Monday, April 8, 2013
His Resurrection Destiny
April 08, 2013Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory? —Luke 24:26
Our Lord’s Cross is the gateway into His life. His resurrection means that He has the power to convey His life to me. When I was born again, I received the very life of the risen Lord from Jesus Himself.
Christ’s resurrection destiny— His foreordained purpose— was to bring “many sons to glory” (Hebrews 2:10). The fulfilling of His destiny gives Him the right to make us sons and daughters of God. We never have exactly the same relationship to God that the Son of God has, but we are brought by the Son into the relation of sonship. When our Lord rose from the dead, He rose to an absolutely new life— a life He had never lived before He was God Incarnate. He rose to a life that had never been before. And what His resurrection means for us is that we are raised to His risen life, not to our old life. One day we will have a body like His glorious body, but we can know here and now the power and effectiveness of His resurrection and can “walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). Paul’s determined purpose was to “know Him and the power of His resurrection” (Philippians 3:10).
Jesus prayed, “. . . as You have given Him authority over all flesh that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him” (John 17:2 . The term Holy Spirit is actually another name for the experience of eternal life working in human beings here and now. The Holy Spirit is the deity of God who continues to apply the power of the atonement by the Cross of Christ to our lives. Thank God for the glorious and majestic truth that His Spirit can work the very nature of Jesus into us, if we will only obey Him.
Why We Lack Understanding
As the disciples were commanded, you should also say nothing until
the Son of Man has risen in you— until the life of the risen Christ so
dominates you that you truly understand what He taught while here on
earth. When you grow and develop the right condition inwardly, the words
Jesus spoke become so clear that you are amazed you did not grasp them
before. In fact, you were not able to understand them before because you
had not yet developed the proper spiritual condition to deal with them.
Our Lord doesn’t hide these things from us, but we are not prepared
to receive them until we are in the right condition in our spiritual
life. Jesus said, “I still have many things to say to you, but you
cannot bear them now” (John 16:12).
We must have a oneness with His risen life before we are prepared to
bear any particular truth from Him. Do we really know anything about the
indwelling of the risen life of Jesus? The evidence that we do is that
His Word is becoming understandable to us. God cannot reveal anything to
us if we don’t have His Spirit. And our own unyielding and headstrong
opinions will effectively prevent God from revealing anything to us. But
our insensible thinking will end immediately once His resurrection life
has its way with us.
“. . . tell no one . . . .” But so many people do tell what they saw
on the Mount of Transfiguration— their mountaintop experience. They have
seen a vision and they testify to it, but there is no connection
between what they say and how they live. Their lives don’t add up
because the Son of Man has not yet risen in them. How long will it be
before His resurrection life is formed and evident in you and in me?
The Collision of God and Sin
April 06, 2013
. . . who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree . . . —1 Peter 2:24
The Cross of Christ is the revealed truth of God’s judgment on sin. Never associate the idea of martyrdom with the Cross of Christ. It was the supreme triumph, and it shook the very foundations of hell. There is nothing in time or eternity more absolutely certain and irrefutable than what Jesus Christ accomplished on the Cross— He made it possible for the entire human race to be brought back into a right-standing relationship with God. He made redemption the foundation of human life; that is, He made a way for every person to have fellowship with God.The Cross was not something that happened to Jesus— He came to die; the Cross was His purpose in coming. He is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). The incarnation of Christ would have no meaning without the Cross. Beware of separating “God was manifested in the flesh. . .” from “. . . He made Him. . . to be sin for us. . .” (1 Timothy 3:16 ; 2 Corinthians 5:21). The purpose of the incarnation was redemption. God came in the flesh to take sin away, not to accomplish something for Himself. The Cross is the central event in time and eternity, and the answer to all the problems of both.
The Cross is not the cross of a man, but the Cross of God, and it can never be fully comprehended through human experience. The Cross is God exhibiting His nature. It is the gate through which any and every individual can enter into oneness with God. But it is not a gate we pass right through; it is one where we abide in the life that is found there.
The heart of salvation is the Cross of Christ. The reason salvation is so easy to obtain is that it cost God so much. The Cross was the place where God and sinful man merged with a tremendous collision and where the way to life was opened. But all the cost and pain of the collision was absorbed by the heart of God.
Saturday, April 6, 2013
The Collision of God and Sin
April 06, 2013. . . who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree . . . —1 Peter 2:24
The Cross of Christ is the revealed truth of God’s judgment on sin. Never associate the idea of martyrdom with the Cross of Christ. It was the supreme triumph, and it shook the very foundations of hell. There is nothing in time or eternity more absolutely certain and irrefutable than what Jesus Christ accomplished on the Cross— He made it possible for the entire human race to be brought back into a right-standing relationship with God. He made redemption the foundation of human life; that is, He made a way for every person to have fellowship with God.
The Cross was not something that happened to Jesus— He came to die; the Cross was His purpose in coming. He is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). The incarnation of Christ would have no meaning without the Cross. Beware of separating “God was manifested in the flesh. . .” from “. . . He made Him. . . to be sin for us. . .” (1 Timothy 3:16 ; 2 Corinthians 5:21). The purpose of the incarnation was redemption. God came in the flesh to take sin away, not to accomplish something for Himself. The Cross is the central event in time and eternity, and the answer to all the problems of both.
The Cross is not the cross of a man, but the Cross of God, and it can never be fully comprehended through human experience. The Cross is God exhibiting His nature. It is the gate through which any and every individual can enter into oneness with God. But it is not a gate we pass right through; it is one where we abide in the life that is found there.
The heart of salvation is the Cross of Christ. The reason salvation is so easy to obtain is that it cost God so much. The Cross was the place where God and sinful man merged with a tremendous collision and where the way to life was opened. But all the cost and pain of the collision was absorbed by the heart of God.
