Page 190 - Our Father Cares (1991)

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Members Of God’s Household, June 23
Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens
with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the
foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the
chief corner stone.
Ephesians 2:19, 20
.
The Lord Jesus is making experiments on human hearts through the exhibition
of His mercy and abundant grace. He is effecting transformations so amazing
that Satan ... stands viewing them as a fortress impregnable to his sophistries and
delusions. They are to him an incomprehensible mystery. The angels of God ...
look on with astonishment and joy, that fallen men, once children of wrath, are
through the training of Christ developing characters after the divine similitude,
to be sons and daughters of God, to act an important part in the occupations and
pleasures of heaven.
The Lord has provided His church with capabilities and blessings, that they
may present to the world an image of His own sufficiency, and that His church
may be complete in Him, a continual representation of another, even the eternal
world, of laws that are higher than earthly laws. His church is to be a temple built
[163]
after the divine similitude....
To His church, Christ has given ample facilities, that He may receive a large
revenue of glory from His redeemed, purchased possession. The church, being
endowed with the righteousness of Christ, is His depository, in which the wealth
of His mercy, His love, His grace, is to appear in full and final display. The
declaration in His intercessory prayer, that the Father’s love is as great toward us
as toward Himself, the only-begotten Son, and that we shall be with Him where
He is, forever one with Christ and the Father, is a marvel to the heavenly host,
and it is their great joy. The gift of His Holy Spirit, rich, full, and abundant, is to
be to His church as an encompassing wall of fire, which the powers of hell shall
not prevail against. In their untainted purity and spotless perfection, Christ looks
upon His people as the reward of all His suffering, His humiliation, and His love,
and the supplement of His glory—Christ, the great center from which radiates all
glory.
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