THE "THREE RUNNERS"
We know that the Kingdom of God is perfect in heaven, but here on earth it is obviously a lifelong work-in-progress, as God chooses to live his life through people who choose to receive him as Lord and Savior. We know that the Kingdom of God is within the hearts of Christian believers, because the Kingdom is wherever the King lives, and God tells us that he unites the spirit of the born again believer in Christ's Spirit. It is amazing that this perfectly holy God has determined to live his life through imperfect human beings, rather than simply use his angels to get his message across, or write big messages across the sky to us.
It makes sense that someone would choose to reveal his own perfect nature and character through imperfect vessels. He reveals his unfailing faithfulness through our times of doubt and faithlessness. He reveals his strength through our weaknesses, and his wisdom through our confusion and lack of discernment. Just as he sent out the Samaritan woman at the well to save a village of people, despite the fact that she was far from perfect, he sends imperfect believers out today with his perfect message of salvation.
The apostle Paul puts the essence of the Christian life this way: "I don't mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead. I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us" (Philippians 3:12-14). Paul understands his responsibility, but he also sees that it's not about his own ability, as much as it is about God working through him.
Paul knows, as God wants us to know today, that he's a work-in-progress, and that the normal Christian life is an "already, but not yet" life. Why is this Christian life an "already, but not yet life"? Because God chooses to work in us, in order to develop his own life in us through our day by day circumstances, prayer, and our reading of his Word. He calls us to abide in him, by responding to his calls to us to come into the prayer closet, open up our Bibles, and remain sensitive to his indwelling presence. He does this because he always has much to reveal to us, no matter how much we think we have it all together.
Whatever God does in us, he does not do in way that he does not make us consciously aware of. He makes himself, and his ways, known to us through the the thoughts he speaks into our mind. He only asks us to believe and trust that he will speak to us. What he wants, above all else, is for us to come to him and listen to him. In other words, he waits for us to wait on him, and trust that he will do what he says he will do. "Call on me, and I will answer you," he tells us. With God, we never have to feel like we are leaving a message on his answering machine. He does not have one, and if it seems to us that he is picking up and saying, "Hello?" we do not have to be afraid to speak to him.
As John said in 1 John 3:1-2, and what the Holy Spirit says to us today, "See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are....Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is." We do not have to be confused by this because many of God's prophecies have this "already, but not yet" aspect to them. Why should we not be confused by this? Because God is not constrained by time and space like we are. Life, as we see it, appears to us to be like a parade that goes by day by day. But God sees the entire parade from beginning to end, all at once, and all the time.
Because we are all a "work-in-progress," throughout our entire earthly life as Christians, we never get to a point where God says to us, "OK, now you are complete. I've done everything I needed to do in you. You don't need my help anymore. Now, go out into the world as my witness, get back to me next Sunday, and let me know how you made out." Unlike the way of this world, God does not mature us so that we can do things for him on our own, apart from him. That may be how the world defines maturity, but God does not define it that way. Yes, he has given us many natural capacities and abilities, to do plenty on our own, but when it comes to our service in God's Kingdom, he wants to mature us to a point where we totally trust and depend on him. So his definition of maturity is opposite from the world's definition of maturity.
Jesus says, "Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). It's all about bearing fruit, in order to feed others. But we cannot bear the kind of fruit God wants us to bear by depending on our own effort. The fruit we are called to produce is the "fruit of the Spirit." It's his fruit, which the Father produces through us. Of course, there is continual pruning away, and uprooting of weeds, that is involved in producing fruit. The Bible says that anything that has not been planted by the Father will be uprooted by him and thrown away into the fire. So when God speaks his thoughts to me, and says that what I'm doing for him has not originated with him, but has originated from my own flesh self-effort, I have to allow him to correct me and prune that away.
At times, God will tap you or I on the shoulder and say something like, "You know, that thing you are planning on doing for me has originated with you, not with me. And because it is of your own flesh, it will not abide because flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. Your plans are well-intentioned, and I appreciate them, but they are not my plans, so let go of them and follow me instead. Listen to me, obey my voice, and walk only in the ways I command you, so that it may go well for you." This is kind of how God vetoed King David's well-intentioned plan to build God a temple in Jerusalem. David's idea was very honorable, and it would've been approved in a committee meeting, because even the prophet Nathan said, "Great idea. Go for it." However, the timing of David's plan was not according to God's timing. So God asked David, "Are you the one to build me a temple?" Then, he basically said, "You want to build me a house? Thanks, but no thanks. Instead, I'm going to build you a house that will last forever." In the same way, God wants to build his temple in our hearts today, according to his plans, not according to what we think is most honoring to him.