His Agony and Our Access
April 05, 2013Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples . . . . ’Stay here and watch with Me’ —Matthew 26:36, 38
We can never fully comprehend Christ’s agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, but at least we don’t have to misunderstand it. It is the agony of God and man in one Person, coming face to face with sin. We cannot learn about Gethsemane through personal experience. Gethsemane and Calvary represent something totally unique— they are the gateway into life for us.
It was not death on the cross that Jesus agonized over in Gethsemane. In fact, He stated very emphatically that He came with the purpose of dying. His concern here was that He might not get through this struggle as the Son of Man. He was confident of getting through it as the Son of God— Satan could not touch Him there. But Satan’s assault was that our Lord would come through for us on His own solely as the Son of Man. If Jesus had done that, He could not have been our Savior (see Hebrews 9:11-15). Read the record of His agony in Gethsemane in light of His earlier wilderness temptation— “. . . the devil . . . departed from Him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13). In Gethsemane, Satan came back and was overthrown again. Satan’s final assault against our Lord as the Son of Man was in Gethsemane.
The agony in Gethsemane was the agony of the Son of God in fulfilling His destiny as the Savior of the world. The veil is pulled back here to reveal all that it cost Him to make it possible for us to become sons of God. His agony was the basis for the simplicity of our salvation. The Cross of Christ was a triumph for the Son of Man. It was not only a sign that our Lord had triumphed, but that He had triumphed to save the human race. Because of what the Son of Man went through, every human being has been provided with a way of access into the very presence of God.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
The Way to Permanent Faith
Jesus was not rebuking the disciples in this passage. Their faith
was real, but it was disordered and unfocused, and was not at work in
the important realities of life. The disciples were scattered to their
own concerns and they had interests apart from Jesus Christ. After we
have the perfect relationship with God, through the sanctifying work of
the Holy Spirit, our faith must be exercised in the realities of
everyday life. We will be scattered, not into service but into the
emptiness of our lives where we will see ruin and barrenness, to know
what internal death to God’s blessings means. Are we prepared for this?
It is certainly not of our own choosing, but God engineers our
circumstances to take us there. Until we have been through that
experience, our faith is sustained only by feelings and by blessings.
But once we get there, no matter where God may place us or what inner
emptiness we experience, we can praise God that all is well. That is
what is meant by faith being exercised in the realities of life.
“. . . you . . . will leave Me alone.” Have we been scattered and
have we left Jesus alone by not seeing His providential care for us? Do
we not see God at work in our circumstances? Dark times are allowed and
come to us through the sovereignty of God. Are we prepared to let God do
what He wants with us? Are we prepared to be separated from the
outward, evident blessings of God? Until Jesus Christ is truly our Lord,
we each have goals of our own which we serve. Our faith is real, but it
is not yet permanent. And God is never in a hurry. If we are willing to
wait, we will see God pointing out that we have been interested only in
His blessings, instead of in God Himself. The sense of God’s blessings
is fundamental
“. . . be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Unyielding spiritual fortitude is what we need.
“If You Had Known!”
Jesus entered Jerusalem triumphantly and the city was stirred to
its very foundations, but a strange god was there-the pride of the
Pharisees. It was a god that seemed religious and upright, but Jesus
compared it to “whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful
outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness” (Matthew 23:27).
What is it that blinds you to the peace of God “in this your
day”? Do you have a strange god-not a disgusting monster but perhaps an
unholy nature that controls your life? More than once God has brought
me face to face with a strange god in my life, and I knew that I should
have given it up, but I didn’t do it. I got through the crisis “by the
skin of my teeth,” only to find myself still under the control of that
strange god. I am blind to the very things that make for my own peace.
It is a shocking thing that we can be in the exact place where the
Spirit of God should be having His completely unhindered way with us,
and yet we only make matters worse, increasing our blame in God’s eyes.
“If you had known . . . .” God’s words here cut directly to the
heart, with the tears of Jesus behind them. These words imply
responsibility for our own faults. God holds us accountable for what we
refuse to see or are unable to see because of our sin. And “now they are
hidden from your eyes” because you have never completely yielded your
nature to Him. Oh, the deep, unending sadness for what might have been!
God never again opens the doors that have been closed. He opens other
doors, but He reminds us that there are doors which we have shut-doors
which had no need to be shut. Never be afraid when God brings back your
past. Let your memory have its way with you. It is a minister of God
bringing its rebuke and sorrow to you. God will turn what might have
been into a wonderful lesson of growth for the future.
Monday, April 1, 2013
The Glory That’s Unsurpassed
April 02, 2013. . . the Lord Jesus . . . has sent me that you may receive your sight . . . —Acts 9:17
When Paul received his sight, he also received spiritual insight into the Person of Jesus Christ. His entire life and preaching from that point on were totally consumed with nothing but Jesus Christ— “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). Paul never again allowed anything to attract and hold the attention of his mind and soul except the face of Jesus Christ.
We must learn to maintain a strong degree of character in our lives, even to the level that has been revealed in our vision of Jesus Christ.
The lasting characteristic of a spiritual man is the ability to understand correctly the meaning of the Lord Jesus Christ in his life, and the ability to explain the purposes of God to others. The overruling passion of his life is Jesus Christ. Whenever you see this quality in a person, you get the feeling that he is truly a man after God’s own heart (see Acts 13:22).
Never allow anything to divert you from your insight into Jesus Christ. It is the true test of whether you are spiritual or not. To be unspiritual means that other things have a growing fascination for you. Since mine eyes have looked on Jesus, I’ve lost sight of all beside, So enchained my spirit’s vision, Gazing on the Crucified.
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