The Christian life is like a man, who found a treasure hidden in the field, hid it again and from the joy that he found a great treasure, sells everything he has, to buy that field.
God has chosen us, to be conformed to the image of Lord Jesus Christ, in every areas of our lives, every day. May the image of His son, may be perfected in our lives. The love of God should compel us, to follow Jesus. Let us take the Holy Spirit sayings, seriously and yield to God’s will. Peter is confessing about Jesus, that He is the Christ, son of the living God. In Mathew 16:13 onwards we read , Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He was asking His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. 18 I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.
Jesus is talking to His disciples. We see Peter is a disciple of Jesus and he is committed to the Christ, and got a revelation that Jesus is Christ, son of the living God. Jesus says, ‘Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you but My Father, who is in heaven, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.”’
When we see in Matthew 5, when Jesus was giving a sermon on the Mount, we see that there were crowds, and there were disciples. We see ‘Followers’ and ‘Disciples’, along with Him. Matthew 5:1, ‘When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him.’ In the context of ‘Fellowship’, how can we have fellowship with God and thus become a disciple and also a part of God’s Church? When Christ was revealed to Peter, Jesus told him, ‘I will build my Church and the gates of Hades will not overpower it’. How can we have ‘true fellowship with God’? It requires a commitment, to become His disciple. Not just becoming a follower of Christ, where we just gather in the Church. God wants to build His Local Church . He needs committed disciples, who are committed to the Lord. We need to have a proper understanding of the Body of Christ. By yielding to God’s will, every day, each moment of our lives. God wants to build us up individually and as brothers and sisters, to have a proper fellowship. The Church is just not referred to the physical structure or building but the real Body of Christ, which is having real hands, fingers, doing specific functions, as in a physical body, getting instructions collectively from the Head, which is Christ. Become a disciple and thereby, perform the specified functions accurately, there by having good revival, strong commitment to the Lord, to the Church and to the body of Christ. God has predestined us, to be conformed to the image of Christ. Each of us, as a part of body of Christ, have different functions and each of us reflect the light of Jesus in a way, the Lord leads. If we are not performing our specified duty in the body of Christ, the whole body of Christ is getting affected. If we want to be a true disciple of Jesus, there is a price to be paid. It is costly. The path of discipleship is mentioned in Matthew 16:24. We read, ‘24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. 25 For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? ‘ let us deny ourselves and take up our cross daily and follow Him, every day.
We see in Revelation 2, The Holy Spirit, himself is pointing out the things, that is to be set right in each Church. The things like ‘leaving the first love’, ‘Hearing the teaching of Balaam’, ‘tolerating the woman, Jezebel’. The Holy Spirit is revealing to the 7 Churches. The good things and the bad things. We see in the end, the Holy Spirit is saying to each of these Churches that, ‘‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’ We need to set right, the things, which Holy Spirit is revealing to us, each day, and we can have a proper commitment to the Lord and have a proper fellowship with each other. Our foundation in the Lord, needs to be strong, to be a disciple and we need to constantly, deny our own will and yield to God’s will. Even the smallest thing, if Holy Spirit is convicting us to repent/set right like written in revelations to the churches, we should set that right. Else those smallest things will corrupt our Christian life which inturn will affect the church. So individually our commitment to the Lord is important in building up the church. As we repent on a day to day basis and thus growing in the Lord, the revelation about Jesus Christ we will receive each day just like Peter.
1 Corinthians 3:16, ‘16 Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?’ This clearly shows our accountability to God. We are the temple of God. Spirit of God dwells in us. We need to increase the level of obedience to the Holy Spirit, by yielding to God’s will, by taking a step. Discipleship will cost. We have to deny our ‘self’. We have our duties to do in the body of Christ. We have to take up the cross, daily. When we do this, He will increase in us and we will decrease. Our ‘will’ will come down slowly.
Ephesians 4:11-16, ‘11 And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. 14As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; 15 but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.’ We have also seen what Jesus said to Peter in Matthew 5:18, ‘18 I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.’ This is the desire of the Lord, even today. He will build His Church and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. He wants us to have an individual commitment to God and to the body of Christ, which will lead us to have proper fellowship with one another. Individually, when we do that, our foundation will be strong and we will continue to be strong and it will help us, do our functions properly. When we do this, Holy Spirit will continue to reveal the truth about Lord Jesus Christ. When we go through trials and temptations, we always get encouraged by looking at the life of Jesus and also by the sayings of Jesus Christ. Holy Spirit will give us more revelations of Jesus and we can be more mature, for God’s glory. His will for us is to change from glory to glory. It is possible by the power of the Holy Spirit. That is the will of God in building up the body of Christ, as we each one of us are yielding to the will of God, then come together for fellowship, and have a commitment of a disciple, a bond servant to the Lord and to the body of Christ.
May God bless us.
