Until Christ be Formed in Me...

Articles

Larry Walker
02/16/16 - God in our Lives

Until Christ Be Formed in ME…

“My little children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you”, Gal. 4:19

When we first come to Christ, we have little idea where it will lead. Some of the deeper things can only be grasped when we have made some spiritual progress. The natural man is blind to “grown-up” spiritual things (I Cor. 2), and they can only be seen after the spiritual man is born, even nurtured and exercised.

At our initial obedience to the gospel, we likely all just wanted relief - relief from the guilt of sin, from the alienation from our Maker, and from the fear of hell. We put our trust in Christ, and by faith surrendered in repentance and baptism. We certainly felt “Great! What a relief to have experienced that.” But we soon learned that life in Christ presses on us many duties and responsibilities. We are not our own. There are consequences to this choice. There are expectations – things to DO, things to AVOID. Did we really count the cost?

But there is MORE… Not just the press of responsibility and duty. We grow to better see the love of Christ. We cannot fail, if we continue long in the Christian life, to see His love for us and to grow in our love for Him. This moves us, by extension, to sincere love of our brothers and sisters, for we are HIS body. The love of Christ constrains us to seek the good of others. We learn to work together, rejoice together, and suffer together (I Cor 12:26). We mature in this as Christians, and we see the wisdom of God’s plan for his people. (Eph. 4:15,16). We learn to see that God is good, and that His plan is good, and that it will make His people good. In all this it seems – and rightly so – that we are claiming the promises of God.

But it doesn’t stop there either! This is spiritual growth, but He is not through with us yet. We are called to even greater things, higher and holier things. We may come to learn that His divine providence does not work just to give us a comfortable and enjoyable existence here. But rather that he works in surprising ways – sometimes even in severe and grinding trials – to exercise His spiritual claim on us! He will educate us thoroughly in spiritual things – in the life of the Spirit. The mind of my spirit can grow in agreement with the Spirit of the Son in me. I can have the mind of Christ. Christ never spoke from the standpoint of His rights, but from perfect submission to the Father’s will. His sacrifice was the honoring of the Father by laying Himself at the Father’s feet. And He did it on our behalf SO THAT we could share in that sacrifice with Him! That we could by faith partake of His sufferings with concern for nothing but our Father’s will! Read carefully Col. 1:24.

When we can come to this – perfected in submission to the Father’s will – Christ is formed in us, and we are truly the temple of His Holy Spirit, and “partakers of the divine nature”. Larry Walker, March 2011