THE NUMBER ONE GOAL

THE NUMBER ONE GOAL

                                What is the number one most important goal of the Christian life?

Is it the rapture? Belonging to the right church? Having the right set of doctrines? Preaching the Gospel? No!

Romans 8:29: “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren.”

                Galatians 4:19 “My little children with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you.

                Ephesians 4:11—13 “And He gave some as apostles and some as prophets , and some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers, to the building up of the body of Christ…” BUT WHY? “Until we ALL attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” WOW!

                If Paul seems to be trying to get rid of the Law, it is only because it has no power to make us like Christ. It can only point out where we are failing to be like Christ. We need more than a law telling us what we are doing wrong… we need power to do what is right. The Law couldn’t do that.

                If we are to be conformed to the image of Christ, then we need nothing less than the very Spirit and power of Christ living in us and that was Paul’s point throughout all of his epistles. He was in labor until Christ would be formed in us.

                If we were to keep this goal before our eyes continually, how would it change the way we do church? We get caught up in so many side issues don’t we?  We become busy judging others, who’s doing what and whose wearing what and whose eating what and whose getting credit for what I did and why don’t  I ever get to do the solo part? RUBBISH!

                We are in this race for one thing and one thing only…to mature in our knowledge of the Son of God until we reach the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.”  Eph. 4:11-13 Again I say WOW!

                If the church had maintained this singular goal, there would never have been a false grace. There would never have been a “Have it your way at Burger King” church. There would never have been a seeker friendly church with a million worldly members , for Jesus said: “If anyone wants to be My disciple, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. So if the church would have followed just that one statement of Jesus, then the church would have been made up of disciples rather than members.”

                Make no mistake about it, God is forming a Gideon’s army in these last days and when reality hits the fan, all the pretenders, the fearful and those with other plans will fall by the wayside. They will wonder after the Beast because he will present them with an easy and popular way to have your cake and eat it too.

                Is this not what the antichrist spirit is doing right now? As we see these mega churches doing away with the fundamentals of the Gospel can we not see that they are actually lining up to worship the Beast and his image?

                The Gospel becomes distorted the moment we forget our number one goal. A whole lot of what is being preached on TV in these do-it- yourself Christian rules for success and or prosperity management seminars would be ignored by the Christian masses. People wouldn’t be paying #150.00 to go and hear some motivational speaker give us 7 steps to a better you. It is mostly hogwash because the central core of our purpose is often left out. WE are called to be like Jesus by His power and not our own.

                We, like Paul, must be in travail until Christ is formed in us… and Pastors and Evangelists and prophets and teachers must all be in travail until Christ is formed in us.

                We all know the story of Abraham and how he sent his trusted servant to a far country to find a bride for his son Isaac; a bride that was after his kind. Just so, our heavenly Father sent His trusted Servant the Holy Spirit into a far country to find a Bride for His Son Jesus; a Bride who is after His kind.

                The DNA of the Gospel has become corrupted and distorted in many areas so that Christians are growing up without a central purpose. Many are no longer being formed into the image of Christ. Their Christian DNA is missing genes that could have formed them in the image of their Father, but now, many of His children no longer look like Him at all.

                The truth of the Bible… all truth, must be doing the work of transforming us into His image by His becoming a part of us. Only the Holy Spirit of Christ dwelling in us can make this transformation happen. Having head knowledge alone will only keep us in the realm of the flesh. It is not so much information that we need, but transformation. We don’t fix our eyes on the “Truth” as some people define it. We fix our eyes upon Jesus… Yeshua. He is the Word made flesh. He is the Author and Finisher of our faith… We can’t accept substitutes.

                So the Bible then is not a mere book from which we gain mental knowledge. The Bible, along with the Holy Spirit, is the means by which we absorb the Word (Yeshua) into our very beings so that we are transformed by it. The Bible is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit of both joints and marrow and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart…THE HEART… OUR SPIRIT… THE CENTRAL CORE OF OUR BEING… THE REAL INVISIBLE ME, CREATED IN JESUS CHRIST BY THE NEW BIRTH…. NOW MADE ALIVE AND INDWELT BY THE HOLY SPIRIT OF CHRIST.  Hebrews 4:12

                We don’t go through the Bible gleaning facts… looking for loopholes… figuring out how to streamline the Gospel into something more marketable.

                It is the Holy Spirit that makes the Word alive and active. It is not ordinary water… it is living water and it has the ability to cause rivers of living water to flow from our innermost being.

                But even in our pursuit of the Holy Spirit, we lose the central goal of the Holy Spirit and we begin to seek after the signs and wonders rather than the One who performed them. We start pursuing the loaves and fishes and pretty soon Jesus is left out of the picture altogether.

