This is from the TA Sparks devotional for today. We just finished the book of Philippians and in chapter three verse eleven it says,
"If by any means I might attain unto the out-resurrection of the dead." In this verse, the Greek word "ekk" is attached to the word resurrection. It is the only place in the NT this word is used. Paul is referring to something special . . . a special resurrection. The NT is full of exhortations to overcome, and Paul in several places talks of attaining to something more than a lukewarm Christian relationship with Christ. These days, I see that in myself as a willingness to die to myself, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him! To me it is undeniable that the Lord is exhorting us to walk in spirit, looking away unto Him for everything. The picture of Caleb, as brother Sparks outlines here, is clear. The Lord is looking for some who don't shrink back, but come forward in full assurance of faith to run the race with endurance (which He supplies)!
I must also add that this is a very healthy attitude for a believer to have - pressing
"forward toward the mark of the high-calling of God in Christ Jesus." There are rewards to be gained. But this is not in the way we were taught in the LC. The speaking there regarding such matters was skewed and full of great fear that God was going to "get us" if we didn't tow the line. Our Father is not out to whack us, but rather He loves us to the uttermost! He wants us to gain the reward in Christ, and will lovingly be faithful to do that in and through us, if we let Him and trust Him with childlike faith.
The exhortation is meant to encourage us, not scare the bejeepers out of us and make us paralyzed with fear of Him!
Christ has overcome all and lives in us to do just that if we let Him. There is a goal and a prize - Christ in us the hope of glory!
Quote:
January 16
To him who overcomes I will give the privilege of sitting down with Me
on My throne, as I also have overcome and have sat down with My
Father on His throne. (Revelation 3.21 WNT)
We all have resurrection Life if we are joined to Christ as .
Resurrection, but there is something more than that; there is resurrection
power, which carries us eventually (if it has its full outworking) to the
Throne, and not all will come to the Throne. It is "to him that overcomes."
Caleb, like Paul, and Paul, like Caleb, stood against the more general
course of things amongst the Lord's people. The majority were content
with going so far as to the inheritance, possessing so much, and there
staying and settling down. An unfinished course, a curtailed spiritual
advance, an accepting of something less than what God had appointed and
intended. The majority took that course, but Caleb was never content and
he stood against the majority just as he had always stood against a majority
that did not represent God's full mind ....
Spiritual leadership always involves loneliness. That is the cost of it.
The overcomers will always be, so far as the larger Christian world is
concerned, a lonely company, having to go on, with few able to follow.
Caleb could not accept the popular voice, his heart was too set upon the
Lord. He wholly followed the Lord, not the popular and general standard
of Christian life. We may say that Caleb was the very embodiment of all
that God meant the whole people to be. When you see Caleb you see what
God wished all Israel to be, but all Israel did not come to the standard of
Caleb. But the Lord gets in a Caleb the satisfaction of His heart. The Lord
realizes His full thought in a Caleb, in the same way as He does in a PauL
From: Filled Unto All the Fullness of God - Chapter 14
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