Becoming True

“And what things you learned and received and heard and saw in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”
Philippians 4:9

It is one thing for us to share the Word of God in teaching others, but Paul declares “what things you learned and received” and even “heard and saw in me, practice these things”. May His Spirit impact us afresh regarding our life and purpose in Him.

Many years ago, after my initial encounter with Christ, I was invited to several churches in the town I was living to give my testimony of His saving grace and deliverance. After a few of those opportunities, I was beginning to feel pretty good about myself. I distinctly remember walking down the sidewalk the next day, thinking to myself how blessed I was to be able to share His testimony with others. He spoke a word into my heart that brought me up short and presented me with something far deeper than being delivered from a sinful life. The words He spoke still ring in my heart verbatim: “people are not interested in what you were, they are interested in what you ARE”.

As grateful as I am, and forever will be, for His deliverance from what I was, His purpose is for me to become as He is in this world.

“Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world”
1 John 4:17

The all-pervading purpose of truth is to make us true. Many delight in the accumulation of truth, and rejoice in seeing aspects of truth even to the point of pride and elitism, but sadly fail to comprehend the intent of God in His dispensation of truth.

“And the Word became flesh…”
John 1:14

As inconceivable as the act of God is in the wonder of His incarnation, so also is the Mystery of God concerning godliness (1 Timothy 3:16). It is through the impartation of the Holy Spirit and its reception into our hearts by the substance of faith, that we are given the right, the privilege, and the means to become sons of God.

“but as many as received Him, to them He gave authority* (see note below) to become sons of God—to those believing in His Name, who were begotten, not of blood, nor of will of flesh, nor of will of man, but of God.”
John 1:12-13 (LITV)

The enormity of this scripture produced an important and fundamental change in my walk with God many years ago. It stripped away the veil of knowing something of God with the piercing revelation that God had given me the authority and the privilege to become a manifestation of the living Christ by receiving of His nature and substance into my life. It is only to those who have “received Him” that this authority, this divine enablement is given. In the dawning of this truth, I was instantly gripped not only with a new sense of the Divine purpose but also a new comprehension of my own inherent poverty!

In the seeing of such things, there is an awareness of the necessity of His resources and my full accountability unto Him to be a faithful steward of His unmerited grace. The vastness of His revelations of Himself to us is not to fill us with the mere knowledge of Him, by which pride and arrogancy come, but to impact us with His purpose that we grow into Him who is the truth.

As at the church in Corinth, there are many who are puffed up and proud in their knowledge of God. Yet, Paul declared that due to their condition he could only minister milk for they were yet infants in their true understanding of God.

“Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. But if any man love God, the same is known of him.”
1 Corinthians 8:1-3

The truth of becoming destroys the pride of knowing.

It is one thing to rejoice in the truths of God concerning justification and sanctification, but it is another thing altogether to realize that the truths He enables us to see are to be the truth we become.

“So speak ye and so DO”
James 2:12

Humility is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. It is in understanding the call of God for us to “become” pure representations of Him in this life that we see the beauty of our dependence upon Him. The resources of self are rendered futile. All our accomplishments and attributes are folly compared to the glory of His Being. Humility is the natural response to beholding Him. Spiritual pride is the result of spiritual blindness.

The truth of becoming like Him produces an unrelenting pursuit of Him within the recesses of our hearts. To walk consistently, freely, and spontaneously, requires a life of abiding in Him. The depth of our abiding in Him will be revealed in the truth of our walk.

“and the life which I now live in the flesh”
Galatians 2:20

The verity of the truth we carry within is expressed in the life “we now live”.

“He that saith he abideth in Him
ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked”
1 John 2:6

I am constantly struck with the power of the statements of the early apostles concerning the authenticity of the “now life”.

“And what things you learned and received and heard and saw in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”
Philippians 4:9

May the realization of the showing forth of our Savior be expressed in the verity of the lives we live.

“heard and saw in me”

May we be filled with the spirit of “grace and supplication” that all that HE IS may be the authentic truth of all we are!

The Purpose of God

“May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.”
Ephesians 3:18-19

While many may stagger at such a declaration, Paul summarizes this unveiling of God’s purpose in Christ with:

“Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us”
Ephesians 3:20

*Note:
ἐξουσία (exousia) (G1849) denotes “authority” (from the impersonal verb exesti, “it is lawful”). From the meaning of “leave or permission,” or liberty of doing as one pleases, it passed to that of “the ability or strength with which one is endued,” then to that of the “power of authority,” the right to exercise power, e.g., Mat 9:6; Mat 21:23; 2Co 10:8; or “the power of rule or government,” Vines NT Greek Dictionary

Gave He power – This is more appropriately rendered in the margin by the word “right” or “privilege.” Compare Act 1:7; Act 5:4; Rom 9:21; 1Co 7:37; 1Co 8:9; 1Co 9:4-5.
Albert Barnes comments on John 1:12

Brian Troxel