Wednesday, March 5, 2014

"The Role Model"


     Throughout my lifetime, God has graced me with countless role models whose example beckons me to a higher standard of life and being.  I suspect that the loss of my father so early in my childhood resulted in my Heavenly Father's determination to sprinkle (shower, actually!) my pathways with exemplary people.  Among that blessed company are so many of you read these devotionals, and who serve in so many ways to call me to come higher and to go further.  For that, I thank God and I thank you.

    "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is" (I John 3:2).

    In some way, every genuine role model reflects the character, nature, and way of the Lord Jesus Christ.  God's eternal purpose in His Son involves redeeming and birthing a vast family of sons and daughters to become like Him.  The grace that leads us to faith in the Lord Jesus also initiates in us a holy process whereby our Heavenly Father seeks to conform us to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29).  The work spans a lifetime, and involves every aspect of who and what we are.  Thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, demeanor, words, behaviors, actions, relating to God and others - our Heavenly Father works in the entirety of our being to accomplish for us His most loving expression of grace.  Indeed, the Lord Jesus is the Son whom the Father has forever loved, and will forever love.  To make us like Him draws us into the wonder of such glory, even as our Lord prayed in John 17: "I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them" (John 17:26).

    Wonderfully, our primary Role Model serves as more than our example.  "And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba Father" (Galatians 4:6).  Christ is both the prototype and the power for changing us in His likeness.  He dwells within us for an inside out work, as it were, of grace and truth.  Thus, He calls us to come higher and to go further, while at the same time leading and enabling us to make the journey.  Little wonder then that the writer of Hebrews exults in "so great salvation," because God has given to us so great a Savior! (Hebrews 2:3). 

    I'm so grateful for the role models who have long reflected the glory of the Role Model.  I'm thankful also that God precedes His purposes and requirements with the power whereby He enables us to fulfill them.  We could never make ourselves like the Lord Jesus.  We can, however, trust and submit ourselves to our Heavenly Father for His working in us this sublime gift of grace.  In this moment, He works in us to accomplish such glory.  In this moment, let us rejoice, believe, and submit ourselves to His promise...

"We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."
(Ephesians 2:10)

                                 

   

    

   

                                               

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