Our
One Supreme Passion
Authentic Christianity is God-centered because it loves the
Lord God with all the heart, mind soul and strength. Evidence of a true knowledge of God
is an obsession with the glory of God manifest in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The one consuming passion of the believer is the glory of God because
he has witnessed the grandeur, majesty and excellence of the Lord God through the eyes of
the Lord Jesus and he can never remain the same thereafter.
The glory of God is the sum weight of all the attributes of God. It
sums up all that He is in the awesome beauty of His divine perfections. He is perfectly
and infinitely glorious.
The grace of God frees us and enables us to live for His glory. Apart
from His enabling grace we can do nothing that will honor and please a righteous and holy
God. What we do in our abilities will only dishonor His glorious Name. If I touch it with
my hands I ruin it for I am sinful. Only if what I do is covered by His atoning sacrifice
will it be acceptable to a holy God.
It is our responsibility to ascribe the glory that is due to His
wonderful person. We cannot add to His already perfect glory. We glory in His Name when we
worship Him and live with the conviction that His perfections are characteristic of His
person.
We live in a way that can mirror His glory. To sin is to bring
dishonor and fall short of His glory. The passion of the Christian is to live a life-style
that is to the praise of His glory. If that is our supreme passion it will redefine our
daily life, and we will not be able to separate our personal lives from our worship of the
living God.
It is tragic to see a self-centered, man-centered, humanistic
pseudo-christianity in our churches.
If our supreme passion is to bring glory to the LORD God it will
redefine our manner of life, our goals, methods and purposes in ministry. It means we will
live every moment of our lives to the praise of His glory. The focus is on Him alone. He
will share His glory with no one.
An authentic, vital Christianity results in a consecration of the
whole person to the Lord Jesus Christ. It takes seriously God’s purpose in our
sanctification as to transform us in the image and likeness of Jesus Christ. God’s
mystery in bringing glory to Himself is “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col.
1:27). Our responsibility in ministry is to “proclaim Him, admonishing every man and
teaching every man with all wisdom, that we may present every man complete in Christ”
(v. 28).
We are being transformed as we behold Christ with our spiritual eyes.
The apostle Paul said, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the
glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as
from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18). Our responsibility is to “behold”
Him in the glory of His divine character with our spiritual eyes. The nearer we keep to
Christ the more rapid the change in us. We become like those with whom we associate.
“When He shall appear we will be like Him” (1 John 3:2). Our character will be
conformed to Christ. If we are to become like Christ we must live closer and closer to
Him. We must know Him and see life through His eyes.
As we are being transformed into the image of Christ men will see a
glimpse of Him also. Our lives are transformed. It will become evident by the way we
conduct our businesses, and our personal lives that we have been with Jesus. Christ is
patient, kind, not jealous, does not brag, is not arrogant, etc. That is what it means to
be conformed to the image of Christ. Righteousness that is Christ-like bears evidence of
His righteousness and therefore the Father is glorified.
Moreover, the transforming secret is “Christ lives in me”
(Gal. 2:20). If Christ is living in me I cannot fail to be changed from glory to glory in
His image. If we abide in Him, and He in us, it is impossible not to bear fruit in His
likeness (John 15:5). By faith we put on Christ. We must let Him live in us and work in us
to be and to do His good pleasure.
It is our responsibility to abandon ourselves entirely to Him. Jesus
Christ comes to abide in us, and is Himself our life. It begins with a commitment to
Christ and a daily commitment of our whole lives to Christ. We hand over to Him our
thoughts, our words, our walk, etc. Lord Jesus, I give myself to You, and I move in with
Him. We abide in Him. He abides in us. By faith we take off the old person and put on the
new in the likeness of Christ. By faith we reckon ourselves dead unto sin, and alive unto
God. We are just as dead as we are alive. By faith we realize that our every day life is
Christ living in us. By faith we allow the living, loving, glorious, risen Christ to
become our dwelling place. The bond with Christ is so powerful that it is described and
our being in Christ and His dwelling in us. We are His new dwelling place! We are
continually transformed as we allow Him to reign and rule within us. He subdues all things
unto Himself (2 Cor. 5:17). It is the living Christ working in us that transforms and
conforms us to Christ.
Has Jesus Christ become the one consuming supreme passion of your
life? It liberates the soul and frees you to be all that God wants you to be in Christ
Jesus. I invite you to join me in this love affair with such a wonderful glorious Lord and
Savior. There is none other like Him. This supreme passion to glorify God defines the
Christian’s way of life, including our witness and our worship.
There is no greater passion of the soul than to live in expectation
for that glory to be manifest through all eternity by redeemed people from every tribe and
nation before His throne. We will join in that glorious redeemed body singing:
And
the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and
within; and day and night they do not cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord
God, the Almighty, who
was and who is and who is to come.”
“Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You
created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.” . . .
And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are You to take the book and to break its
seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every
tribe and tongue and people and nation. “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive
power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing” (Revelation
4:8, 11; 5:9, 12).
Selah!
Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006
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