God has chosen us according to His plan and purpose. God is preparing a people to show forth His glory on earth. In the beginning God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Genesis 1:26 His intention is seen manifested in Revelation 21:3: “And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God.” It has always been God’s intention to dwell within a people.
God has revealed Himself in the Word as One who is looking for a proper place where He might reside. In the scriptures we find Him moving with His people from one resting place to another as He progressively reveals His purpose to establish His ideal home. This progressive revelation continues until His eternal purpose is fully accomplished in a people that He has created for His own glory.
God has placed this desire for His indwelling in the hearts of His people. "One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I might dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple" Psalm 27:4 All these things are one in Him. To dwell in God's house is to dwell in Jesus Christ for it is there that we see His beauty, and it is there that we are able to inquire of Him concerning His ways.
“That He would grant us, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith; that we, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that we might be filled with all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:16-19
God has sent forth a living word to create and bring into manifest existence the desire of His heart. The Spirit has revealed to us the plan of God but it has been proven by our own experience - out from our own understanding. It is a living word. We believe that as we follow and speak a living Word that we have heard from the throne of God, that Word will bring into being that which has been declared. We have determined to give the truth expression through our lives. We have seen that as we have borne the image of the earthly we can bear the image of the heavenly. Our lives are gradually being motivated by one thought - that Jesus Christ be glorified on earth.
God uses many different kinds of illustrations to describe what He is doing in His people. He is preparing a Body in which He will be glorified as the Head, with every member fitly framed and joined together: members in particular, yet one Body.
1 Corinthians 12:27 He is building a Temple, not made with hands, as a habitation for Himself by the Spirit. We are His planting, and He, waits patiently for the precious fruit of the earth. He is perfecting Sons, in His own image and likeness, that they, like Jesus, might be a joy to His heart, and the expression of His own glory in the earth. All these things are really one thing. Each shows a particular aspect of the glory of God, which is many sided and varied. God continues to prepare a Bride for His Son. She is going to be ready. She is going to be prepared. We have been given the right to eat from the tree of life. Jesus has said to us, “To him that overcomes will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. Revelation 2:7
As God urges us on, we seek to follow. Because it is the Lord leading us on, we are confident that faith will be present as He leads. What we have now, and what we have come to experience by the Spirit, are often things that many people say pertain to an age to come. They think that the transformation that we seek is not for the present time and yet, to God it seems acceptable to bring a people into the knowledge of it now. In Hebrews 6:4-5 Paul says through the life that we have in the Holy Ghost, and the Word of God that we have tasted we are actually partaking of the powers of the world to come. If the Life of Christ becomes our one and only desire we can have confidence that God intends for us to press toward that mark.
“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13-14 If the Lord is speaking; if He is leading us on; if He is showing us the Way; we can follow on to know Him.
“God by His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that has called us to glory and virtue: And He has given us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these we might be partakers of the divine nature.” 2 Peter 1:3-4
God desires that the very qualities of His own nature and existence become evident and manifest in the midst of our lives. God has ordained sons. Paul also has declared, that with open face we can behold as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, so that we can be changed into the same image from glory to glory, even by the operation of the Spirit of the Lord. We believe that what we see in Jesus, God has ordained for us to become. We know that a light has shown in the darkness. We have received Him.
And, “as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.” John 1:12
* For more information on this topic simply E-mail Michael Brod at: michaelbrod@hotmail.com
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CERTAINTY IN AN UNCERTAIN WORLD: BY MICHAEL BROD