The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"That Person!"
A primary reason the Apostle Paul prayed for fellow believers "to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge" involved the transforming and empowering effect of such growing awareness:
"Beholding as in a glass (mirror) the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (II Corinthians 3:18).
No possibility exists for our independently loving others as the Lord Jesus loves - unless we heed Paul's counsel to look into God's mirror and find ourselves not merely as ourselves, but as the living temple of Christ.
"God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba Father" (Galatians 4:6).
"The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us" (Romans 5:5).
Discovery of God's love as revealed in Scripture and along the pathways of our lives yields greater and greater realization that we cannot possibly attain to His standard of otherness by ourselves. Thankfully, we were never meant to. "We shall live with Him by the power of God" (II Corinthians 13:4). God made human beings to be His spiritual habitation, the temple of His illuminating, motivating, and empowering presence. The Spirit of Christ lives in us so that we may live through Him (Colossians 1:27; I John 4:9). This most applies to the life of love to which God calls us. No possibility exists that we could ever independently "walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and given Himself an offering and a sacrifice to God as a sweetsmelling savor" (Ephesians 5:2). If, however, the Lord Jesus has entered our hearts to "dwell and walk" in us, the potential to live a life of devotion to God and others teems immeasurably within us - "Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding, abundantly above all we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto Him be glory in the church" (II Corinthians 6:16; Ephesians 3:20).
Do we believe this truth, so plainly and often declared in the New Testament? Has the Lord Jesus not only died for us, but has He come to live within us as the very Life of our lives? Can we thereby "walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us?" The answer is a definitive "Yes!" God never commands us to do that which we cannot do - through Christ. The growing discovery and application of such grace awaits our faith in a Savior and a salvation far beyond the measure we often realize. Indeed, in the moment we believed, the living God made our hearts His habitation, wherein He not only dwells, but walks. A vitally active Lord Jesus abides within us through the Holy Spirit, purposing to empower the same quality of life in us He lived during His earthly lifetime. "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).
Finding it difficult - impossible - to love as Christ loves always characterizes the first step in actually doing so. Look into an earthly mirror and say to yourself, "That person, by himself or herself, has no hope whatsoever of such love." Then, look by faith into God's mirror and see yourself as He sees you, and declares you to be - the living temple of the living Christ. Say to yourself, "Now that person, inhabited and empowered by the Lord Jesus, that person can live and love through Him!" We begin by acknowledging our Lord's declaration: "Without Me, ye can do nothing." We do not, however, stop here. We rather press on to the affirmation of faith, "I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me" (John 15:5; Philippians 4:13). Nothing without Him, all things through Him - this is the protocol of the believer's walk in love, as enabled by the empowering love of the Lord Jesus Himself.
The truth applies to all born again believers. This is reality. This is hope. This is life, and this is the love made possible and actual through "the hope of glory" whereby the Christ who died for us now lives in us (Colossians 1:27). Let us then "behold as in a glass (mirror) the glory of the Lord." We will be changed thereby, and a life of devotion to God and others will be realized for the glory of the Lord Jesus, the glorious and indwelling One who can lead us to "walk, even as He walked" (I John 2:6).
"For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power."
(Colossians 1:9-11)
Weekly Memory Verse
For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die, but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
(Romans 8:13)
7254
No comments:
Post a Comment