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The Coming Increase of Christ in His House
God has determined to fashion His people according to His own design. His standard is nothing less than the likeness of His own Son; He intends to conform us to the image of Christ, “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8:29). How foolish to think that we could ever form ourselves according to His eternal objective.
But surely there is something we can do. We can respond with faith both in Christ’s holy character and in His power to fulfill in us what He has started. In fact, if we will believe in our hearts that God has raised Him from the dead and verbally confess Him, God will save us. To be saved (Greek, SOZO) is to be made whole, to be delivered. Not only do the lost need to be saved, the Church desperately needs so as well.
We tend to think of salvation only in terms of being saved from eternal damnation. Once we are born again, we are saved. But Scripture also refers to salvation in ways other than our initial rebirth experience. Jesus would heal people and then tell them that their faith had saved them, i.e., made them physically sound. Paul spoke to those already born of the Spirit in the Roman Church concerning how they could be saved (Romans 10:6-10). James also informed believers that if they received God’s Word, it would save their souls (James 1:21).
To be made whole spiritually is to become like Christ, God’s standard for us. We fall so far short of Christ’s image that many have accepted substandard living as normal. But what is usual is not necessarily appropriate. The truth is that the only normal man who ever walked the Earth was Jesus; it took God to be a man.
So how will we ever become normal? Paul says we must confess the Lord Jesus. We do not speak His name as some sort of technique to achieve psychological wholeness. We speak of Him because we love Him. We confess Him when we pray, worship, exhort other believers, teach the Word, and evangelize, etc. The act of declaring Him expresses the faith in our hearts that He is alive and well, ruling the nations. For the rest of our lives we will speak of the Lord Jesus, believing that God has raised Him from the dead. As we do so, God will conform us to the likeness of His Son.
Clearly, the journey into wholeness is not a weekend trek. It will not suffice to simply attend a conference dedicated to making people spiritually sound. Even if we graduate from an accredited Bible school with a degree in spiritual or psychological counseling, we are not any more normal than the ones to whom we speak. In fact, the more knowledge we have, the prouder we tend to be.
God holds before us an unattainable goal; we are to become like His Son, who was perfect. The fact that flawed people speak of perfection as normal may seem humorous at first. But it is only funny (actually it is really quite sad) when we present ourselves as something other than the imperfect people we really are. We are all on a journey into wholeness; there is no room for pride.
Lord, deliver your Church from experts. An expert is one who has arrived somewhere and has the answers for the rest of us. But the Lord calls us all to be His disciples; a disciple is a learner. And we are all in this together, learning Christ and His ways.
So how far along this road will we actually go in our lifetimes? Certainly, we will not achieve perfection this side of eternity. Outsiders sometimes like to point their fingers at the Church and celebrate the obvious flaws in our midst. “Why don’t you guys just quit and settle for the reality of the human condition? Stop preaching righteousness. All you’re doing is making us feel guilty. And besides, we see plenty of failures in your own midst.”
But God has made a promise. If we continue to trust Him, He will vindicate us. For, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame” (Romans 10:11). There is an end in sight. God is bringing His purpose among us to fullness among the nations. Herein lies Israel’s hope.
God’s goal is nothing less than the revelation of His Son among the nations. Basically, His message can be summed up in one word: Christ. When He called Paul to be an apostle, He did not give him a five-year plan for reaching the nations, He simply revealed His Son. The gospel Paul preached was not according to man, i.e., in harmony with human nature; it was according to God. What he preached did not come from man, for a message from a flawed source would only produce a flawed result.
Instead, Paul sat in the presence of Perfection and described to others the beauty of what he saw. He was not called to simply talk about Christ; he was called to preach Christ, i.e., to actually impart through word and deed the presence and power of the One he was presenting (Galatians 1:16). In other words, preaching the gospel is more than a transfer of information; it is the impartation of a Person. In a word, such an event is miraculous. To put it another way, the gospel is not about the power of God; it is the power of God.
Quite simply, God has called us to bear His presence into the various circumstances of our lives. His Kingdom really is that uncomplicated. Our great need is not for more theological degrees; it is for more of Him to be revealed both in us and through us. Our great need is for Christ. The world does not need the Church to be more visible; the world needs the Lord to be seen more clearly in His people. May there be less of self and more of Him, less human strength and agendas; and more of the power of Heaven manifested through weak human vessels filled with faith in the abiding power of God.
In light of the great spiritual darkness of our day, many try to stir the Church to action by challenging us to go to the lost. But ministry is not about going, it is about being sent. “And how shall they preach unless they are sent?”—Greek, APOSTELLO (Romans 10:15). The word apostle means one who has been sent on a mission. Jesus did not simply come to the Earth; He was sent. He is the Apostle of our faith. His primary mission was to reveal the One who sent Him. Our mission is to be the same. We are called to be an apostolic people. As we come to intimately know the Lord, we are then to respond to Him as He sends us to others.
Many today speak of the restoration of apostles to the Church. And we hear of some who claim to be apostles. But the claim to be one and the ability to teach on the subject doesn’t necessarily prove their validity. We must judge ministry by the fruit. What is being produced? Effective apostolic ministry is validated when the people themselves become apostolic. In other words, they increasingly represent God and His interests in their circumstances.
When apostles preach some other agenda than the person of Christ, those to whom they minister will also promote something other than Christ. Usually, they become proponents of their particular movement or the leader(s) thereof. Too many today promote streams, movements, methods of church building, etc. Such an approach will not bring abiding change to the Earth. But God’s plan is well underway. God will give true apostles to His Church again. And in every place He sends them, people in love with Christ and bearing His presence and interest will emerge among the nations.
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