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The Coming Increase of Christ in His House
God’s plan for the Earth is unfolding before us. Though the nations are in turmoil, and spiritual darkness appears to hold them in its grip, the Lord continues to call people to himself. Many are hearing that summons and are stepping from darkness into the light.
But where are we headed? What specifically is the Lord’s solution to the massive spiritual deception afflicting the Earth? And how are we to respond?
The Lord calls us to walk with Him in faith like Abraham did, and to believe that He will fulfill His promises. Central in our expectations is His guarantee to build His Church and to fill the Earth with His glory. Like Abraham, we are learning to differentiate between the initiatives of God and our attempts to do for Him what He promised to do. There is a vast difference between working with Him and simply doing whatever seems right in the light of certain Bible texts.
The question we face is whether we will recognize and yield to His timing and to His work among us. When others speak in His name, should we or should we not submit to what they are saying? The answer lies not in what position they hold but in whether they are revealing Christ, or their own thoughts, or even a desire to control others. Can we tell the difference? And just as importantly, how can we accurately reveal God to the world if we do not recognize His voice as we should in His own house?
Jesus knew His Father’s voice intimately. And since His intent is to conform us into His likeness, in the coming years we will experience a greater clarity in hearing God’s voice among His people. We will not achieve such a relationship through our own human efforts of spirituality, but only through His mercy. In fact, He is already drawing us to a greater intimacy with himself as He speaks to us through His Word this very day. What will be the result? He will confront the world with people who will bear His presence in every situation they face and who have no agenda except Christ Jesus and His glory.
God’s strategy is to choose people from among the nations for His purpose. His choices do not reflect favoritism, but rather a plan to express His love for the whole Earth through His work in the lives of His people. How will He change us? He will mercifully reveal to us His glory. One cannot gain such an insight and then walk away unchanged.
Meanwhile, many among the nations, who do not know the Lord, proclaim themselves and their agendas for the Earth, not realizing it is the Lord who has given them a platform. And to the ultimate chagrin of many, He has done so for His fame, not theirs. It is His name that shall be made known throughout all the Earth.
Even among His own people, many have lost sight of the fact that it is the Lord’s preeminence that we should be focused on, and it is only as we spend time beholding Him that we will have anything of eternal value to say. There simply is no other basis for accurately conveying Him to others.
Indeed, the Lord God of Heaven must come into greater clarity among His people before the eyes of the nations. Such beauty must then be seen as well by the nation of Israel as God’s work comes to fullness among us. When His success in our midst stirs up jealousy in Israel, she will turn again to the God of her fathers. The grace of God that will be released among the nations at that time will then surpass what was granted two thousand years ago when Israel failed to receive her Messiah (Romans 11:12).
What will that increased expression of God’s grace among the nations look like? It will reveal His escalating offensive against the influence of spiritual death oppressing the Earth. God has a solution to spiritual death; it is His life in us.
To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
His Church will then become increasingly known not for religious formalism, but for the experience and celebration of God’s life manifest among us.
Ultimately, God will have a glorious house. His purpose, mercy, grace and commitment guarantee it; His Word decrees it. Its final appearance will be according to His specifications, not ours. In the days preceding His return He will sound forth from the midst of His Church His concluding words to the nations. His summation of what He has been saying for thousands of years will be explosive, concise, full of mercy and unapologetic.
Our cry to you Lord Jesus is that you will arise in our midst and build among us your glorious house. May your work in our lives reveal to the nations your glory rather than simply our interpretation of who you are.
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