                Jesus knew this… and as we look at His life we see places where he could have gained more fame and notoriety and we find ourselves wishing that He would have shown more of His power… but instead he would often escape… do things that left the disciples wondering… why? It was because people’s attention would be turning from the central theme to follow after the signs and wonders themselves.

                Jesus would have to restore the center of the truth to them saying. “I am the bread. I am the living water. I am the light of the world… He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life…”for My flesh is true food and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in him.” John 6:55, 56

                Jesus went on to explain this in John 6:63 saying: It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” John 6:63

                But at that time many of His disciples left Him. They wanted a Gospel that was pleasing to the flesh. How quickly the chosen people of God forgot that when they came out of Egypt they had to eat the whole lamb along with bitter herbs. All of the men had to be circumcised. Wow! Not the easiest way to travel do you think?

                And they had to get rid of a leaven in their houses and from their lives and they had to be covered by the blood of the Lamb and the had to make a complete escape from Egypt to be buried in the Red Sea and then to come up on the other side with no way of turning back and no means of survival except by God’s providence. Three million people in a waterless foodless desert… needing a virtual lake full of water each day for both people and cattle and needing a train load of food for people and cattle each day.

                Just as impossible as it was for all of those people and cattle to survive in the desert, just so is it impossible for us to live for one day without the Holy Spirit of Christ living in us… but we don’t know that right now, simply because we no longer come fully out of Egypt… we no longer die to self so that the life that we now live in the flesh we live by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave His life for us.

                We live like the world lives and we survive like the world survives and when life gets over our heads at times, we remember to cry out to God, but He is only our choice of last resort. WE have not learned how to live by Christ alone.

                If only Christians knew how close we are to complete disaster… If only they knew what a thin thread we hang on in this world, they would drop all in order to learn how to live by faith in Christ alone. We are only hours or a few days away from complete chaos and starvation and violence so great and all–consuming that there would not be a single safe place for us to find rest.

                We are enjoying peace and safety by a direct miracle of God and whether we like him or hate him, if God had not miraculously placed Trump in office, we would be in that complete chaos right now. The globalist’s plan was to put Hilary into office and let her bathe in her glory for about 6 months and then crash the economy, thus forcing America into a global government along with the wiping out of about 90% of the population. This is all written in their manifestos.

                And if they are able in some way to push Trump out of office now, they will quickly and violently reverse everything that he has done. Our economy will crash and we will quickly find ourselves  swimming in a sea of chaos and starvation and violence such as the world has never seen and guess who they will be coming after?

                Revelation chapter 12 tells us exactly who they will come after. He (The Dragon)is coming after the Remnant people of God… those who obey Him… those who bear the testimony of Jesus. Rev. 12: 17

                The world will be coming after us with a vengeance such as we have never seen before and strangely enough, our worst enemies will be Christians who have sold out to the Beast. They will want to establish their identity with the Beast and therefore they will betray us just to let the globalists know that they are a part of the global religion and not of that odd and obedient group of fundamentalist Christians.

                Our peace and safety right now as Christians is an illusion… it is a house of cards and when it collapses it will come as an overwhelming surprise to God’s people. Even the most sincere of them will be shocked and dismayed. And the delusions that will flood the world will shake out everyone but the most ardent followers of Jesus Christ. Even the very elect are in danger of falling away.

                When this happens (and it will happen in our lifetime because we are the final generation) we will be glad that we have found a firm foundation in Jesus Christ… not just as a slogan, or a sound bite, or an ideal, or even as a lifestyle… but as the very life of our lives.

                Being like Jesus happens in only one way. That is by Jesus Himself living in us and through us. And Galatians 2:20 is the only doorway through which we must pass if we are to survive. And even then, we may not all survive physically and that is when it is good to know that “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Phil. 1:21 and that “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.”2 Cor. 5:6-9

                It is that kind of knowledge and conviction that will make it possible for us, even to face death if need be, for the sake of Christ. 2 Cor. 5:6

                “Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge. Therefore, being always of good courage and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord- for we walk by faith and not by sight- we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.”

                Paul was able to face death because he knew that his body was only a tent in which He dwelt and that if this tent was torn down he had a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2Cor. 5:1

                You see then, our greatest need as the church today is to become less flesh centered and much more Christ centered so that having set aside all fleshly concerns, Christ may dwell in us and live His life in us. And, like I said earlier, if Paul seemed to be doing away with the Law, it was only because he had something much greater to offer us. It was Jesus Christ Himself who alone is able transform us into His image and likeness. Selah.