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For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. (Romans 8:29) |
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In the beginning God made four great declarations concerning man. |
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That man would be in God's image. |
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That man would be male and female. |
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That man would be fruitful. |
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That man would have dominion. |
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These four declarations have an initial meaning and a transcendent meaning. The Word of God will not stop working until all that God has declared concerning man has been accomplished to perfection. |
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Adam was in God's image but in a very limited way—just a faint outline. The Lord Jesus Christ is what God means by man being in God's image. |
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The Book of Ezekiel reveals the outer image of God and the inner image of God. |
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The first chapter of Ezekiel tells of the image of the Glory of the Lord. There is the whirlwind, the cloud, the fire, the four living creatures in the likeness of a man, the face of the lion, the ox, the eagle, the guidance of the Spirit, the wheel in the middle of a wheel, the throne surrounded by the rainbow, and the Man of Fire on the throne. |
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This is Christ, the Son of God. |
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We see Christ also in the first chapter of the Book of Revelation as the High Priest of God with eyes of fire and feet of glowing bronze. |
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We are called to this external image. We are called to sit in the throne of Christ, the highest throne of the universe, having authority over all the works of God's hands. |
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Then in Ezekiel, Chapter Forty onward we find a symbolic description of the inner character of Christ and consequently of His brothers. The description begins with the very high mountain, the city, the bronze of judgment, the wall, the stairs, the gate, the guardrooms. Each of these says something about what God is developing in our personality. |
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There are the stone tables of sacrifice. God has to build an altar in each one of us. Our body must be presented a living sacrifice continually. |
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Finally we come to the water of the Spirit. |
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The conclusion is, "the name of the city from that day shall be, the Lord is there." |
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This is the new Jerusalem, the holy city, the glorified Church, the place of the throne of God and of the Lamb. |
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We understand from this description of the outer and inner profiles of the sons of God that being saved and filled with God's Spirit is the merest beginning of what God has in mind. After we are saved through the blood of the cross and filled with the Spirit we have ages upon ages to come to know the Lord and to be conformed to His image. |
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Although the gap between what we are now and the description in Ezekiel is so great as to be incredible, don't stumble at it. Be strong in faith like Abraham. When he was without a single child God promised him his Seed would be as the stars of heaven for number and majesty. Since Abraham's Seed is Christ we know the promise will be fulfilled literally, for of the increase of His government there shall be no end. |
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God is greater than we can understand. Let's not limit Him by confining His work in us by what we have seen to the present hour. |
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There's no hurry. We have all eternity. |
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But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. (I Corinthians 11:3) |
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When Satan puts as much time and effort into something as he has into destroying the concept of male and female you know there is something here that is destructive of his kingdom. |
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God made man in half, either male or female. It is doubtful any other of God's creatures, the angels, cherubim, or whatever, were made in half. |
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There are chambers within the human being that are to be filled with God and people. It is only as these chambers are occupied that man begins to realize his destiny. |
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The initial fulfillment of the Divine fiat is the family. The importance of the family can hardly be overemphasized. There is the father with his role, the mother with her role, and the children with their role. This is the design for the time being. How it will be carried forth in a transcendent state we are not sure. But we do know from the Scripture that when an individual dies he is "gathered to his people." |
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Satan is exerting much effort in our day to destroy the family. There may be two reasons for this. The first is that by destroying the family the moral strength of people is damaged and they are more open to the demons who find fulfillment in them. |
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The second is that the Spirit is informing us it is the children of today who will take the Church into the fullness of the promises of God. Whenever leaders are to be born, as in the case of Moses and Jesus, Satan seeks to destroy the children. |
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The current unrest focuses on the woman. God has ordained that only through the woman can God's eternal servants be brought into being. Think of it! The woman is the gatekeeper to the Kingdom of God! |
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This is why Satan exerts so much effort to convince the woman that being a mother is somehow less important than being a banker or a doctor. Can you see the lie and perversity here? |
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It is the man's responsibility to be the priest of the home and to be a shelter for his wife. It is the woman's responsibility to guide the home and be a suitable help for her husband. |
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The children are not to become idols, as in the middle-class American family, but future eternal servants of God who are to be raised and trained by a father and mother. It is the parents who form character in the child. |
