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The Daily Word of Righteousness
From Justification to Glorification, #9
That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: (I Peter 1:7)
Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; (I Peter 4:1)
The Divine chastisement is administered to us so we may partake of God's holy nature, so we may enjoy the peaceable fruit of righteousness. Suffering prepares us to be revealed in glory with the Lord Jesus.
The sufferings we experience in Christ are a judgment on the sins of our flesh and are a necessary part of the process of salvation. It is through suffering that we are made worthy of the Kingdom of God.
So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure: which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer: (II Thessalonians 1:4,5)
Change into Christ's image takes place in our personality as through experience we learn the ways of God and become totally obedient. The golden Lampstand of the Tabernacle of the Congregation was hammered into shape from a talent of refined gold. The Lampstand could have been cast from a mold (a skill the Israelites possessed because of their experience in Egypt) in a fraction of the time required to hammer it into shape.
The gold was refined and then hammered into the shape of the Lampstand. So it is that the gold of Christ is purified through our suffering and then "hammered" into shape by the buffeting we endure as we make our way through the wilderness of the present age. We are members of the Divine Lampstand, the Anointed One of God.
It is the constant tribulations we suffer that make it possible for the resurrection Life of Christ to be revealed to those to whom the Lord directs us.
For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. (II Corinthians 4:11)
Being filled with the fullness of God. Another aspect of our journey from justification to glorification is brought about by the filling of our changed and refined inner nature with the fullness of God.
And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. (Ephesians 3:19)
God the Father will dwell only in Christ. As God's Spirit forms Christ in us we are ready and able to receive more of God. The goal is to bring us to the place where Christ has been formed to full stature within us. God then will be able to abide in us in His fullness.
Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. (John 14:23)
Complete preparation for glorification includes the dwelling of the Father and the Son in our transformed inner nature.
To be continued.