Christ Our Portion And Life
“To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Colossians 1:27
It was David, who approximately three thousand years ago, penned these words: “O Lord, You are the portion of my inheritance, and my cup; You maintain my lot.” (Psalm 16:5) In Psalm 37, David went on to write: “The Lord is my light, and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid.” (v.1) David not only had a right concept of Christ, though limited, but went a step further by “making” Christ his life according to the truth. David would mirror what the Apostle Paul later declared in his letter to the Galatians: “…the life that I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.” (2:20) Paul came to know the truth of Christ, but then took Christ by faith according to truth, to be all that Christ desired to be. Both of these men, guided by the inerrant revelation of God and Christ in the Scriptures, became partakers of Christ by the Spirit of God. Christ became to them in their experience, not only their inheritance, light, salvation, but their very life and portion. True faith is based entirely upon the truth of God in Christ as revealed to in the Scriptures. God, in answer to true faith, reveals Himself by the Holy Spirit to the one who will receive all from Christ.
Throughout history, regardless of one’s specific calling with regard to what God desires and wills the believer to trust Him for, God has sought to bring each believer to the place to see, and to know, that Christ is their Life, the perfect, and ever-present answer to every need. Those needs might include “guidance,” that very essential, specific need, in answer to which God reveals His will, directing one’s steps, and prospering one’s way. Other needs might be those of patience in trial, strength in weakness, and joy in difficulties. The overcoming Life of Christ, with its different facets, and specific revelation to the heart and soul, is sufficient for every need, and will be experienced as such in the measure that the believer trusts Him for it. We see this confirmed to us by what the Apostle Peter wrote in his second letter: “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceeding great and precious promises…” (1:2-4) In a very practical manner, Peter writes, in the context of believers having fervent for one another: “…as each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” (1 Peter 4:10) The revelation of Christ to the heart, whether that of David, or the Apostles Paul and Peter, or to every believing heart today, is given so that we should not only know the truth of Christ, but know the power of His indestructible Life, partaking of Him, and giving Him to others in witness by life and word.
The Apostle John, in his gospel, writes of this “reality’ and the experience of it when he communicates to us the very words of Christ concerning this matter: “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me.” (15:4) What is the Lord Jesus revealing to us, and to every believer today, who is truly been born again by the Spirit, having been placed IN Christ, into a living union with Him? The call of Christ is for every believer to know communion with Christ by faith according to the truth, Christ in us the hope of glory.
Dear Father, Open our eyes today. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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