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Holiness - participation to God's life

3-4Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received! We were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to you - your tickets to participation in the life of God after you turned your back on a world corrupted by lust.

5-9So don't lose a minute in building on what you've been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others. With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience of our Master Jesus. Without these qualities you can't see what's right before you, oblivious that your old sinful life has been wiped off the books.

10-11So, friends, confirm God's invitation to you, his choice of you. Don't put it off; do it now. Do this, and you'll have your life on a firm footing, the streets paved and the way wide open into the eternal kingdom of our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ.

[2 Peter 1:3-11 The Message]

SERVICE OF PASSIONATE DEVOTION by Oswald Chambers

"Lovest thou Me? . . . Feed My sheep." John 21:16

Jesus did not say - Make converts to your way of thinking, but look after My sheep, see that they get nourished in the knowledge of Me. We count as service what we do in the way of Christian work; Jesus Christ calls service what we are to Him, not what we do for Him. Discipleship is based on devotion to Jesus Christ, not on adherence to a belief or a creed. "If any man come to Me and hate not . . . , he cannot be My disciple." There is no argument and no compulsion, but simply - If you would be My disciple, you must be devoted to Me. A man touched by the Spirit of God suddenly says - "Now I see Who Jesus is," and that is the source of devotion.

To-day we have substituted credal belief for personal belief, and that is why so many are devoted to causes and so few devoted to Jesus Christ. People do not want to be devoted to Jesus, but only to the cause He started. Jesus Christ is a source of deep offence to the educated mind of to-day that does not want Him in any other way than as a Comrade. Our Lord's first obedience was to the will of His Father, not to the needs of men; the saving of men was the natural outcome of His obedience to the Father.

If I am devoted to the cause of humanity only, I will soon be exhausted and come to the place where my love will falter; but if I love Jesus Christ personally and passionately, I can serve humanity though men treat me as a door-mat. The secret of a disciple's life is devotion to Jesus Christ, and the characteristic of the life is its unobtrusiveness. It is like a corn of wheat, which falls into the ground and dies, but presently it will spring up and alter the whole landscape (John 12:24).

Changed by beholding

This we know about the God of Israel: he longs to see all nations come back to the relationship we had with him before the fall. And He knows that unless He initiates action, it won't happen naturally. He has to draw us to Himself. The nature of this relationship has to have at least the same grounds as the one we had in Eden.

But God was aiming beyond that: He will live out before our eyes the love relationship that exists within the Godhead, and provide redemption for all humanity by His death and resurrection. Then He will indwell us with His Spirit so that nothing would ever separate us again, calling us sons and daughters.

The Incarnation isn't simply a theological concept to believe in, but a reality to be fully assumed, both on God's part and ours. In Deuteronomy 6:4-6, Moses tells Israel: "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts."

God makes a covenant with Israel, and vicariously with all humanity. And the terms of this covenant are mutual. Without adding to the Scriptures, allow me to suggest the following declaration echoing from God: "Hear, O Israel: I, the LORD Your God, I am One. I love you with all My heart and with all My soul and with all My strength. These commandments that I give you today are upon My heart as well."

-- [Andre Lefebvre]

When You Speak To Me -- [Twila Paris]