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What an incredible mess we are in today as men are seeking to fulfill the role of women and women are seeking to fulfill the role of men. The psychologists and sociologists can offer their opinions from now to kingdom come but social anarchy will prevail wherever the family is not established in God's order. |
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If you are a man, love your wife. Accept her shortcomings and stick with her until the marriage works. It is up to you to sacrifice yourself to hold things together. |
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If you are a woman, accept your husband's shortcomings, honor him as well as you can, and give of yourself to your children. Quit trying to be a man. You don't have to prove anything. The man is not superior to you! |
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If you are a child, honor and obey your parents. |
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You will never be able to relate correctly to Christ and God until you relate correctly to people. Do the best you can under your circumstances and God will help you. |
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Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. (John 15:16) |
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Fruitfulness is the third of the three great Divine fiats. |
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In its primary form fruitfulness has to do with the reproduction of human beings. Eve is the mother of all living. It will be interesting to meet Eve some day, the grandmother of all people. What a bunch of grandchildren she has! |
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In its transcendent form fruitfulness has to do with the reproduction of the image of Christ. God wants every saved human being to show in himself the character of Jesus Christ, including love, joy, peace, courage, patience, the love of righteousness and holiness, stern obedience to God, and all else found in Christ's personality. |
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In some passages the Apostles spoke of being punished with everlasting destruction or drawing back to destruction. Maybe this means the wicked will not be permitted to grow into the character of Christ, in addition to whatever else happens to them. |
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Except a grain of wheat falls into the ground and die it remains alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit. God wants us to bear fruit and have our fruit remain. |
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As long as we choose to live in our own religious manner, even ministering according to our understanding of what we should be doing, no eternal fruit will be born. We may convert many to our way of thinking so they make a profession of faith in Christ. But this is not true fruitfulness. |
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True fruitfulness occurs only as we struggle with God in the death of our adamic nature. As God chastens and buffets us our old nature is brought down to death and in its place rises the Life of Christ. The Life of Christ is life-giving. It causes fruit to be born and grow. |
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As we patiently carry our cross, following the Lord each day, a part of our old nature dies and Christ takes its place. There is a spillover of resurrection life that occurs. The surplus resurrection life touches those around us and the character of Christ is born in them. This is the transcendent fulfillment of the third Divine fiat. |
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Every believer who is willing to die in the Lord, to be pruned by the Lord, bears eternal fruit—the image and likeness of Christ in those around him or her. If we seek to save our life we will lose it. If we are willing to lose our life in God we will save it and an untold number of other people will be touched by the Life of Jesus. |
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You were meant to be fruitful. If you are a saint, a holy one of God, your first role is that of bearing the fruit of the image of the Lord. Christ has chosen you for this purpose. |
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Refuse to occupy yourself with lesser things. Press into the Lord that there may be an abundance of fruit for His table. |
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Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him. (Hebrews 2:8) |
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Image, union, fruitfulness, and dominion. These are the four Divine pronouncements concerning man. They are what man is. The four had a primary fulfillment in Adam and Eve and their descendants. They will have a transcendent fulfillment that will endure forever. |
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Man has been created to be the throne of God. Man is God's answer to the rebellion of His angelic creatures. Man is destined to judge the world and the angels as well. To man has been given all authority in Heaven and upon the earth. |
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We do not as yet see such mighty authority and power. Man has been made like an animal, bound by gravity to the mud, a relatively insignificant creature compared with the titans who rule in the heavenlies. |
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Because man has been created to govern and judge the works of God's hands he has had to be brought very low indeed, and then tested endlessly in every minute aspect of his personality, particularly in the areas of righteousness, holiness, and stern obedience to the Father. |
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He who overcomes in this struggle will inherit all things and God will be his God and he will be God's son. |
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We do not as yet see man elevated to the throne. But we see Jesus. The Lord Jesus was brought very low and tested thoroughly, especially in the area of stern obedience to the Father. Now Jesus has been elevated to the right hand of God. Jesus has received all authority in Heaven and upon the earth, not because He is the Son of God, which indeed He is, but because He is the Son of man. For the Scriptures have assigned all authority to man and the Scriptures cannot be changed in any manner. They shall stand forever precisely as written. |
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When we observe the condition of most of us Christians today what I have just written appears fantastic. We are smart animals, we have eternal life, and when we die we will go to live forever in our mansion in Heaven. Why not leave it at that since everyone seems to believe this? |
