The Longest Journey
When we think of long journeys, our minds may go back to the Lewis and Clark expedition, or perhaps Magellan or Captain Cook. We will most likely never take any of those journeys!
The longest journey that each of will take is not measured in miles, but rather in time. It is the length of time that it takes information about what God has done for us in Christ to travel two feet, from our heads to our hearts. The scriptures are clear in the information given to us, that we are one with Him, seated in Heaven, while He is one with us in our lives. The lives we live are not lived by us, but rather by Christ. (Galatians 2:20) We can look forward each day, not to what Christ would do, but to what He will do, in and through us. Every sin is forgiven, the old man is crucified and buried with Him, our lives are now hid with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3-4), He abides with us and we abide with Him (John 15:4), and we are complete in Him. (Colossians 2:10) The Apostle Paul, well into his years of ministry, expressed this realization when he stated these words in Philippians 3:12. “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” Paul was conscious of this journey and pressed on to close the gap between his head and his heart.
Some of us, like Paul, are conscious of this gap and desire to close that gap by the daily appropriation of all that Christ has done for us. Others, although aware of the gap, have grown to settle for less than they were given in Christ. They may have made efforts in the past to change, but these attempts may have been ineffective due to self effort. Some may have given up hope of progress, seeing little immediate change. The enemy may have convinced them that there is no more to appropriate than what they have already experienced. They have settled for a “mediocre” relationship with Christ which is not satisfying to them or to Christ.
Still others, although born-again by the Holy Spirit, may not be aware of all that the Lord has done for them. They think that their current experience of being accepted by God through Christ is all they need to know and are experiencing but a small fraction of what God has made available to them.
Regardless of which group of the above three we find ourselves in, we can be assured of God’s promise in Philippians 1:6. “Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” To those who need the light of His word, He will instruct them. To those who need hope for the journey, He will supply hope. To those who earnestly desire, like Paul, to have the daily experience of seeing Christ be manifested fully in their lives, He brings the encouragement that it will come to pass in His time. We may grow impatient, however, wanting to speed up the Lord’s process. We forget that He works from eternity and for eternity. This is His process and we cannot speed it up. The Holy Spirit uses the means of Grace, which include the written word, prayer, and fellowship with other believers to accomplish His work. He also uses circumstances in our lives to produce the transformation of our lives. As we set our hearts to follow Him and seek the experiential oneness with Him, we are prone to suffer discouragement because of the slowness of change which we experience. Habakkuk 2:3, however, reminds us of God’s promise. “But these things I plan won’t happen right away. Slowly, steadily, surely the time approaches for the vision to be fulfilled. It it seems slow, do not despair, for these things will surely come to pass. Just be patient. They will not be overdue a single day.”
Although we are not able to speed up the work of God in our lives we have the capacity to slow it down. The Holy Spirit’s use of the word, prayer and fellowship with others is dependent upon availing ourselves of these means of Grace. They are the Lord’s chosen methods of instruction about all we have in Christ and our neglect of them hinders His work. As Dallas Willard once remarked, “God is not opposed to effort, He is opposed to earning.”
Our maximum growth can be attained in experiencing oneness with Christ by fully availing ourselves of the means of Grace: memorizing, meditating, reading, hearing, and studying the word of God, along with prayer and fellowship with other believers.
It is not only the exposure to the means of Grace that is important. The critical element in our growth is our response to the means of Grace! Paul describes the response needed in the following passage. “All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.” (Philippians 3:15-16) If we are to appropriate fully our oneness with Christ, we need to live up by faith to what we have attained by God’s Grace in Christ. We need to, by faith, appropriate what has already been attained for us by the Cross, Resurrection and the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. Belief, as referred to in the scriptures, is always accompanied by the Greek word, “eis,” which refers to an action that accompanies belief. This indicates that faith is not intellectual understanding only, but it involves activity. It is a response to truth, an application of understanding received, and progress made by an accompanying effect on our lives. The faith that lays hold upon all that we have been granted in Christ is described well in the five following statements by G. Campbell Morgan.
The faith that saves is the answer of the will to the truth of which the reason is convinced.
Faith is the handing over of the life to the claim of truth.
That belief saves which compels the surrender of the whole life to the conviction of truth.
The following of light is the faith that saves a man.
Unbelief is the refusal to obey that truth of which I am convinced intellectually.
If we apply this type of faith to our continued exposure to His means of Grace, we will be able to claim His promise to the Psalmist in Psalm 138:8. “The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your love, O LORD, endures forever-do not abandon the works of your hands.” We can rest assured that the journey from our head to our heart will not prolonged, not even by one day!
In Christ, Richard Spann