Things build on one another. Written matters build on one another. We who believe especially, and are expressly told, we are all being built together into a Holy habitation upon a chief cornerstone and a foundation already laid. Therefore reference to what has “gone before” is never unfitting.
If addressing our need to feel useful in part 1, and the issues of mimicry (quite superficially) in part 2 bore address, may it not be misunderstood to imply that God cares nothing for our need, or indeed despises all attempts at imitation. These matters are made of use by God to help us see His Christ. Even Paul was unashamed to admit that, in part, his ministry was in hope of provoking some envy (the desire to have what another shows…which might progress to a need) and no less, recommended imitation.
Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. (“Follower” there translated from the Greek word mimetai from which is easily seen the word “mime” derived with which we are familiar)
But what do we learn? Do we not learn there is something both need/desire and imitation lead us to? At least as far as we first understood their working in us?
If it could be reduced apart from presumption on my part (to think in terms of reduction rather than production) do we not find a something driven toward all longing for substance? Do we? Something taking us beyond a mere “want” of envy, (or any good thing even once identified to us as advantage) something beyond matters of performing (as sincerest imitation might reveal) to an almost unspeakable and indescribable hunger and thirst? A singular need (where once we thought in terms of our many needs and wants) of Christ, Himself?
This is a huge jump. And God forbid there be any misleading in these words. It is not that the believer receives any “less of Christ” than all of Christ through the faith delivered to the saints. No, it is not that at all. But there is growth. There is progress and a production being made in a place of earth (even these vessels) where we are advised to fix our eyes as though upon a light rising in a dark place; and to have our minds renewed. Everything is working toward a narrowing of sight, a singular focus less for the exclusion of the “elses”, but that all that is that is (and truly is) may be seen and known. A hugeness of all God has made life to us through His Son.
How much seems paradox! (?) This is a school and schooling like no other, this discipling and discipline. It is entirely contrary to all we have known and understood…especially in regards to what we formerly considered learning. And it touches everything continually, in the same way. All of what we thought we “knew” of desire, of life, of love, of good and evil, of relationship…of being in any and every sense is being handled…touched…illuminated to us, by another. Christ is being Himself in us. Not only in the sense of “acting like Himself” as one might say of another if seen as somewhat peculiar “Oh, he is just being himself”…but also that the very nature of being…is now being “in us”. Christ is all. And we learn something of substance, not only that “it” truly is (and weighty), but that this person of Christ now abiding within cannot and will not (for He cannot deny Himself) cause us to settle for less…than true substance. Himself.
And there is much coming “head to Head”. Yes, frank confrontation. In all of the old by which our minds were once formed to confronting this new abiding man. Many have already called it the battlefield…for it is. Here a curious reversal takes place. And it is glorious. We become unashamed to celebrate our own defeats in the light of His victory…even and particularly…over us! This seems queer, no? How can it be…and why would it? And it cannot be so till there comes the persuasion Jesus Christ has made all of His victory ours through His faith.
Being opposed seems no man’s joy, nor could it ever…apart from the reality of Jesus Christ’s abiding. For it is here these words become more priceless than all else we might find to compare
“As many as I love I rebuke and chasten, be zealous therefore and repent”
We may have once “admired” zeal, even sought after the knowing of it in some youthful exuberance to serve, but now we discover how zeal…is served. It is different. At least as we once thought. We encounter, on a level far more basic than ever known to us, changes of mind in its renewal. We see impossible things resolved to our sight, hidden things, mysterious things…far more than explained, but revealed. We come to know in some part what the apostle experienced and exclaimed:
O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
Here there is no figuring out. Now calculating of how, or why, God does a thing. He either reveals or we have not known nor seen. All is in His hands to give through the revelation of His Son. He “does” no other way. Even (particularly) to what we may find the simplest sentence/verse of scripture, previously assumed “easy enough for a baby to grasp”…that apart from light given as to its depths we will either stumble about, handling things in a clumsy danger or entirely misconstrue.
Can this be overstressed? God knows. And God knows how needful is so much correcting that “As many as I love I rebuke and chasten…” becomes such a word of encouragement given that we not either lose hope, nor conclude we are on the wrong path. It is easy (for comfort’s sake, and no less, quite wrong) to be given to vain imaginations. The sort of thinking that would have us formerly consider and conclude any education/discipling in a thing makes for that ease of comfort in handling matters. Yet, what have we seen of Christ? What do we know of Gethsemane? And all that followed?
And how that all was leading to this, and for this.
Is there not a man among us who, in some way, harbors a deeply hidden phrase, which, if brought to light might sound like this: “I sure hope my most severe trials are behind me”?
Yes, and without doubt, I know we each have encountered places of testing; whose depths of severity has been both ordained of God, and for His good pleasure, in our growth in His Son. There is only rebuke for the man who thinks his own trials of endurance so far outstrip another’s that he might casually, or disdainfully, look upon those endured by any other part of the body. All in the body are enduring what is for the growth of the whole body, none exempted…and certainly, none unnoticed by God.
Yet, even Paul was somewhat embarrassed to “have to mention” those things endured in his following after Christ for the sobering up of those given into his care. He knew what he had gone through, endured for their sakes in his keeping to the faith, that he was sorely troubled they could be so easily persuaded by the some who sought a preeminence amongst them, not serving, but using them to elevate themselves. Paul saw what was going on. If necessary reread 2 Cor. 11. It is no less a chapter on love than the more widely known and quoted of 1 Cor 13.
Can you see a man discovering “things” about love that were entirely opposed to his once consideration of a man’s experience and estate of being a servant of God? A man once equipped with letters of endorsement, riding (if you will) a high horse on his way to Damascus to “do God’s will” now humbled before those he once sought to do away with? O, how lovely an idol it is to think one’s self a “man of God” till Christ is put on as only garment.
There we begin, by being disabused of such vanity, to understand our own dire need. But also (and not without hope) how sufficient Christ is, as only Christ is, to abundantly meet that every need. There is a pain we endure in watching our idols fall. Which God does not only not despise, but takes a great pleasure in. And as we endure by His grace alone, even to the watching of their toppling in His endurance, His abiding, we find a good pleasure being made known to us, revealed to us and in us…and is for the health of all the body of our Lord and Christ.
(Pt 4 to follow)
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