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The problem is, we who preach and teach have to communicate what the Bible says, not what we think is reasonable or possible. The Bible invites man to be the dwelling place of God. The new Jerusalem is the Bride of the Lamb and the throne of God and of the Lamb are in it! |
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The Lord Jesus has invited us to sit with Him in His throne, which is our own heart. Before this is possible however we first must move off the throne so He can rule. After we have made Him supreme ruler in the throne room of our personality He invites us to return and sit with Him in the throne we had abdicated. We now are the chariot of God. The Father, the Son, and we, all through the fullness of the Holy Spirit, are dwelling in our own heart. This is the destiny of the sons of God. |
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This is the fullness of God of which Paul speaks in Ephesians. |
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Being the chariot of God has got living in a mansion beat hollow any way you look at it. If you would prefer to live in a fancy house and read the funnies on Sunday morning, if this is the limit of your vision of salvation, go ahead with it. |
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But I want what God said in the Bible! |
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Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:21) |
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To overcome is not to attain some marvelous spiritual stature to which only the most extraordinary individuals could aspire. Overcoming is a simple, direct, day-to-day process. It is the normal Christian experience. |
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We either are a winner or a loser. |
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The Lord Jesus advised us we should deal with the evil presented to us each day, that the next day would take thought for the things of itself. |
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Each day, each disciple of the Lord is given a daily portion of evil to overcome. The evil is a challenge to our peace, our rest in the Lord. The challenge may be something new or surprising or it may be a constant irritation we have dealt with for many years. |
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It may be a severe temptation or a blazing dart of accusation from a close friend or church member. In this case, if we do not go immediately to the Lord our whole personality may be set on fire with the spirit of Hell. |
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God permits the evil to come against us so we may learn obedience and be transformed into the image of Christ and pressed into union with Him. If we would obtain the good that God has in mind for us we must take every such burden immediately to God in prayer, asking Him to remove it or else give us wisdom in dealing with it. |
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As we attempt to give to the Lord Jesus the irritation, pain, or lust of our challenges, the adamic nature desires instead to grumble and fight or to act in some other sinful manner. When we do not yield to our animal nature and instead begin to seek the Lord's peace, His grace enters us and we are transformed into His image and pressed into union with Him. Thus a part of us is crucified and in its place is created the resurrection Life of the Lord. |
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Our adamic nature much prefers to yield to unlawful desire, or to blame people, or circumstances, or even God for our discomfiture, our pain, our frustration. But when we yield to such enticement we bring the darkness of evil into our personality. When we force our way out of the prison God puts us in we destroy what God is accomplishing in us. |
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When we indulge in the luxury of blaming people, our husband or wife for example, or our circumstances, we do not grow in the Lord; instead we grow in bitterness and anger. We criticize others or seek revenge. |
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The same lust that destroys the defeated believer produces Christ in the conqueror as he overcomes the lust through Christ. The same fear and worry that drive joy from the double-minded church member create faith and power in the victorious saint. The same pain that causes the overcomer to grow in Christ results in bitterness, resentment, and hardness of heart in the nonovercomer, the defeated Christian. |
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God expects every Christian to be an overcomer. The rewards we normally associate with the Christian life are given to the overcomer, not to the defeated church member. |
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There is no authority or power in Heaven above, or on the earth, or in the dark regions beneath the surface of the earth, that can prevent the Christian from leading the victorious life each day of his pilgrimage on the earth. We can be perfect each day although we have not as yet been perfected. |
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The only forces that can prevent the life of victory are our own unbelief, disobedience, and stubbornness. God has made every provision. Christ is making intercession. But we are the ones who decide each day to overcome the evil or else to give in to evil and to blame and manipulate others, seeking to force our will in order to regain our happiness. |
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The just live by simple faith in God in all matters. The unjust take matters into their own hands as they seek to determine their own circumstances and destiny. |
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Look to the Lord and He will give you peace. Let go and let God! (from The Conqueror) |
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If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire. (I Corinthians 3:15) |
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Noah is an example of the conqueror who is raised from the dead, to speak symbolically, and charged with the responsibility of restoring the earth (Isaiah 61:4). |
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Lot is an example of the nonovercomer who is saved through the prayers of godly relatives. Lot was saved from wrath, barely escaping with his life. A part of Lot, his wife, was destroyed by the fire of God's wrath. Lot was saved from destruction but was without fruitfulness, and without the dominion that is the result of fruitfulness, because of the loss of his wife. |
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Saved as by fire! All fruitfulness, dominion, reward burned away from us. Only our spirit is saved. The Divine fire has consumed all of our personality and actions that God will not accept. Being saved as by fire may prove to be an exceedingly painful and prolonged operation consisting of "many stripes." |
