World View of Our King

 

“This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of The Truth.”                                                                                                                                       1 Timothy 2:3-4  NASU

In deep sorrow, God watched as His beloved creatures forsook Him and chose sin.  How He wanted them to truly love Him and live!!  He made man for righteousness not sin; for life not death!  And it grieved Him deeply as they, one by one, fell into death.

God’s desire was for all men to be rescued.  He directed His plans and actions continually from creation to making man’s salvation possible (Ephesians 3:10-11; Titus 1:2).  Of all His desires for man, eternal life was His most important.

For I am a minister of the Church by divine commission, a commission granted to me for your benefit and for a special purpose: that I might fully declare God’s word—that sacred mystery which up to now has been hidden in every age and every generation, but which is now as clear as daylight to those who love God. They are those to whom God has planned to give a vision of the full wonder and splendour of his secret plan for the sons of men. And the secret is simply this: Christ in you! Yes, Christ in you bringing with him the hope of all glorious things to come.

So, naturally, we proclaim Christ! We warn everyone we meet, and we teach everyone we can, all that we know about him, so that, if possible, we may bring every man up to his full maturity in Christ. This is what I am working at all the time, with all the strength that God gives me.  Colossians 1:25-29 (J.B. Phillips Translation)

God’s vision for man is the life for which he was originally created.  His splendid and wonderful plan for all nations is that man live as Christ lived.  God’s dream is to turn the world rightside up again.

Paul wrote, “I am a minister of the church.”  This ministry was by divine or special commission.  He declared that his purpose as a minister was “to fully declare God’s word.”  Then he declared that “word” as a “divine mystery” which had been hidden, but “now is clear as daylight to those who love God.”  The gospel is not the hiding of God’s plan; the Bible is not a book so inaccessible that one must have miraculous help from God to understand it.  Paul told the Ephesians that he wrote the mystery of God by the revelation of the Holy Spirit, so that when men read it they can understand (Ephesians 3:1-5).  God gives man a vision (through the Gospel) of a secret plan for all people – Christ in man, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27).

The Scriptures also refer to Christ being in us, and in such a relationship is our hope of Glory.  We are complete in Him (Colossians 2:9-10).  Jesus represents the fullness of the Godhead bodily – He is everything to man and for man.  In Him is exemplified life on earth as God would and did live it.  Thus in Christ man finds the grand manner of life for which he was originally created.

The mission of Christ is to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10).  It is a mission He began to do and teach (Acts 1:1-2); it is a mission which He assigned to His disciples (Matthew 28:20); it is a mission in which every Christian shares personal responsibility (2 Corinthians 5:18).

Ours is the mission of taking God’s creation and, by His power, returning it to the God-like manner for which it was made.  The work is not merely to lead people to obey a specific command; it is not to force man to do anything; but it is rather to bring man to a knowledge of and the acceptance of God and His way.  The acceptance of Christ in the individual will cause one to have hope of all that is glorious.  Eternity for many peope will depend on us.  How I live will determine whether or not a number of people ever know or love Christ or have Christ in them.

Paul came to understand this great mystery.  For many years, he had denied it.  Many Christians today think that the gospel is a mystery to be administered by a few and not by the many.  They think of preachers or elders doing the sharing of Jesus, but not themselves.  Such is a failure to understand God’s will.  Paul adds this sobering thought:  “That is what I am working at all the time with all the strength God gives me” (V 29 P.V.).

As tremendous as the task is, it can be done!  Everyone in our world can be taught!  All may not be converted, but they can be taught.  With God all things are possible.  “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).  In Christ one can do more than he dreams.

Benjamin Frederick Harris once wrote in Spires of the Spirit that “No man is greater than the expanding reach of his deepest desire.”  What is the greatest desire of your life?  Today ask yourself, “if when life is over I have done everything I am now dreaming of doing, what will I have accomplished?”

To think of the magnitude of God’s mission is to dream.  God gives us a vision.  If one cannot grasp the dream, he cannot be a meaningful par of that mission.  The dream is that every person have Christ in him/her – that every person be totally new.  The only generation that I have any immediate responsibility toward is this generation.  This is my generation, this is the one opportunity God gives me to make a better world.

                                                      Isn’t it strange

                                                      That princes and kings

                                                      And clowns that caper in sawdust rings

                                                      And common people like you and me

                                                      Are builders of eternity?

                                                      Isn’t it strange?

                                                      Each is given a bag of tools

                                                      A shapeless mass, a book of rules.

                                                      And each must shape e’er life is gone,

                                                      A stumbling block or stepping stone.

                                                                                                                                  (author unknown)

Excerpt:  Gray, Dr. Joe D., Speak a Good Word for Jesus. Nashville:  20^th Century Christian, 1980.