Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Desire For Jesus To Be Magnified

"According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death." Philippians 1:20

It should be our earnest expectation and hope that we will never be ashamed in anything! The great Truth is that it is our Father's hope for us as well, and to insure that we aren't He did something about it! “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.” Romans 15:3 Our Father has given us His very Own Spirit and through His Spirit we are filled with all joy in the peace of knowing His Truth, and through the Holy Spirit we abound in hope! Through the Spirit of God we are able to have boldness that Christ is going to be magnified through our lives! We are able to have the boldness that God has and know beyond any shadow of a doubt that Jesus is going to be glorified through us. Our Father knows the beginning and the end. He knows what is going to be and we now have His peace and joy regarding it! God knows that He is never going to be ashamed and He knows that He is in us, that we are His Temple, His body, and if God is never going to be ashamed, then we will never be ashamed! The great Truth that we are shown in Philippians is that we just don’t talk about Jesus, but that the Spirit of God magnifies Jesus through us! Our Father has given us the peace and joy of His faith that knows beyond any shadow of a doubt that He is going to use us to magnify His chosen Savior and our Lord Jesus Christ! “And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.” John 17:10

When Philip asked Jesus to show them the Father, here is what Jesus had to say. “Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?” John 14 8:9 Jesus answered Phillip’s question by saying that if you have seen Him, then you have seen the Father.

Now how awesome would it be to have someone ask us to show them Jesus, and our answer be, if you have seen us then you have seen Jesus. To think this way is not wrong and according to the Truth it should be our earnest desire. If we are crucified with Christ, if we are new creatures in Christ, if we are members of His body, and if we are now one with Him, all of which are Truths that we have studied, then when people see us, they see the One Who we are one with. If God inspired all of these scriptures, and He is not a man that He should lie, then why can’t we say the exact same thing that Jesus said, because according to the Word of God it is actually the case? Think about it, being ashamed in nothing, having no fault, perfectly and completely united with Jesus. That should be our hope and our desire. There are no scriptures that tell us that it cannot be. The power of the Holy Spirit within us strengthens us to abound in the hope of who we are in Christ, so that Christ may be magnified through us! Think about a magnifying glass, people don’t look at the instrument; they look at what the instrument is enlarging! This is the same Truth for us, people see Jesus magnified through us. They no longer just read about Him, they can see Him!

Our Father showed me this today. He started by asking me, “was Jesus fully equipped to perform the tasks that I asked Him to?” I said sure He was. Then God asked me, “Do I love you exactly as I love Jesus?” I said sure, Jesus said that You do in John 17:23. Our Father went on to ask me, “Am I a respecter of persons?” I said no, Acts 10:34 teaches us that. He asked, “now wasn’t Jesus a person?” I said yes. Then God said, “don’t I love you, just as I love Him? I said yes and He went on and asked, “if Jesus was fully equipped, who equipped Him?” I said that You did Father. God then said, “so don’t you think I have equipped you to fully and completely achieve all that I have set for you to do, exactly like I did for Jesus?” Our Father just didn’t equip Jesus so that Jesus would be magnified, He fully equipped Him so that we could have life and have it abundantly as He is magnified through us! Jesus was fully equipped as our Father before He ever was in Mary’s womb. He was able to do everything because God had fully and completely enabled Him, with the fullness of Himself, so that Jesus could, and He has done exactly the same for us. This in no way demeans Jesus as Lord! Our Father is only able to do these things for us because of what He did through Jesus. Jesus is our Head, our Shepherd, and our Lord. He is the firstborn among many brethren. We are nothing without Jesus, but with Him we are glorified to be called the sons of God!

Now with that in mind let’s look at the following verses. “Then answered Jesus and said unto them; Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do: for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.” John 5:19 Now Who are we one with? We are now one with the One Who said this, so shouldn’t we say the same thing? We can do nothing on our own, yet we are able to do all things through Christ Who strengthens us!

Jesus saw all things from God, now how can we live the same way? “All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that He shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.” John 16:15 Everything our Father has, He has shown to Jesus, and Jesus said, that He could do nothing that He had not first seen from the Father. We have seen that God loves us just as He loves Jesus, and that we are now one with Jesus, and here we see that Jesus shows us all things, and He does it through the Holy Ghost. “Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all Truth; for He shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak, and He will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me, for He shall receive of Mine, and shall shew it unto you.” John 16:13-14

Now here is a really cool part, as if this all isn’t cool? Turn to John 15:15, “Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you.” Jesus makes all things known to us. He doesn’t limit us with just some things, we are now His friends and He now tells us all things. Jesus gave us the Holy Ghost Who will guide us in all Truth and He will show us the things to come. Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit, so that we see and know what is to come, just as He knows and sees what is to come! The Holy Spirit will shew us all of the things of Jesus.

In the Name of Jesus we will walk in the fullness of His Truth. God’s standard is His Own perfection, and He equipped Jesus fully to serve us, by making Jesus One with Him. Then Jesus came and made us one with Him as well, and He gave us the very Spirit of God, to insure we also know all things. There is only one thing the Bible teaches us that we will not know, and even Jesus does not know, the exact day of His return. Jesus doesn’t know it, because He is not a liar and Jesus said He would show us all of things that He knows, this one thing is known by God alone. “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.” Matthew 24:36

Now let’s go back to the first part of this section, do you want Jesus to be magnified in your body? Because what we just studied is the level of magnification our Father has in mind! And praise God we have the mind of Christ to accept and believe it. We have the Spirit within us to teach us. We have a new heart directly from God and our bodies have been quickened, or made alive with Jesus Himself. So we are spiritually, soulfully, and physically capable of being used by our Father to magnify Jesus completely and perfectly, here on this earth, we don’t have to wait for Heaven. God has provided the way.

Now a lot of people believe the lie that says that we cannot have all of this unity and power until we are in Heaven. But here is my question to them, what scriptures teach us that? Paul wrote that he had not yet attained, but God never had Paul write that we cannot attain!

"Therefore, my brethren dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved." Philippians 4:1 We stand in Jesus now and He is Who He is within us and we are strong because He is!

"To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:" Colossians 1:27 Jesus has given us the glory that He has, so that God may be glorified through us! Today is the day of our salvation and now is the appointed time! Jesus is coming back for a glorious church and Christ will be magnified completely and fully through that church!

"As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him: rooted and built up in Him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving." Colossians 2:6-7 True thanksgiving comes from joy and we have Jesus’ joy within us, so that our joy may be full! “These things have I spoken unto you, that My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.” John 15:11 Everything required for us to live abundantly is being performed through us by the power of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

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