Permit me if you will to give a little personal testimony that will help frame my motivation for obedience to Christ and for yieldedness - which I proposed was the key to a fruitful life in my last blog.
I became a Christian at University, at the age of 19. I had little exposure to Church before that and was not 'seeking' or 'in a crisis' ... Therefore I could only conclude that I was 'sought out' ... But by whom and why? The short answer to this is that I believe it was the Living God in order for me, the created, to enjoy a relationship with Him, the Creator.
A passage of Scripture that became very special to me, very early on in my Christian life, and one which has framed all my subsequent decision making was Philippians 3:10-12 (NIV). In this passage the Apostle Paul writes: "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me."
So how does this help me?
I too want to know Christ ...
I am not especially interested in knowing a system of religion or a belief structure, but I am passionate about knowing the person of Jesus Christ ... It is the development of a relationship with the one in whom there is fulness of life, grace, peace, love, mercy ... The list goes on. He is the Holy One who, through His sacrifice for our failings, makes possible a relationship with the Living God - why, I concluded, would I not want to know Him? Especially when He has made possible what I never could have! He is the one who is drawing me ... Hence my need to yield to that drawing ... After all - He sought me out!
... The power of His resurrection ...
As we deepen our relationship with Him He asks us to do things that are beyond our capacity to do ... living natural lives with the power of the supernatural - we need this to pray for healing, to pray for hope and salvation to enter into the lives of others, to overcome evil that is so prevalent in the world today ... So we need to live in the fulness of the in dwelling presence of the Holy Spirit within.
... and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings ...
This is a big faith question ... why, if God is sovereign over all, does He allow suffering? Why does God lead His people, whom He loves, to do things that cause them to suffer as a result of their obedience? Why did He send His son to suffer and die? These are massive questions that would require a lot of explanation - I commend the following article to as a good place to start your explanation to those questions.
(http://www.church-on-the-net.com/reference/suffering.aspx) However, for the purposes of this blog I would simply say that obedience, though it will almost certainly lead to challenges, suffering, perhaps even death, is the key to knowing Christ, and demonstrating Christ to others. Let me give you an example, in the current age where so many are losing their jobs will being a Christian mean that God will stop you from losing your job? I don't believe it will - but when two people lose their jobs, and one of them is a Christian - it gives them the opportunity to demonstrate what a difference it makes having hope and faith in Christ, having a firm foundation to life and a place of refuge. It won't necessarily make the trauma or consequences of the circumstance any different but it can demonstrate that Christ makes a difference.
... becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead....
So we are to live the life of faith by being obedient, this means yielding our lives, dying to self in order to live for Jesus ... Being driven by His priorities, His passions etc. the mystery is that through this process we will also receive the same affirmation as He received ... glorification and reward at the very end!
But, like Paul, we must all have the desire to say ...
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
Obedience is a choice ... But the reward is great and it gives us the answer to the deepest prayer - "I want to know Christ" ... Through faithful obedience, pressing on, increasingly living in the fulness of life we have already received in Christ ... Taking hold of the life for which we were apprehended.
Awesome!
Press on!
In reference to 2 Tim 1:7 "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of p o wer, of love a nd of sel f-discipli ne." Norman Grubb decl are d that; "We are set in our day and generation to be overcomers, not to sail through calm seas but to walk on storms, to replace need with supply, to transform aspiration into realization. The language of defeatism, fear, lack and weakness is not to be in our vocabulary. "Let us go up at once and possess it, for we are well able to overcome it. As for these giants, they are bread for us," we say with sturdy Caleb. We are to act as the men of faith of old; we are to visualize our goal in clear outline; we are to take it for granted that we shall reach it, for we have both the commission and anointing of God? We lay our plans ,build our organisations, produce our written and verbal pronouncements, prayer our prayers, do our work, not as those who will fail and fall by the way, but...
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