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The overcomer, the conqueror, the victorious saint, is not saved as by fire. He hears the praise of His Lord: "Well done, good and faithful servant." |
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In the Day of the Lord the conqueror will be surrounded by those who have been able to possess the Kingdom of God because of his testimony and ministry. He has many friends and has gained an abundant entrance into the Kingdom of God. |
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The overcomer helps the nonovercomer avoid having his spirit cut off from God in the Day of Christ: |
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To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. (I Corinthians 5:5) |
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The Christian believer who is spoken of in the preceding passage was not an overcomer, a conqueror, a victorious saint. Instead he was living in gross immorality. |
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Many of the teachers and preachers of our day would state that the incestuous Corinthian had nothing to worry about because we are "saved by grace and not by works." |
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The Apostle Paul, who knew more than today's preachers of "grace," advised the church elders of Corinth to turn the sinning Christian over to Satan so his spirit might be saved in "the day of the Lord Jesus." |
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Jude speaks of the nonovercomer, the individual who is saved, as was Lot, by the efforts of the godly: |
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And others save with fear, pulling {them} out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. (Jude 1:23) |
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We see, then, there is a difference in fruit- bearing among Christian people. There are rewards that have been assigned to each individual who "overcomes," that is, who rises up in faith and grasps the victory available to every person through Christ Jesus. |
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Every believer can be a conqueror. Being a conqueror requires a life of cross-carrying obedience to Christ. Christ Jesus is The Conqueror. If we will allow Him to do so, Christ will accomplish victory in our life. We will not be overcome if we abide in Christ. Rather we will overcome our circumstances through means of His resurrection life working in us. |
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Noah and Lot portray by their lives the differences between the person who is saved to fruitfulness and the person who is saved by fire. |
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Would you rather have the inheritance of Abraham or Lot? (from The Conqueror) |
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But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (I Corinthians 15:47) |
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The saint cannot fulfill his role apart from the endowments of Divine Life and Personality set forth in the second and third chapters of the Book of Revelation. As we ponder what is declared in these two chapters the difference between the victorious saint and the blemished believer is emphasized immediately. There are the seven "spotted and wrinkled" churches of Asia, and then there are the victorious saints, the conquerors. |
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The churches are addressed as groups. The conqueror always is addressed as an individual. |
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A church never can be a conqueror. No matter how godly and fervent an assembling of Christians may become, it never can be a conqueror. Each of the conquerors is addressed as an individual. The conquerors taken together constitute a firstfruits of the Church, the Wife of the Lamb, the Body of Christ, the new Jerusalem, the holy city. |
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To become a conqueror the believer must press on past all persons, voices, and things other than the Person of Christ. The saint must give his all to Christ. There can be nothing between his or her soul and the Savior. He must be free from all people and yet be the servant of all. |
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The Lord Jesus will present to Himself a firstfruits of His Church—a remnant without spot, wrinkle, blemish, or stain of any kind whatever. |
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Christ never speaks to two people about overcoming as a team. The victorious saint presses alone into the bosom of God. His Creator receives him as an individual, a separate, unique creation. The Church is the "mother," so to speak. From the ministry and travail of the Church is born the saint, the overcomer, the conqueror. The spirit of the conqueror finds rest only in the Spirit of God. He is restless until he finds rest in the center of God's will. |
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The above paragraph is not to be interpreted to mean the Christian churches compose one group of people and the conquerors are another group of people born of the Church. This may be a logical conclusion but it is not the true spiritual reality. The people who are conquerors are of the Church to begin with and are for now the true expression of the Church. These same people follow the Holy Spirit in using their gifts and ministries, and through their gifts and ministries build up themselves and their hearers into the fullness of the stature of Christ. |
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In one role we are the mother and in another role we are the conqueror. To put it even more simply, we build up ourselves and those around us in the most holy faith. |
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Christ Jesus is the Conqueror. As the ministries of the Church "groan in travail," the Conqueror is formed in the saints (Galatians 4:19, Revelation 12:5). The moment Christ is formed in us He ascends to the right hand of His Father. Each of God's conquerors dwells in the secret place of the most High—at the right hand of the Father. |
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A large part of our Christian discipleship consists of the struggle to bring forth Christ in us so our reborn spiritual nature may abide at the right hand of the Father in Heaven. There are many pressures seeking to force us down to the lusts and covetousness of the world while our new inner nature is seeking victory at the right hand of God. |
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If you sincerely desire to become a conqueror you can. You must give yourself wholly to Christ Jesus. He must become not only your personal Savior but your absolute Lord as well. Apart from stern obedience to Him you cannot be a victorious saint. (from The Conqueror) |
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