Monday, February 10, 2014

Gaining the Very Life of Christ

To say that, “to live us Christ,” means we live for Christ only touches the surface of the meaning. Sure, it says in Romans 6:12-13, “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin.” So, of course, we stop giving our hands and feet, our eyes and our ears, and our mouths over to sin for it to use for its nefarious purposes. Yes, we work hard trying to stop sinning.

But it doesn’t end there. The passage continues, “But present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.” The life of a Christian is defined, not by what we give up, but by what we gain, and that is the very life of Christ. Christ lives within us.

Once we start getting a passion for Christ, once we start living in the awareness that Christ lives within us, we will start to see ourselves as Christ’s. We will look at our hands and feet as instruments for God’s use. We will look at our mouths as instruments for God’s glory. We will start living for Christ. God will use us and empower us. God will work through us. God will transform us into the image of His Son.

Isaiah 32:2-4 describes this transformation:
2 A man will be as a hiding place from the wind, and a cover from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. 3 The eyes of those who see will not be dim, and the ears of those who hear will listen.
4 Also the heart of the rash will understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers will be ready to speak plainly.

Amen! We will be a safe sanctuary for people to run to and find a hiding place. And even someone like me will be able to stand up here now and preach, a stammerer who can be used as God’s mouthpiece. That’s not me able to preach. It’s only Christ living through me.

As we give ourselves more and more to Christ, Christ will transform us more and more and make us more useable to Him. Are you living for Jesus? Are you being transformed more and more into the image of God’s Son?

Look at this 2nd Corinthians 3:18:
“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

Amen! We are being changed.

look also at what it says in 2nd Peter 1:3-4:
“As His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”

What’s lacking that keeps us from living a life of godliness? Nothing! We have “all things.” Why? Because we are “partakers of the divine nature.” Do you really understand the impact of what we just read? These two verses are the kind that make us drop our mouths open in awe and wonder. They are almost too awesome to take it in. Did we read that right? Can we really be “partakers of the divine nature?” Can we take part in God’s very nature?

Listen to me! That’s exactly what this says. We may partake of God’s nature as Christ lives in us and through us.

Kallistos Ware writes,
“Christianity is not merely a philosophical theory or a moral code, but involves a direct sharing in divine life and glory, a transforming union with God face to face.”

That’s what this is all about. We are united with Christ and that transforms us. As a Christian, you lack nothing necessary to live a life of godliness because you lack nothing of God. You have, as believers, been indwelt by the very presence of God’s Spirit. You lack nothing - nothing except the willingness to experience it.

The last half of Ephesians 3:19 says, “That you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Are you? Are you totally filled and controlled by God? Is He living in and through you? This isn’t saying that we become divine, but it does say that we become increasingly more and more like Christ as we are filled with God.

That’s God’s whole purpose for us Romans 8:29 tells us that, “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.” God wants to make us like Jesus with His heart, with His eyes and ears and lips and tongues and hands and feet. As Athanasius said about Christ, “He became what we are that we might become what He is.”

Isn’t this what Paul is talking about when he says that “for me, to live is Christ? Is that true for you?

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