In his letters, Apostle Paul clearly indicated that there existed only a very small part of the Church, Overcomers, those spiritual ones, and if you are one of them then you will lose great multitudes of carnal believers. You will lose their fellowship, their affections, their friendship. They will be cut off from you since God would have to put them aside, separate them. Paul saw already with Galatians that, should they truly return to their carnal basis (to the law), they will have to be put aside and cut off as well, since they will then fall away from the Grace and will be separated from Christ, and THAT IS the loss of Salvation (Gal. 5:4). Apostle John says: “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us; but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us” (1Jn. 2:19). The Lord Jesus Christ is cutting off those that do not walk with Him in order to make place for those that do walk with Him. The Lord makes space for spiritual growth by cutting off those carnal believers, which are in the way wherever they are and whatever they are. Sometimes we, the spiritual ones, may feel that we are just like a small embryo of spiritual life in the sea of carnality, but the Lord is making space for an enlargement and expansion of this embryo in us (Is. chpt. 54). Elijah was also in a situation where he felt that he was the only one from the whole Israel that remained faithful to God. But God told him that He had other seven thousands, which remained faithful to Him (1Ki. 19:14,18). How many faithful ones God has today? Only He knows.
b) The question of Glory. If we want to see at least a part of the Glory of the Lord Jesus Christ and also our present or future Glory, then it is suitable to go to the Gospel of John. Jesus called John “the beloved” because John also loved Jesus and thus their love was mutual and that from the very beginning. And it is quite possible that precisely because of that love, John had a much more intimate relationship also to the Glory of Jesus and saw how His deeds were based on His Glory and also brought Glory to Him and to His Father. If we read few chapters from the Gospel of John, we shall see the following events of the Glory of Jesus where He miraculously resolved absolutely hopeless situations and turned them into blessings.
John, chapter 2 – wedding in Cana of Galilee, hopeless situation. Chapter 3 – Nicodemus seeks his way to the Kingdom, hopeless situation. Chapter 4 – woman at the well desiring “His water”; followed by healing of the prince, both situations totally hopeless. Chapter 5 – healing of the cripple, who was waiting for 38 years to be healed, totally hopeless situation. Chapter 6 – feeding of the 5,000, totally impossible and hopeless situation. Chapter 9 – healing of the blind that was born blind, absolutely impossible and hopeless situation. Chapter 11 – raising Lazarus from the dead, totally impossible and hopeless situation. It is needful to mention here that in at least some of the above examples, the Lord purposely acted so that the situations that occurred would be totally impossible and hopeless and thus His Glory the greatest (Jn. 11:1-6). By these deeds the Lord wanted to show His Glory and all those deeds He also performed for the Glory of His Father in Heaven. At the same time, He showed that WITH HIM nothing is impossible, hopeless for anyone, who believes, even for him, who confesses to Him that his faith is not sufficient and asks the Lord to help him in his weak faith (Mk. 9:24).
Regarding our Glory, the Lord said clearly: “He, that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto My Father” (Jn. 14:12). These Words of the Lord seem to be unbelievable. How should we understand them? Well, firstly, the deeds, which the Lord Jesus did, He did in this physical world since He lived in the Old Testament. We live in the New Testament and thus we should do these deeds primarily in the spiritual world, though some of them we may still do in the physical world. Today, I also “raise the dead”, not bodily, but spiritually dead and am giving to them the spiritual Life, which I have from Christ. I also minister “His water”, which means, living water, which is His Word in His Spirit. When believers drink it, they will not be thirsty any more. As well, we feed thousands of people with the “bread from Heaven”, which is our literature, which we write, print and send free of charge from what we have in our “basket” – those “five loaves of bread and two fishes”, that is, those five salaries and two pensions. We “break those loaves” and give them to all the world and feed thousands of the hungry ones – freely, not expecting from anybody even words of thanks (few were giving thanks even to the Lord). We do it for the Glory of Our Lord Jesus Christ and also of Our Heavenly Father… and we do not even know how. These are all miracles. But therein is also our Glory, which ends our Salvation in our entering into Life Eternal and filling up our whole beings by Life Eternal.
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To be continued next week
brother Hanola
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