Thursday, December 13, 2012

Liberty in Eternal Life


Scripture: Philippians 3:21
who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.

Insights: Today’s verse is a review of verses nine through eleven from the second chapter.  They read, “For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”  To start, we see Paul telling us we will receive a transformed body of our humble state.  The literal Greek phraseology we translate humble state means vile.  Our old sinful body, gripped with decay because of being born into a sinful world, is vile in comparison to the body in which we are going to be transformed.  We do not know all of what our glorified body will be, but we are told it will be like that of Jesus.  He ate and drank.  He appeared in a room when the doors were locked.  He ascended into heaven and His disciples saw Him in the air.  We know that are glorified bodies do not get sick and will never die.  I believe that is a whole lot better than or present vile bodies.  The second aspect of the verse today is what really is being reviewed with the verses in chapter two.  This second part deals with Jesus authority.  The phrase “even to subject all things to Himself” is in the Greek language communicating the idea of putting things in a proper arrangement.  That subjecting is making all things fit in their proper arrangement before a holy God.  It is for this reason that everything and everyone bows before Jesus’ perfect authority.  God has exalted Jesus to such a position of authority.  Let’s conclude with Warren Wiersbe’s words as he explains this proper alignment of things in our lives, “Our values are twisted.  Consequently, our vigor is wasted on useless activities, and our vision is clouded so that the return of Christ is not a real motivating power in our lives.  Living in the future tense means letting Christ arrange the ‘things’ in life according to the proper rank.  It means living ‘with eternity’s values in view,’ and daring to believe God’s promise that ‘he that doeth the will of God abideth forever’ (1 John 2:17).”

Questions:
  1. Are you surrendered to the authority of Christ Jesus?
  2. Are you gripped with joy when contemplating your future liberty in which your glorified body will present to you.?
Prayer: Lord, You and You alone have all authority and I bow to Your will.  Let my heart be fully Yours and living from the vantage point of future hope as I obey Your will here on earth. Amen. 

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