Wednesday, April 25, 2012

God in Action

The following is taken from Norman Grubb's biography of Abraham Vereide titled Modern Viking. In this excerpt he summarizes the purpose for which God created us: to be His interactive agents in the world, accomplishing His purposes through us:

"The Apostle Paul wrote with thankfulness that 'it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by His grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen.'

"So it is God Himself who brings people into the world for one purpose only--that they may discover that their real self is not their deluded self-reliant, self-existent, self-acting, self-seeking self: their real self is another Self, another Person living in them and functioning by them; and that Person is Jesus Christ.

"Such a fact--an indwelling Christ as the real Self in us--is the only possible remedy for humanity which has got out of gear and deified itself, because this same Jesus Christ became a man, one of us, a human representative, and voluntarily died and rose again in our stead. By dying as our representative, He brought to an end on our behalf this sin-centered life, this life we live by nature under the control of the spirit of self-centeredness: and by rising from the dead on our behalf, by the entry of the Spirit of God into His dead body ('being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit,' I Peter 3:18), He was the first of a new humanity.

This new humanity consists of millions of people who have, as the motivating center of their personalities, not the spirit of self-centeredness which invaded and united itself to humanity through the disobedience of Adam, but the Spirit of self-giving, the Spirit of God, God Himself, Christ Himself living in them. And we are all among these millions, when we have been awakened to our emptiness, helplessness, and sinfulness in our natural condition, and have heard with the inner ear the Gospel of this free gift of God in Jesus Christ, and have simply received and recognized it as fact for ourselves now: that in actual fact we went to the Cross with Him two thousand years ago, for He was only there as humanity's representative, and in actual fact we rose with Him by the new Spirit, God's Spirit coming into Him and therefore into us: and that, therefore, just here and now I thankfully welcome Him to live in me as a fact, which includes the forgiveness and blotting out of all my past transgressions in the total efficacy of His atoning sacrifice. God who 'separated me from my mother's womb' has 'revealed His son in me.'

"For what purpose? That I might now know that I am 'called by His grace' to 'preach Him among the heathen.' In other words, that the One I now recognize as living in me, the real Other Self in me, is a world Lover, a world Saviour, and has a world-saving purpose: and that just as the Spirit in Jesus on earth lived a world-saving life through Him and constrained Him to lay down His life for the world, so that same Spirit in us, that same Christ in us, now lives in our bodies with a world-saving purpose, and constrains us to lay down our lives for the world.

"How does that work out in practice? In the simplest possible way. Every human life, when God-possessed in this way, is God-in-action. That ordinary life you and I live is He living it. The circumstances, the environment, the people with whom we are surrounded, the responsibilities large or small, are God's plan, God's special arena of self-revelation. It is not a matter of looking out on others . . . and saying, 'If I were like him, or where he is, I could take part in a world-witness.' It is a matter of saying, 'My situation, as it is now, is God's environment for me, God's calling, God's place of potential Self-manifestation. Let me recognize Him, therefore, in me in this existing situation. Let me catch a glimpse of how He intends to manifest His redemptive love through me, and is already doing so.'

"Remember Paul again, born with a purpose, receiving the revelation of Christ in him--Why? Because he was called to preach Him among those who didn't know Him. And that is exactly where you and I are. Born for a purpose. Christ revealed in us, as we have received and believed God's word of saving grace to us. Now called--just where we are and as we are--to manifest this same Christ to others in our homes, business, social relationships, in the conduct of our affairs, in the decisions we have a share in making, in the handling of other lives over whom we have control.

"Start looking at life from that angle. Open your eyes to Christ in you. Open your ears to His plan and purpose: and soon you will find your own calling to the obediences of faith, to the adventures of faith . . . You will find the Spirit of God in you saying, 'Let us go further. I am in you to love others through you and show them that I am love, and that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Believe me now that I intend to do this by you. As I tell you what to do, you obey and do it. You will find the power to speak and act in you (I in you), as you just go along with me in what may seem impossible situations.' And as you do this, horizons will enlarge, faith will increase, God will be expanding Himself through you.

"Will it cost? Well, if you call it cost--yes. But you don't notice the cost, when you are caught up in the glory of the adventure. 'Looking unto Jesus . . . who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame.' All men pay for what they value. Men don't scale Mt. Everest without paying a price, but to them, reaching the summit is worth anything. How much more we, who are climbing the summit of summits--to bring the whole world to the feet of Him who, as we do come, takes us by the hand, lifts us up, and then says, 'Now then you go out, with Me in you, to be a world lover and world saviour along with Me and the rest of us. Redeemed to be a redeemer. Saved to be a saviour.'"

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