15 Minutes
We are like Christ in this world. We will not be afraid on the day when people are judged. Everything in our faith is built upon the person and work of Jesus Christ. Our bodies do not belong to us. How we use our body and our mind reveal what we believe. We exercise honest assessment in reality of every experience. Our entire life is characterized by a sense of contrition, a repentant heart. God knows us far better than we do, and He makes abundant provision for our care. God grants us an endless supply of forgiveness, restoring, encouraging, and empowering grace. Because we are in this fight of faith together, we can keep encouraging and exhorting one another every day to press on so that none of His becomes hardened in deceitful, habitual sin. And with submission graced by the knowledge of Christ we know what we think we know. That’s why it’s crucial that our functional knowing aligns with our doctrinal knowing.
God loves us with such incredible love that we experience extraordinary, life- changing events, mercy, and compassion not only from Him, but from those who are His. And He wants us to show that love to others. It’s a reminder of how God loves us, all that Jesus is to us: relentlessly, completely, and without expectation of return. God is our perfect Father and He has a perfect purpose for us. Our traits and abilities make us unique. God gives us certain experiences to help us grow and to use these abilities. He gives us the strength of faith to overcome the challenges we’ll encounter in this life. There must be something special about all of us that made God choose us. That thing that is so special is not that God chose us but that we choose Him. It is our response to His love, His mercy, His grace that He foreknew allowing Him to declare us to be His elect. There is something most impressive about us that serves as criterion to warrant God’s selection...we come to God. We come to consider His wise counsel in reasoning with our every inquiry. We come because we are convinced of His truth. We come because we know that He knows us. Let me put it the way God Himself put it. “For I know them, that they will command themselves and theirs and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment”.
Genesis 18:19
God chose us simply because He had a purpose for us, and He wanted to fulfill His purposes through those who choose to be faithful to Him. God didn’t choose everyone equally. This wasn’t a democratic vote. This was a choice of determination based upon the wisdom of counsel. God set His love on the worst of sinners to show how much His grace can change a person. We are like no other. Let’s circle back to the foundation of the world. God knew that we would be holy and without blame before Him “in love”. Emphasis on the
“in love”. And this knowledge brought God great pleasure. Thank God that there is no tension between foreknowledge and the exercise of free will. God is omniscient and hence in possession of perfect foreknowledge and yet God has given us free will. God knows that we will freely choose Him in all things. He knew the reality of this before it was real. We’re not especially savable or lovable. The reality is that, left to ourselves, none of us would have turned from our sins and believed. But God worked in our hearts that we would. He chose us and drew us to faith, and so everything about our salvation is a gift from God. That gives us hope in sharing our faith with others because God can save anyone. And it gives us hope for ourself because we can trust that whatever God has started, we can be assured He’ll finish. It is God that has set us apart. And it is God that commands us to be holy. To be holy means at its core to “be set apart.” God is holy. He is set apart because He is perfect and without any sin.
To stay morally perfect, He can’t have anything to do with imperfection. He has to stay set apart. So, He told us, “we have to be perfect too.” That’s His requirement for His people everywhere. If we want to be in the presence of God, we need to be like Christ. We need to be perfect. How many of us are perfect? Not one! How many sins does it take to no longer be perfect? Well, how many losses does it take to break a team’s perfect record? Just one. This is what the bible means when it tells us, “for whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all”. Adam and Eve were created “very good”. They lost that creative stature and brought upon all creation an onslaught of trouble. There is a difference between “very good” and “perfect”. Perfect has nothing lacking. The reason God didn’t create them perfect from the beginning, was that creation had to go under probation, even after the creation of mankind. There was yet another element that had to be attained, which required the collaboration of man. This detail is apparent, God’s purpose appears to have the intention of creating man “according to the image and to the likeness” of Himself. When He eventually created man, He made man in His image. And this is where the formula of perfection is hidden: Man, having been created “according to God’s image” was “very good”. But, when man becomes “according to God’s likeness”, he would then be on a course towards perfection. Let’s reason why God commands that we be “made perfect”. In the image of, signifies man’s ability as a free and intelligent creature, to be similar to God. But, after, which is to follow on in the likeness of, signifies man’s course towards the attainment of this simulation, which can only be achieved through the collaboration of man and the Holy Spirit. Given that God is what He is, because He wants to be, and not because He is compelled to, man must likewise “want to”, must attempt to, through use
of his freedom as “the image of” and his knowledge, reach perfection; in other words, seek the course towards becoming “after the likeness of God.” This is a characteristic that man alone has, in all of creation. God is intending for us to reach the unity of the faith and the awareness of the Son of God, thus becoming perfect, to that measure of maturity of the fullness of Christ. To reason with and understand that truth is to nowhere refer to the perfection as acquiring incorruptibility and immortality.
