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The Daily Word of Righteousness
Prepare the Way of the Lord!, #2
For David did not ascend to heaven, and yet he said, "The Lord said to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand Until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet."' Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. (Acts 2:34-36—NIV)
I could quote many more examples to demonstrate that while the Father, the Son, and the Spirit compose one God, they nevertheless are unique Persons.
Therefore it is my opinion that once we receive the Holy Spirit He sets about to prepare the way for the coming of the Father and the Son to settle down to untroubled rest in us.
Perhaps most believers can live with this thought.
Let's turn now to Paul's prayer for the believers in Ephesus:
For this reason I kneel before the Father, From whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. (Ephesians 3:14,15—NIV)
God has one family. The family includes the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and all of us who are part of the Lord Jesus. We all are called by the name of God. This does not mean we are the Father, it means we are an integral part of His family if we are part of the Lord Jesus. This is important to remember, because the unscriptural philosophy termed "Dispensationalism" drives a wedge between elect Jews and elect Gentiles. Yet:
There is one body and one Spirit— just as you were called to one hope when you were called— One Lord, one faith, one baptism; One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Ephesians 4:4-6—NIV)
How do you imagine Paul would pray concerning the one family of God, people who had been saved through the blood and filled with the Spirit of God?
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, (Ephesians 3:16—NIV)
Paul's prayer for us Christians today is that our Father, God, might, out of the abundance of His riches, strengthen us with power through His Spirit who dwells in our inner being.
Did you ever conceive of the work of the Spirit in us as being that of strengthening us? I wonder to what end God is strengthening us out of His glorious riches! Such strengthening obviously is an important aspect of our salvation. Don't you agree?
So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, (Ephesians 3:17—NIV)
We are strengthened through the Spirit in order that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith.
Faith is required if we are to press past the Pentecostal experience into the rest of God.
The great battle each believer must engage in, if he or she is to press forward to the place where Christ is abiding in untroubled rest, has to do with God's will versus our will.
Babylon is symbolic, in the Bible, of our self-will, which ultimately is expressed in ecclesiastical institutionalism, in Antichrist, in the False Prophet, and in Laodicea. We are in the rest of God when every aspect of our personality is content to abide in the will of God.
To be continued.