Warm hellos friends, brethren, co-workers, spiritual family, and scattered children of God, from our offices here on the Gulf Coast. My wife and I pray and hope this finds you all doing well, and that again your week has been blessed.
You’ll notice each and every Friday evening, when I send out this letter, I write “…brethren, co-workers, and spiritual family…” Some have asked, “Why I write that?”
I realize that we are not yet fully members of the God family, but, we are considered God’s children now! Notice this powerful statement by the apostle John. “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! . . . Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” (1 John 3:1-2)
This is awesome! We are clearly told that when He is revealed (referring to Christ who will return and be revealed at the sounding of the last trumpet) we shall be like Him and be able to see Him.
Matthew’s Gospel describes this in quoting Jesus. “Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” (Matthew 24:30) The coming King will be seen by those of the tribes and nations of earth. Christ goes on to state, “And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” (Matthew 24:31) Angels obviously exist in a different dimension than humans. They are usually invisible and operate in the spiritual dimension.
We are given more information concerning this gathering of the elect in one of Paul’s epistles. “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17) To rise and be caught up into the clouds implies that the elect will arise with spirit bodies, not physical ones. They will no longer be subject to gravity and other physical limitations as we currently are. They will have bodies like that of the Christ following His resurrection.
The apostle Paul addressed the subject of the resurrection body. “So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. . . It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. . .” (1 Corinthians 15:42, 44) In the resurrection from the dead, those raised will have spirit bodies like Christ who is likened to the second Adam. “The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” (v.45) “. . .the second Man is the Lord from heaven.” (v.47) Notice how Paul clearly states that we (the members of Christ’s body, His church) will be like Him and have an image like His. “And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man.” (v.49)
This auscultates back to those awesome words found in Genesis 1. “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.” (v.26) If we are not careful, we can read quickly right over that and miss it. We also understand that there are several steps in accomplishing this.
First, there is a clay model or prototype if you will. “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7) But man was destined to be granted a much higher level of existence, on the very God plane. The apostle Paul writes in Hebrews 2 of man’s creation and ultimate destiny. “What is man that You are mindful of him . . .You have made him a little lower than the angels; You have crowned him with glory and honor, and set him over the works of Your hands.” (v.7)
This takes us back to Genesis 1:26. “. . . let them have dominion over . . .” Paul then refers to the glorified level of the sons of God. “For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory. . .” (Hebrews 2:10) Paul speaks also in Philippians 3 of the glorified body we will be given. “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body. . .” (v.20)
It is inspiring in regards to how many different sections of Scripture refer to our destiny to be glorified sons of God, part of that spiritual family, on the same level of existence as Jesus Christ, who is likened to our older brother. One more passage in Romans 8. “The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.” (v.16-17 KJV) Of course we will always be under the authority of the Father and His Son Jesus Christ.
We cannot be God in the same exact way that they are. They are uncreated beings who have always existed. You and I have had a beginning. But, we will be given an eternal existence in the God realm. Our destiny is to be part of the Family of God. That is such an awesome destiny that I can’t really fully imagine it. Let’s be excited about what our Heavenly Father offers to us, His begotten sons, destined to be born into His very family of immortal beings like the Captain of our salvation, Jesus the Christ!
As I’ve previously mentioned, the Festival of Trumpets, Day of Atonement and Feast of Tabernacles and Eighth Day/Last Great Day will be here in a few weeks. I look forward to God’s upcoming Feast Days, and I know you do too! We’ll learn more about what it means to be part of that spiritual family during these upcoming fall Feast Days.
Arms up friends! Our prayers and thoughts are with you daily. Please do pray for us as well.
