To Encourage You

Philippians 3:7-9 “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith”

1 John 3:2 “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”

In the verses above from Philippians,we see the heart of Paul, and indeed the heart of any true follower of Jesus. Like Paul, once we had had no regard for Christ at all. We were opposed to Him. We saw our self and the life we lived as superior to anything that Christianity, or Christ for that matter, had to offer. We didn’t want to become Christians, for we understood that to do so would mean to give up so much of our current life, things that we valued very highly and thought we couldn’t do without. But then, by God’s grace, we caught a vision of the blackness of our own sin and the glory of the incomparable Christ. And we came to realize that, in spite of this, in spite of our sinfulness, Jesus loved us, and He loved us so much that He gave His life for us. He had been unbelievably patient with us as we rebelled against Him. And then we were born again, and all things became new. Now we saw our old life for what it really was without Christ – rubbish. And now we wanted more than anything to glorify Christ – as much as we were able and as much as we understood to do.

However, as John tells us in 1 John 3:2 above, the believer, on this side of eternity, is so very limited in how he or she sees Christ. Although “all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17), we still find our self in the same fallen body with all the limitations of that body. Although the desire of our heart is to be like Christ, we don’t see Him as He really is in all of His glory. As a result, although we may think we’re making a good effort at it, it is always much less than it could be. As a person reads and grows in their understanding of the scriptures, and as God “opens (their) eyes to behold wondrous things” in its words (Psalm 119:18), chief among those wondrous things is the ever-expanding image of the glorious Christ and an ever-expanding awareness of how far we fall short of that glory. As long as we are in these bodies, there is always room for that understanding to grow, and with that understanding the capacity to be more like the One we follow. Yet, it will only be in Heaven that “we shall see Him as He is.” It is only then that we shall truly be like Him. What an overwhelming moment that will be!

So, what does that mean while we wait? For one thing, we should understand that despite our many failings as believers, there is hope, for we are not yet what we shall be. God is working on us, maturing us, and forming us into the image of Christ. It’s a life-long process that gives us hope that we can grow, and as we seek to follow Christ, we will grow.

But this should also affect our view of other believers. We should recognize that each and every one of them will be like Christ, perfectly, someday. Rather than being quick to judge others, becoming impatient with them and critical, may God help us to understand that He is at work in their lives, just as He is at work in ours. Someday, that person who seems to be so unlike Christ in so many ways today, will be just like Him. And just as our view of Christ is so flawed today, so is our view flawed of what other believers will be in Him someday.

May God help us as believers to not only want to be like Christ, but to want others to grow in their Christlikeness as well. May God help us to pray for Christ to be formed in both us and them, as we all wait for the glorious appearing of the Lord of Glory.