SERVICE

The Life of Christ In Us

alvation is the first step for life in Christ Jesus. It starts with a confession of sinful nature and deeds and moves to repentance from such motives and into a state of being forgiven. This is always the infancy part of our life in Christ and is not sufficient to produce lifelong growth. The new Christian must find purpose in the new life as God defines purpose. This leads to edification.

dification is a step where we are fed by the Holy Spirit in the knowledge of who God is. We are transformed by that education into thinking that is very different from when we were not of His family. The edification will be unique to our gifts and the purpose of God in the gift(s). As we grow through knowing more and more there comes upon us a reverence for the Creator.

everence for who God is and what He says about Himself will always cause more growth. There is wisdom in the reverence and without reverence there is little that will continue until we are humbly subject to His will as He is willing to vest all power to us for His purposes. The use of His power in righteousness leads to an understanding of the spiritual victory Jesus achieved on our behalf.

ictory is a place where the spiritually maturing person can go with a sense of God’s protection. The possibilities are unlimited as He calls upon us for His purposes. As we fulfill His purposes we grow ever deeper in love with Him and the reverence deepens. When He develops spiritual confidence in us we will do even greater things for Him because He lives in us. We will eventually have His very own nature working in us and we will even initiate things from His love working in us.

nitiating activity, worship, thoughts, and praise will be a part of the maturing Christian. With the motive of love, we can speak into the darkness of our lost and dying world and see that God is prospering all we do. He is actually prospering all we do for He is the vine and we are the branches and we produce that which has been written on our hearts. It will not be apparent who is initiating , God or us, for our lives will be so knit in Him we care not what the difference is. The thrill of His purpose being carried out will cause us to continue His work.

ontinuing in His work continues the growth of understanding and the Oneness that Jesus prayed we would have. There will be no limit to what He will do in us here or in eternity.

ternity will be the final place for all God is to be exposed to us. I do not think we will ever be able to take all of Him in. But we will have forever to work at it and we will be motivated by a spiritual curiosity that has no limit. The joy will be full.

All in all, service, from love, to our Lord is the only way to be truly happy and fulfilled. It is good that He makes us able and causes us know Him. He is The Wonderful God.