We must be convinced that both God and life will maturity. But they do more than passively will our maturity; they conspire in every possible way, short of breaking down our wills to make us mature. Life makes us discontented and unhappy in our immaturities. Suppose we could settle down happy and contented in being a half-person, then that would be a tragic situation. But we cannot. Divine discontent is a goal that impels us into higher, fuller life. Life won’t let us settle down-to nothingness.
And what kind of Father would God be if He did not disturb us toward maturity? No earthly parent could be content to have a child who refused to grow up. The parents’ joy is in development, in growth, in going on toward maturity. God cannot be otherwise and still be God, our Father. So the disturbances we feel in our immaturities are not signs of His anger, but a manifestation of His love. He loves us too much to let us settle down in half-wayness.
But if God should stop at that point of making us discontent, then He would this side of being God, our Father. To be our Father, He must provide literally everything for our maturity. And He has! He has put at our disposal all the resources for our being what we ought to be-everything except coercion. There He draws the line, for if he coerced us into maturity-then of course we wouldn’t be mature. The will to be mature must be at the center of our maturity.
If God and life and we ourselves will maturity, then there is nothing in heaven or earth that can stop us from being the mature persons we ought to be. We are destined to be mature, and that destiny is written in every cell of our bodies. We can slow down or block that destiny. The choice is ours.
Hope begins to spring up within my heart, for if I am destined to be mature then I can and do accept that destiny and make it my own.
Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity (perfection).
Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect (mature) man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ:
Rich
Please read these thoughts first if you can, to enter into the flow of what I sense Father saying.
Within the revolution happening amongst so many people wanting to embrace the only truth and reality found in the person of God’s son, Christ Jesus, there are so many outer expressions that folks are trying to manipulate into a “working model-pattern,” that will somehow differentiate them from the religious clubs they exited from. At best a mere cosmetic makeover will never replace or substitute His divine imprinting upon our soul.
“Unless the Lord builds (establishes) the house, the laborers work in vain.”
Without seeing His divine perspective, calling upon our lives, we will inevitably try and clone a lifeless facsimile, (working model) template instead of that which can only flow out of/from His purpose for us!
Without the Father initiating at a spirit-heart level, His divine Pattern, Purpose for us individually and corporately, simply moving out from, out of some religious establishment will never bring lasting satisfaction. Our calling far exceeds a mere cosmetic rearrangement of meeting with one another, and hopefully I might capture some of what that might look like.
If the veneer were to be stripped away from us “Chrischuns” there would be in most cases a very visible display of emptiness and artificiality. It is simply we have tried to change our minds without having a change of heart or nature. The New Testament standard of conversion demands regeneration-and this we have largely missed in our man-centered appeal for decisions. It is true the religious vocabulary is used, but one essential has been by-passed. God cannot change the heart and nature where there has been NO governmental change-no turning from our own lordship to His lordship. With a true change of government comes a change of purpose and appetite. Instead of seeking to use God for one’s own purpose this means giving one’s being to Him for His purpose. In this crisis of giving ourselves unto Him, God begins the impartation of His own divine nature, and our responses change accordingly.
As long as man still desires things, he cannot be satisfied with just God. Was it not so with Abram? God had first offered to give him Canaan land, to make of him a great nation, to bless him and make his name great. How responsive was Abram to all this? He forsook his homeland and in due time left his father. But it was not until Abram had deliberately refused to take the spoil of battle that God could move in to announce to him: Abram, “I am your exceeding great reward” (Gen.15:1).
Until God changed Abram’s inner desires and helped him to say, “I will not take any thing lest you should say I have made Abram rich”; what would it have meant to him to offer Himself as an exceeding great reward?
God’s way then is to change our inner being-to make us partakers of the divine nature so we will have an appetite for spiritual things. God does not change goals to fit our appetite, but works upon our inner being that we might truly come to have a hunger for God Himself!
Until that inner change has been fashioned, all religious life is completely exteriorized. Those who have no longing for God Himself, become preoccupied with things and events-nor can they understand or appreciate the song writer’s depth of meaning in the following lines: “My goal is God, Himself, not joy or peace, Not even blessing, but Himself my God.”
There is more to follow, as he continues to open the eyes of my heart.
Rich
“Where there is no vision [no redemptive revelation of God], the people perish.”
Where there is NO vision, the people disintegrate-go to pieces-cohesiveness breaks down.
The divine foundation of the Church as a whole is a revelation, a vision-a “having seen the Lord.” The Church started with this and took its rise from a seeing the Lord, high and lifted up, exalted at the right hand of the Majesty on high. The Church went forth on the basis of that vision as a cohesive testimony, as a corporate vessel, and what is true of the Church must be true of the relationship of all believers. You and I can never hold together by certain rules and regulations, or by a creed. It can only be as we are one in vision, one in revelation of Him.
If this vision is necessary to hold us together as individuals and to keep us from falling apart in ourselves, it is equally necessary to keep us together as the Lord’s people-and that is going to be one of the tests of these days!
There can be no doubt that we are soon to face some desperate times. We can hardly imagine (nor would we predict) just what might come to produce the “shaking.” Consider the scattering now taking place amongst God’s people. On every hand there are little groups forming and seeking to become a New Testament expression of Christ. Some are merely seeking escape. Others are really after fulfillment of God’s purpose. The old line of corporate expression and fellowship along creedal or denominational lines is breaking fast.
Now, is this outward breaking apart going to be the end, or is there going to be with all that a spiritual cohesion triumphing over apparent division? Is there a larger spiritual vision which can truly unite these smaller group expressions to become one glorious expression? What cohesive element will manifest a living testimony to the religious world?
As this “shaking” progresses, it will be seen that all the work of the enemy, all the division and confusion, all the breaking up and outward disintegration can have NO effect upon those who have really seen God’s purpose and His methods. There still remains, in the unseen before God in heaven-and here on earth as a testimony-that oneness and cohesiveness of God’s people which Satan cannot destroy. Those who have begun to live in the divine vision know its cohesive power.
Rich
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