A saying which we frequently encounter in Christian circles goes like this: “God loves you like you are, but He loves you too much to keep you like you are.” I wonder from where this saying originates. I cannot find any scriptural basis for it. Jesus never prayed such a prayer for us. What was His main concern? Wasn’t it that every believer should be one with God in the same manner as He was one with His Father? Evidently this prayer has been answered, because Paul’s prayer to the Ephesians revolves around eyes being opened to what is already accomplished. Paul never prayed that God in His love should change anyone. Why? Paul saw perhaps clearer than most that those who had entered God’s kingdom were forever perfected (Hebr 10:14, Col 2:10).
If you are one of those who feel that God needs to change you I am afraid I have to ask: Who has told you that you are naked? To the Romans Paul spoke about a process he called the renewal of the mind. What was he speaking about? If we are forever perfected, which we are, there must be a Spirit led process going on in each and every one of us which end is to unfold everything accomplished through Jesus Christ. We are talking about a gradually unfolding of His consciousness in us because we are one with Christ and have His mind. Every barrier, every impediment, every inconsistency is removed in Him. As our eyes are increasingly opened we go from faith to faith. It is never a question about what we should be or any striving on our part. It is forever finished. The light which shines upon us unfolds what already is. Its purpose is not to reveal any bad spots in us, but to unearth who we truly are viz. Christ in our forms.
The battleground is our souls as they are drawn to and fro on account of the circumstances we encounter in our daily lives. Many of us drag with us this utopian notion that when God has finished His work in us we will become super-Christians, whatever that is. Every day we are tempted to think due to our reactions, emotions and actions that Christ isn’t our life, that we somehow are separate selves always erring. But it is in the midst of those storms that faith is operative and we confess the truth until it one day is a settled fact. To become a teacher took me four years of higher education. Then I began working as a teacher. It took me two years in the profession before what I had taken took me and I and teacher became one in my consciousness. In no way could I advance the process. It had to run its course in the midst of sensations of stress, failure and insufficiency. However, I was a teacher every second of those two years. Those around me regarded me as a teacher, but this truth of what already was had to be settled in my consciousness. I don’t know exactly when that took place but suddenly one day I effortlessly practiced my profession.
“For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.” This is Paul’s word to the Romans. Is he speaking about a process or is this an already accomplished fact? Do you or God have to turn every stone in your life so that you can be conformed to the image of His Son, or have this already taken place so that when you open your eyes this is what you see? The first alternative excludes faith whilst the other depends wholly on faith. Are we called to walk by sight or by faith?
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