christ] in dying as He did, in the same way we shall be one with Him by being raised to life as He was. And we know that our old being has been put to death with Christ on His cross, in order that the power of the sinful self might be destroyed, so that we should no longer be slaves to sin.” RO 8: 28-30, “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, those He has called according to His purpose. Those whom God has already chosen He also sets apart to become like His Son, so that the Son would be the first among many brothers. And so those whom God set apart, He called; and those whom He called, He put right with Himself, and He shared His glory with them.” Galatians 4: 6-7, “To show that you are His sons, God sent the spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit Who cries out, ‘Father, My Father!’ So then, you are no longer a slave, but a son. And since you are His son, God will give you all that He has for His sons.” How can you miss the enormous love God has for those who believe in the Son in these wonderful citations? It’s unmistakable!
Hundreds of years before the Son was incarnate, the prophet Daniel who worked in the Babylonian court -a captive all but the first 15 years of his life, saw a vision of the future. It was of events so far in the future that they are even in our future. We learn the reason he was allowed to see this vision in DN 10: 11. It was that Daniel was a made God held in high esteem for his faithfulness. Here is a part of what Daniel saw: DN 7: 13-14, “During this vision in the night, I saw what looked like a human being [Jesus Christ]. He was approaching me, surrounded by clouds, and He went to the One Who had been living forever [God] and was presented to Him. He was given authority, honor, and royal power, so that the people of all nations, races, and languages would serve Him. His authority would last forever, and His Kingdom would never end.” The implications of that vision are extraordinarily important to us today.
The laws we use to explain physical phenomena on earth, Newtonian mechanics and Einstein’s theory of relativity, are so limited in their scope that they can’t begin to either explain or describe the supernatural powers of God. Nowhere is this more evident than in what the Scriptures reveal about the actual process of glorification. Faith is essential and if you believe with all your heart as I do in JN 14: 6, the only way to the Father is through faith in the Son. Look at what we have been given in selected citations from 1 COR 15: 40-54 [a section I hope you will read in its entirety] to help us to understand the process of glorification. (40) “There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies; the beauty of each is different.” (42) “…When the body is buried, it is mortal; when it is raised, it is immortal.” (43) “When it is buried, it is ugly and weak; when it is raised, it will be beautiful and strong.” (44) “When it is buried, it is a physical body. There is, of course, a physical body, so there has to be a spiritual body.” (49) “Just as we wear the likeness of a man made of earth, we will wear the likeness of the Man from heaven.” (50) “What is made of flesh and blood cannot share in God’s Kingdom. What is mortal cannot possess immortality.” (51-52) “Listen to this secret truth: we shall not die, but when the last trumpet sounds, we shall all be changed in an instant…for when the trumpet sounds, the dead shall be raised, never to die again, and we shall all be changed.” ( 53) “For what is mortal must be changed into what is immortal; what will die must be changed into what must cannot die.” (54) “Then the Scripture [IS 25: 8] will come true: ‘Death is destroyed, victory is complete!’ “
The very fact that I can confidently include Scriptures from the OT in this message reveals that these are not new messages and shows how consistent the Scriptures really are. Look at IS 25: 8, which is in a section of this book dealing with Isaiah’s prophecy that God will prepare a banquet, one which the NT calls the wedding feast of the Lamb. “The Sovereign Lord will destroy death forever! He will wipe away the tears from everyone’s eyes and take away the disgrace His people have suffered throughout the world. The Lord Himself has spoken.” I love the book of Revelation, because it reveals the consummation of all prophecy of the past. REV 19: 7-8, is the NT description of the wedding feast of the Lamb. “Let us rejoice and be glad; let us praise His greatness! For the time has come for the wedding of the Lamb, and His bride has prepared herself for it. She has been given clean shining linen to wear. (The linen is the good deeds of God’s people.) This is one feast I not only want to attend, but at which I fervently hope I will be with you!
PRAYER: O Lord, You have graciously revealed all that You have about glorification, so that we may put our trials and tribulations in Your perspective and have hope. You are to be praised and thanked for that. My prayer is that as many people as possible will read Your Word and come to join me in the hopeful anticipation of glorification and sharing of Your eternal Kingdom. We dedicate ourselves to our faith in the Son with love and the desire to obey You. In Christ’s name, amen.
I hope you are feeling as loved as I do today. No matter what your circumstances, you can share in the hope that faith in Christ gives you that one day we will all be together worshipping Him and sharing in the joy of serving God in heaven. Know that He loves us as he loves the Son. How blessed and privileged we are! Peter and I send our love.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn