Tuesday, March 21, 2017

What is the church? Glorified and glorifying.

What is the church?  And what can we liken it to in Genesis 22?

" And he said, “Take your son, your only child, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains where[a] I will tell you.” And Abraham rose up early in the morning and saddled his donkey. And he took two of his servants with him, and Isaac his son. And he chopped wood for a burnt offering. And he got up and went to the place which God had told him."

We touched on it yesterday.  But look, what do you see?  When God told Abe he was going to destroy a wicked city or four, Abe had the temerity to argue with God.  To talk him down, to bargain for the lives of people he did not know.  When God told Abe he was going to be a father some day, Abe asked how it could be and even took matters into his own hands with one of his servants.  But here, Abe has matured enough to know that this is a time to just listen and do.  He knows this God.  He has been through deep waters with Him.  He loves and trusts and fears Him.

"And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose, because those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he should be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined, these he also called, and those whom he called, these he also justified, and those whom he justified, these he also glorified."

   When we do these things, when the church hears and obeys, God always moves them into the best position to see the good He has planned, to conform us not to the pattern of this world, but Jesus Christ, the visible Glory of God.

"Jesus said to her, “Did I not say to you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”"  John 11

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