Jesus the Saving Transformer

We await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. (Philippians 3.20-21)

The mighty empires of Roman and Babylon that stretched beyond the horizon fell. The British empire enjoyed an epoch when the sun did not set on it’s global holdings but dusk came all the same. As great as our countries may be they will eventually fail. This can cause us discomfort because the physical security and comfort we are experiencing now blinds our eyes to the greater comfort of heaven. For the church living in collapsing kingdoms and totalitarian dictatorships the hope in our celestial citizenship is deeply important. We are not dedicated for destruction, we have been bought with a price and in spite what happens here and now, we hold firmly to the hope we will be made new by Jesus, our Savior and Lord.

We cannot bring ourselves to envy the creature comforts of the lost because in their decadence and greed they are setting themselves for eternal destruction. Rather than envy them we weep for them. Jesus speaks transformation over our lives. On that day when we pass from this life to the next we will see Him as He is and He shall cloth us in His glory. What an incredible joy to know that the best we could ever experience here could only be considered the worst heaven has to offer. We shall rejoice with glorified bodies in the very presence of Jesus on that far side of eternity.

Jesus, thank you for setting my eyes on you and letting me see that all my hope has its foundation in You. You will remake my lowly body to be like Your glorious and everlasting body.

Jesus the Surpassing Worth

I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. (Philippians 3.12b)

Jesus. Jesus is worth it all. All else is loss when weighed against him. This is key. It is not equal or zero-sum. Christ-lessness is not equal to zero, nothing; the smooth line on the horizon. Without Jesus everything we have, all the joy, all the impulse, all the good things are losses. There is no merit apart from Christ. Left unchanneled through Jesus our good and great things, those things that bring us happiness and contentment, are dangerous negatives because they belie the economic reality of our souls. We are beyond bankrupt. We are destitute and steeped in crushing debt.

And indeed when we see Jesus for who He truly is all those great things are cast aside for His surpassing worth. Our love for father and mother, brothers and sisters cannot compare to His love. If they have kept us from His embrace they are deficits. Jesus longs to redirect them. Jesus desires to produce love in our lives so that He might produce love in theirs as well.

Jesus is our transcendence. He saw us in our impoverished debt, holding precious bobbles of corrupt clay like pearls of great price and He made us His own. He claimed us as His own and paid our debt in His blood. Knowing Jesus is of such surpassing worth that we press forward, we strain against the bobbles of our past to experience His glorious nearness. Knowing Jesus who has made us His own stirs within us a passion to pursue Him with all our zeal.

Jesus, loosen my hands from the things of the past and guide my outstretched arms to your presence.

Jesus the Glory of Circumcised Hearts

For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh (Philippians 3.3)

In our modern time we do not see ready parallels to the Judaizers of Paul's day and our own. But we only need to step back and admit we continue to add unnecessary stages to being a true Christian. Can we admit we have those same pharisaic tendencies? One says to be a true Christian we must affiliate with a particular political platform. Another says we must abandon our antiquated beliefs governed by ancient texts. One says build up higher hedge laws around our faith, another says tear them all down and reject absolute truths. These are our modern day Judaizers, emphatic about their disruptive beliefs and demand others concede to their whims through outward and verbal expression.

But Jesus, the glory of our hearts, does not demand of us visibly external acts. Jesus desires invisibly internal response. Jesus calls to us as the seed of Abraham, through whom God established the rite of circumcision, and reminds us what the Holy Spirit spoke through Moses: God will circumcise our hearts and the hearts of our children so that we might holistically love Him with our hearts and souls. Access to God the Father is glorious. Confidence in our security before God is worship-inducing and we glory in Jesus, the One who circumcises our hearts.

We need not swing the pendulum from ultra soul-constricting conservativism or soul-loosing liberality. We stand assured that we can bring glory to Jesus through our Spirit-filled worship knowing that we are His and He is ours.

Jesus, thank you for cutting to the heart. Help me find my joy and security in you and identify the areas of my life where I try to earn salvation through communal belonging.