Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions. Colossians 1:24.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
When you believed in the good news of your Salvation, I sealed you in Christ by the Holy Spirit and you became a member of His body on earth, the Church, empowered by the Spirit to do the works He did and greater.
Where Jesus is, the Church is. It follows that when He physically was on earth, He alone was the Church. He was the only person on earth at that time born from above. Adam was originally but he had recreated all of you when he was born again from below by the perishable seed of lies so, as we discussed in a prior Life Lesson, there was only one way to rectify your condition and open Heaven to you. I had to recreate you in My image and according to My likeness by uprooting the perishable seed of lies and planting the imperishable seed of truth (My Word is truth) in you.
For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God. 1 Peter 1:23.
You had to be born again from above as the original creation. But until every stain, every root, of sin was out of you I could not recreate you in My image. And I took care of the sin issue in My Son with a brilliant strategy and the most astounding miracle in the Bible. To get My Word back in you, My Word became flesh and dwelt among you. And My precious Word, which once implanted in you gives you eternal life, became incarnate and He became sin for you and you became righteous with His own righteousness, which is My perfect righteousness.
Please understand that sin was not something I desired or planned, it is totally opposite and removed from Me. It is what separated you from Me through we were as one when I created you. I created both the first man and woman, the world, and Satan, formerly known as Lucifer, perfect.
Here is what I said to Satan on his fall and he and mankind did it together. He brought the first man and woman down with him.
“You had the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God . . . You were the anointed cherub who guards and I placed you there. . . “You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created until unrighteousness was found in you. By the abundance of your trade you were internally filled with violence, and you sinned; therefore I have cast you as profane from the mountain of God. And I have destroyed you O guardian cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor. I cast you to the ground . . By the multitude of your iniquities, in the unrighteousness of your trade you profaned your sanctuaries.” Ezekiel 28:12-18.
And you also had no imperfections when created, as you will be again once the total redemption (spirit, soul, and body) is complete at Christ’s second coming.
God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Genesis 1:27.
The Rock! His work is perfect, For all His ways are just; a God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright is He. Deuteronomy 32:4.
As for God, His way is perfect. Psalm 18:30.
Now, those of you in Christ, He has perfected you and you are complete in Him.
By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. . . For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. Hebrews 10:10;14.
For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete. Colossians 2:9-10.
Satan, who was in the Garden with Adam and Eve to serve them, instead brought them down with him by the same desire to rule without Me. They joined with him in the spirit of disobedience and Adam submitted himself to a new master, who was a dry and empty cistern rather than a source. Everything Satan has he stole. He is the first and foremost scam artist and identity thief.
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. Ephesians 2:1-10.
In the miracle of Jesus, I have made everything right that you did wrong. You would think this would draw the entire world to Jesus and all would be running to take Jesus as Lord, but that has not generally been the case. I began with just one person, Adam, and I poured all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge into him with great care and love, and when I made Eve, I did the same with only two followers, but for Me, that is enough to found the whole world upon. From those two came everyone living. Adam named her Eve because she became the mother of all the living.
And at the time of Noah, all I found was one person willing to walk with Me and that, of course, was Noah. That is, he agreed with My wonderful plans of shalom I have for each one of you, but no one else at that time was interested.
After Noah there was a period of no one ready to fellowship with Me or listen but I found Abraham, then Abram, and he became my Covenant partner, friend, prophet, confidant, and to him I showed many things, teaching him the gospel ahead of time, and entrusting to him the honor of his line birthing the Messiah, My Son and your Savior, into the world. Jesus, according to the flesh, is a descendant of Abraham.
The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the nations will be blessed in you.” So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer. Galatians 3:8-9.
Do you notice that I call Abraham “the believer”? There is a reason for that, at his time he was the only believer. And that is why he is your father in the faith. He alone at that time had faith in Me, a fully persuaded faith that made him willing to pick up and go with Me wherever I led him without even knowing where he was going.
But what I wanted you to see was that I was not upset with having just one follower. I do not just look at crowds, even in crowds I am looking into the heart of each person there. I see individuals.
I honored Abraham and he honored Me. I credited his faith to him as righteousness. And that credit card charge was paid in full by Jesus, the Lamb for the burnt offering that I Myself provided, just as Abraham foretold.
Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” And he said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together. Genesis 22:7-8.
And from that one man came descendants that honored Me and kept My Word to pass it down to this day, perfectly intact as originally delivered. Abraham started a household of faith that grew into a nation of faith and then became a world-wide body of believers, a church of faith. And each time it was through one man working with Me. First Noah, then Abraham, then Moses, and then Jesus.
Nothing can hinder the LORD from saving, whether by many or by few. 1 Samuel 14:6.
Jesus is just one man, one perfect man, but I split the calendar in two and changed everything on earth in, through, and with Him.
And when He was on earth with you physically, He was the Church incarnate. Remember what He told the questioning Jews when He overthrew the money changers tables in the temple?
The Jews then said to Him, “What sign do You show us as your authority for doing these things?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?” But He was speaking of the temple of His body. So when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken. John 2:18-22.
And I have put you in Christ and made each one of you a temple of My Holy Spirit, the body of Christ and the Church upon earth and you are to do the works of the Church, which are the works of Jesus and greater for you can lead people in the prayer of Salvation and bring them to the knowledge of the truth that will make them disciples of Mine and set them free for Jesus in whom you live and through whom you live, has entrusted to the message of salvation and to be My ambassadors and royal priesthood to bring the people to Me and Me to the people.
I have made you fishers of men. And whether it be many or few that you bring do not worry. I can do more with one person than anyone would think possible. Look at Gideon. Look at Joshua. Look at you.
What do you do as the Church upon earth? Like Jesus did as the Church upon earth:
You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. Acts 10:38.
Now, that should describe you.
I love you. It is My doing that you are in Christ Jesus and I am working within you to will and to do, but you must work it out by walking with Me. You and I can accomplish much together. And do not worry about how many you are saving, Jesus walked from Jerusalem through Samaria to Galilee to speak to one woman at a well. But then she brought a whole town to believe in Jesus and Samaria was ready for Philip when he came to preach to them after the resurrection of Jesus and the birth of all of you as the church upon earth in Him. Go out and tell the good news and I will take care of the rest. If you do your part then I can do Mine. Open the way for Me, like John the Baptist did for Jesus’ first coming, you get busy now to open the way for His second coming. Prepare the nations for the bridegroom and soon coming King. I am with you.