In the image of God, after the likeness of God, we are to be like Jesus Christ, who is the image of the invisible God. Please hear this matter-of-factly...reason is the highest faculty bestowed on man by his Creator. We not only gain access to more knowledge, but to deeper understanding and greater wisdom whereby we acquire truth. Let’s reason with being like Jesus. Our path towards perfection was set by the Lord Jesus Christ, because this is what will lead us to becoming “after the likeness” of God. Is our being perfect referring to the infinitely perfect God? To reach Him is definitely impossible. But we can draw nearer to Him, from now through all eternity, becoming more and more according to His likeness. Study the scripture where we, like no other, are changed into the same image. Perfection is not a destination point. It is a non-stop course for God’s people who are like no other. Remember, it is in reasoning that God brings us to the revelation of the reality of truth. The reality is, that the creation of mankind was perfected. It was upon the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, that one, like no other, appeared in a state of perfection. Jesus Christ was the only man who was actually perfect. In His person, mankind had found the fulfillment of God’s purpose for it: “let’s create man...after our likeness.” And please just think about this...we were made in the similitude of God...and cursed.
When we become like the perfection of Christ, the results will have an impact on all of creation, which will undergo a change in order that God’s plan and His creation be fulfilled, not only for the sake of man, but also for the sake of creation. This is our study for the last days...our preparation for the things to come, that render it necessary that we, this day, must be like no other, made perfect in Christ. For the earnest expectation of creation eagerly anticipates the revelation of the sons of God. For even creation shall be freed from the bonds of deterioration, into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. Here is how we are being so blessed in being brought to be like Christ. God entered our world in the person of Jesus. He lived the perfect life we could not. Gave that perfect life to us, and then on the cross took the punishment that ought to have been ours. And after Jesus died for our sins, his resurrection assures us that he really is who he claimed to be. He was like no other. He is the Son of God. God provided a way for us to be holy and perfect through Jesus. God came to do for us what He purposed in Himself, in Christ, that we might be reconciled unto Him, not counting our sins against us, making us perfect. Jesus is the most inclusive person that could ever be. There is no being for whom he did not live, die, and rise. Someone just needs to tell someone about this Jesus. Jesus is the most exclusive person in all of history. No one can go to God except by him. Jesus is the only Savior who could have lived in our place.
We are like no other. We can be complete in Christ. We are who God says we are.
Deuteronomy 7:6
Let’s make this testimony. There is none like us in the universe. And among the us there are those who are God’s and they are like no other. The universe’s end will come once God’s purpose of events on earth has been completed. This reasonably tells us that there is no other program taking place simultaneously elsewhere in the universe. God’s elect are unique as God intended, and maintaining that understanding serves to magnify our love for God and our awe of His works. God has no ordinary people. We are serious about life. We know of the infinite joy that is offered us. Our faith is like no other faith. We have handed ourself over to God, and it must follow that we are obedient to Him. Not in a new way, a less worried way because we trust Him. Not doing things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save us already. Not hoping to get to heaven as a reward for our acts, but inevitably striving to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of heaven is already inside of us.
We are like no other because we see the same truth that God sees, we share the same truth that God shares. Truth is the instrument by which God reveals to each of us the beauties of others. We never ask God why we are like no other. We never ask God why we must endure. We are promised sufferings. They are purposed. So, to us, You need utter no answer. For we know that You are Yourself the answer. You called us because You knew we would be calling to You. In these last days God will have a great and strong people appearing, such as never existed in ages past. None like these have ever been gathered before. God’s spirit will be so accessible, that what God is doing and what decisions they should make in their lives will be by divine inspiration. With prophetic wisdom and illumination, we will be God’s spokespersons. Transformed by everything that Jesus has shared with us, we will embody the promises of God. Our characters will pattern such a life of faith as to be no more servants but friends of Christ, because he has made known to us everything that he has heard from his Father. We will be true. Jesus, pouring forth the mysteries of his Father in the intimacy and trust of transformative love, is sufficient to preserve us during the worst days this world has ever known. Our lives will be in God’s hand and nothing can keep us from accomplishing His purposes. As devastating as the trials, the tribulation, the persecution, the suffering will be, God would never leave the world without His witnesses. We must live this day with the knowledge that God will lift His hand of protection from everything in the world except for His few chosen ones. And yet, knowing this we are to continue inviting people to come to Him and receive His grace.
Except for the very few who remain ever faithful to God, heaven and earth will be set infinitely apart. God’s people will see truth. Opinions will be of no avail. God’s people will come to know oneness when the deep meaning of truth is the mind's essential peace. We will come directly into harmony with reality. Our enlightenment means entering truth. And this truth is beyond extension. It is as the impact of a single thought in ten thousand years. God affords us a glorious and vivid illustration of what happens in the final days. The reason we are like no other is to do what Jesus did when he went to the cross. He made an open show of the enemy triumphing over them. We are to so completely disarm the enemy that the people in the world will see the gates of heaven open to them.
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