GOD’S GREAT INTENTION FOR HIS PEOPLE

I believe God has had but one great intention for his people ever since the cross and it will not change until Christ returns in glory. God's intention has to do with understanding the mystery of the gospel, revealed first to Paul the apostle. It is a mystery no longer.

Paul said, "By revelation [God] made known to me the mystery...which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed...by the Spirit…. And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery..." (Ephesians 3:3-9).

The mystery revealed is simply this: Christ's body is still here on earth! The head is in heaven but the rest of his body is right here on earth. We who love and serve him are his body, the visible part, which men see of Christ on earth.

"For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones" (Ephesians 5:30).

"And he is the head of the body, the church..." (Colossians 1:18).

God's full intention for these last days can be summed up in this one sentence: Being that we are Christ's body on earth, God's intention is that every member become a true expression of who Christ is!

God intends for us to express such a complete fullness of Christ that any sinner can see in us the Lord Jesus Christ as surely as if he once again walked here in the flesh. We are to appropriate so much of his fullness, his glory, his completeness that the world will see in us the hope and answers to their needs.

It is not enough to know Christ. We must be a full expression of who he is! We must look at everything we say and do and ask: "Does this represent who Christ is? Is this what I want the sinner to see of him, through me?" Would Christ, in his physical body, walk into an X-rated theater? Would he linger around a pornography counter? Would Christ abuse his body in any way? Would he indulge in adultery, fornication, drinking? Would he cheat, gossip, tell dirty stories, or lie? Would Christ live a lie, then attempt to preach the truth? Would he try to spread the light with a pocket of darkness in his own heart? Would he tell others not to commit adultery, then do it in secret himself?

We must continually keep before our eyes this one great intention of God—that we his body reflect honestly and purely who he is! Set your heart on being a true expression of who Jesus Christ is.