Day Eleven, January 22nd – Growing into Christlikeness
Wow! Day 11 is here and it’s hard to believe the fast is almost over. What I have on my heart for you today is meaty, and honestly just the thought of meat is very exciting, but more so I hope you’re encouraged by the word!
One of our themes for this year’s fast has been “show me your Glory”. Throughout the fast we’ve discussed ways that God reveals His Glory IN us (Christ in us), and today I want to talk about how this reality transforms us. I want to talk about how sanctification is NOT a process, it’s a person. Ok, now that I have your attention lets start with 1 Corinthians 1:30..
30 In contrast, God is why you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
Did you see that? Christ Jesus BECAME sanctification for us.. tap your neighbour and say “became sanctification”. Became is past tense of become.. so what does this mean? Early in my journey following Jesus I thought that sanctification was the process of getting good Christian stuff in and the bad stuff out, that this would be a lifelong struggle, and that I’d never quite get there until I die and go to heaven. But then, in the fullness of time, grace slapped me upside the religious head and stopped me dead in my tracks (*emphasis on dead). The gospel is good news because Christ has finished the work! The Gospel is that Jesus the God Man, perfect divinity and perfect humanity, has taken up residence (along with His Father and the Spirit) INSIDE me! (Col 1:27). The image of sanctified humanity, and divine perfection, lives right here in my insides!
“But if Jesus is in there then why do I still struggle with sin.. why am I so angry, jealous, lustful, insecure and confused about who I am?”.
This is exactly where we’re meant to wrestle. Not with “I’m bad, how do I try and be good”.. but “I KNOW Christ in me is secure, so why do I feel insecure?”. Now we’re getting to the heart of the matter, now we’re letting Jesus, the eternal Word be the double edged sword that cuts between “soul and spirit, joint and marrow.. to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb 4:12). Now in light of who Christ IS in me (secure), I can begin to see what in me is causing me to feel insecure. This process right here, this revelation comes through relationship and intimacy. Beholding is the way to Becoming.
2 Corinthians 3:18 (NKJV) - But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Can you see it! The purpose of beholding Christ in us is not for some charismatic Christian tingles on a Sunday morning. Beholding Christ IN us is the very way that God heals and transforms us to the image of His Son. We no longer look to mountains, or stone tablets, or prophets, but we behold the image of Christ IN us to see the fullness of our true identity and design.. to become fully ourselves! Becoming more Christlike is NOT becoming less like “me”, becoming Christlike is becoming FULLY “me”. Jesus in me represents the Fathers truest design OF me. The old covenant Glory was the presence and hand of God put on display around us externally. We beheld the wonders, the works, and the laws of God with our eyes, yet our hearts were left unchanged. The Glory of the new covenant is that God’s works are displayed IN US!
Jeremiah 31:31 - The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 No longer shall they teach one another or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.
“FOR THEY SHALL ALL KNOW ME”!! Sanctification is a person, His name is Jesus, and getting to KNOW Him is getting to know your TRUE self like looking in a mirror (1 Cor 3:18). Sanctification isn’t a process, it’s a person, it’s a person you’re BECOMING like as you BEHOLD. WOW!
Pray this with me this morning: “Holy Spirit, thank you that it’s your JOY to reveal Christ in me. Thank you that Jesus is what’s TRULY TRUE about me. Holy Spirit, I ask that you would open my eyes to see, to know, to behold Christ in His fullness in me. That in your gentleness you would reveal to me what IN me is not your design—come like a careful surgeon and cut it away. And as I behold Christ, reveal to me what of His is mine—that of character, of virtue, of spiritual fruit and spiritual gifts, of power and anointing, of wisdom and of righteousness. Amen.
Now let us understand.. Beholding Christ is ESSENTIAL to becoming fully mature IN Christ.
Join us Saturday at 7pm at the church for Advance, and let us gather together and behold, with unveiled faces, the ever increasing GLORY OF GOD!
Have an amazing Day,