All 3 aspects of God are working in us, for us, and through us. The Father does everything through the Son, and the Son lives in us by his Spirit. The names of Jesus include "Everlasting Father" (Isaiah 9:6), so Jesus is actually God the Father in Christ. Because of this, we cannot look at Christ as the "nice One" who died for us, while looking at our Father is the angry judge who condemned his first begotten Son for us. No, Father and Son are one in the same, together with the Holy Spirit, which is why the three runners at the top of this page can
be seen as a picture of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
These 3 aspects of God, which he has chosen to reveal to us, are
separate in name but they are not actually separate. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are co-eternal, and are perfectly united
in each other. One plus one plus one equals three-in-one. To the finite mind, this sounds like a contradiction to some people, but it would only be a contradiction if God were to then say, "No, I'm not actually three-in-one." As Christians, we are also in the picture of the three runners above, as God unites our spirit in Christ's Spirit when we are spiritually born again into his family (1 Corinth. 1:30). From that point on, Jesus commands us to simply abide in him and follow him, which we do through prayer, the reading of his Word, and remaining sensitive to the thoughts he speaks into our hearts and minds.
When a person gets near to a Spirit-filled son or daughter of God, that person's human spirit can
sense God's Spirit within that Christian person. Why? Because God created us to be able to sense him in this spiritual way. God will operate "behind the scenes" like this, provided we're not getting out in front of God, or hindering him from flowing out of us. How do we hinder God from flowing out us? We hinder him when we start voicing own human viewpoints and opinions, instead of remaining sensitive to the thoughts he is trying to speak to our minds. That person's heart can also sense God's overflowing Spirit of love, because God is love. Again, our Creator, who is Spirit, has created us with a heart (spirit) than can sense him, and sense his love for us. A person's mind may have no idea what connection God's Spirit is making with their spirit, and their mouth may voice
all kinds of words of unbelief from their mind, but their heart knows better.
As long as God's Spirit has that unhindered channel of faith to flow out of his sons and daughters through, he can reach the hearts of other people. As Christians, our part is to remain sensitive and alert to where God is working around us, in the hearts of others. When he brings someone to you, who begins opening up their heart to you about something they are struggling with, he promises to give us his words to speak in the moment we need them. That person is not in front of you because of fate, coincidence, or luck, because as a Christian, all of your steps are ordered by God. In the same way, our hearts have to remain open and alert to someone God may bring to us. That's because he may be looking to correct us, or make us aware of something in our own life.
Those "three-in-one" runners at the top of this page are not competing with each other, so it is not a picture of you or I, running against other people. It is not a picture of you or I following the wisdom of the world, which tells us to "get ahead" in life. "Getting ahead" really just means getting ahead of other people, rather than trusting God to open that doors that he wants to open, and to lead us into the place that he wants to be. Instead of the natural human inclination towards that self-centered way of thinking, God tells us to take the lowest place at the table and be willing to serve others, not "get ahead" of them. Just imagine if the world was actually like this. Jesus, who was God in Christ, washed his disciples' feet, in order to lead us all by example. The Creator of the universe, and the One who gave us the gift of life, came down to us to wash us clean of our sin against him. That goes even further, because who are we, that he should even do that for us?
Although Jesus had told his disciples, as he tells all Christians today, that he had already washed them clean, he washed their feet at the Last Supper to remind them that he keeps on washing them clean. That is very important for us to know, because the devil wants to tempt us to believe that, at times, we have broken our relationship with God, especially after we fail God in some way. Just as the disciples of Jesus' day, we are still sinners, even as he stands stands us under the waterfall of his righteousness, which God "rains" down us if we continue to believe and trust him. God immersed us in Christ's Spirit so that we would not feel like we fall in and out of right standing with him, even though we do fail him at times. Because our Father has put his own Son's Spirit in us, God sees nothing but righteousness when he looks at us. Again, this is included in his "already, but not yet" redemption, justification, and sanctification of us. As many Christians say today, "We are not yet what we are supposed to be, but we are not what we used to be." So a lot of Christianity has to do with allowing Jesus to remind us of the fact that we are loved and accepted by our Father, even after we have failed him in one way or other.
We are the righteousness of God, through faith in Christ and his finished work on the cross. Because we know that God has declared us to be right with him, we can humble ourselves and serve others, we can wash other people's feet, and we can even lay down our lives for one another, if God calls us to do that. Laying down your life for someone can involve any level of self-sacrifice that God asks for, including going back to share the gospel with someone who has already ridiculed and mocked you for your belief in Christ. But knowing that you are loved and accepted by God, that he is the One calling you to go back to this person, and that the reward is great for obeying the Lord, you don't have to shrink back from returning to share the good news gospel with this seemingly-resistant person. After all, we have good news to share, not bad news, and who knows what work God has been doing in that person's heart lately.
In the same way, knowing that we have already been guaranteed eternal life in Christ, and that God is guarding an eternal inheritance for us in heaven, means that "getting ahead" of others no longer makes much sense. Sure, we live in a competitive world, but there is healthy competition, and then there is unhealthy competition. If driven by selfish and improper motives, our actions can actually end up hurting others, in order to gratify ourselves only. Because Christ knew that his spiritual destiny was at the right hand of the Father, he knew that he could lay down his own fleshly life for us. And because he now lives in us by his Spirit, "as he is, so are we in this world" (1 John 4:17). Because he is eternal life, and we are in him, we now have absolutely nothing to fear, including physical death. This is why God calls us to deny self-centered ways of thinking, and allow him to carry on his ministry through us, no matter what the personal physical cost may be.
