A Thought for Monday 5/13/13

“Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!  Therefore the world does not know us because it did not know Him.  Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.  And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”  1 John 3:1-3 NKJV

One of the most misunderstood and often misquoted (or rather, misapplied) passages in Scripture are Jesus’ final words: “It is finished”.  It is misapplied more often than not because we have been led to believe that everything is finally and completely settled.  Well, for our Lord and all He set out to accomplish, no truer words were spoken.  Jesus did all the Father had set forth for Him.  For us, however, it is anything but settled, and disciples must never utter such words as “we are finished” before our lives have really even gotten underway.

Discipleship is much more than simply calling oneself “saved”.  Discipleship is much more than worship, fellowship, prayer, fasting, and Scripture study.  In discipleship we participate in the means of grace for this reason: discovery.  We find more of the wonders of the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven with each day and in each encounter with someone and something new.  Discipleship is entirely about discovery because if we are not learning (discovering), then we cannot be said to be disciples (students) of Jesus.  If we think we are “finished” and that we know all we think we need to know, we have discontinued the search and discovery process and have declared ourselves equal to the Most High God!  We get stuck on the “elementary principles” (Hebrews 6), and thus we stop growing.  In this we are not only stunted in spiritual growth, we actually begin to fall backward because the Journey itself continues.  We’ve simply chosen to go no further.

St. John gives his readers something to hang on to (“now we are children of God”), but he also seems to indicate that the “children of God” will be the only ones to whom our Lord will finally be revealed in His most glorious form “as He is”.  HE  already is, but He is “not yet” revealed to us because we are “not yet” there even though we are, as justified before God in Christ Jesus, “children of God”.  This means it is not “finished” for us, but rather has only just begun.  For if we think it is finished for us, our own children will never even get started!

Let each day be a new revelation not in the man-made world but in the natural, created world AND in the Holy Scriptures.  Cast aside everything you think you already know, and open yourselves to the new experience in Messiah.  Our Lord has much to show us and even more to be revealed in His own time.  Let us dare not think we already know, that we are already “finished” for there is much more “yet to be revealed”! 

Blessings,

Michael