April 2, 2010

“Father, I DESIRE that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world” (John1:29; Exodus 12:3).

Dear Brethren,

For the comments this week I am using an article written by Mr. Garfield Gregoire who is a member of this Church.

Your friend and pastor,
Don Billingsley

The SUPREME DESIRE

by

Garfield Gregoire

Have you ever had a deep and steadfast yearning to have a dream fulfilled? Have you ever had an intense hunger and burning passion to see a life-long dream come into reality in real life?

In one way or another, we can all understand or identify with the above questions, because whatever it may be, we all have hopes and dreams that we would like to fulfill; such is the normal experiences of life and we see these hopes and aspirations being constantly played out - in virtually all aspect of human endeavors.

But how often do we consider or give thought to the fact that the Great Creator God also has His own SUPREME and passionate dream He also wants to see come to fruition?

The Supreme Need of God

The world would say that God is so great and powerful that He is in need of nothing - because with His awesome power He can do anything and everything in order to fulfill His desires. But little would the world know that God has a supreme goal, a goal that even HE cannot bring about by instantaneous decree or fiat, because the attainment of that goal first requires the development of the very character of God within man.

The late Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, was led by God to proclaim a mystery that had been hidden for over 1900 years. God our Father, through Jesus Christ, led Mr. Armstrong to unveil the Biblical revelation that God's SUPREME purpose and MASTER PLAN was to reproduce Himself through multiple billions of human beings; whose awesome potential is to be born into the God Family!

YES! That is the dream! It is God's Great desire to have an enlarged Family; it is God's ultimate goal and supreme passion to have billions of sons to become spirit-born members of His Family.

Notice what Mr. Armstrong wrote on page 99 of Mystery of The Ages: "God is the supreme Divine Family - He is the Creator of all that is, and has an ultimate PURPOSE- the creation of perfect, holy, righteous and spiritual CHARACTER, in MAN made immortal, to become part of that God Family. So the purpose of MAN on the earth must have a definite relation to the PURPOSE of GOD the Creator."

Notice that in order for man to be born into God's Family, He needed for man to develop the very same godly character as Theirs’. This meant it was essential that mankind had to develop and live every aspect of life with a mind and character that would reflect the very mind of God (Philippians 2:5). It meant that mankind would come to think and act like God in all conduct of living. Mr. Armstrong describes it as "holy, righteous character."

On page 102 of Mystery of The Ages, Mr. Armstrong wrote: "Why did the Creator God put man on the earth? For God's ultimate purpose of reproducing Himself - of recreating Himself, as it were, by the supreme objective of creating the righteous divine character ultimately in millions unnumbered begotten and born children who shall become God beings, members of the God Family."

The Supreme Price to Achieve the Goal

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God" (John1:1). This passage of Scripture goes back even further than Genesis 1:1 - which speaks only of the time when God began the process of creating the "heaven and the earth."

John 1:1 speaks of eternity when two God Beings existed together before time began, when there was no material universe or angelic beings. It was only these two supreme Beings inhabiting eternity - and there was none other like them; there was no other of their kind in existence:

“. . . I am God (El, our Father), and there is no other; I am God (Elohim, God Family), and there is none like Me” (Isaiah 46:9).

Considering that there were only two God Beings, we may yet see why God would desire to have a Family. We do not know whether or not God was going to settle for or have a limited family relation with the angels, but the Scripture (see Isaiah 14:1,12-14; Ezekiel 28:13-17) shows that Lucifer, who was possibly the pinnacle or Zenith of God's creative power to create by fiat, actually led a rebellion against his Maker and so sinned against God.

In speaking of this time, Mr. Armstrong wrote: "God saw that no being less than God, in the God Family, could certainly be relied on never to sin-- to be like God -- who cannot sin. ... God saw that nothing less than Himself ... could be absolutely relied upon to carry out that supreme purpose in the universe. ... God then purposed to reproduce Himself, through humans, made in His image and likeness, but made first from material flesh and blood, subject to death if there is sin un-repented of -- yet with the possibility of being born into the Divine Family begotten by God the Father. God saw how this could be done through Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for that purpose" (Mystery of The Ages. Pg. 94).

God's supreme passion or desire to see man born into His Family, is so deeply rooted in His Being that even after man failed to obey God, He was yet willing to sacrifice the other member (the Word - who became Jesus Christ) of the God Family -- so that man's sin could be forgiven and man would then have the opportunity to become a member of His Family.

Mr. Armstrong wrote, “And that is why God put man on the earth! That is what causes God to do this most colossal, tremendous thing ever undertaken by the supreme, almighty God -- to reproduce Himself" (Mystery of The Ages. Pg. 94).

This supreme passion or desire -- coupled with God’s love for man, led Him to give up His own eternal Companion who came to earth as mortal man -- giving His life in sacrificGarfield Gregoiree for the entire human race (John 3:16).

Considering Christ could have failed - by sinning and therefore bringing upon Himself the penalty of death - in this case eternal death and separation from God the Father for all eternity - Hebrews 5:7, reveals Christ was very aware of this possibility for the Scripture says, "Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared." The expression "death" -is #2288 in Strong and it means 'death", but the word is also tied to #2287 which means, "Death bearing" which means or refers to a "fatal' death - which in turn implies eternal death.

Think on it! Had Christ slipped up or given in - by sinning, He ran the risk of losing out on life for all eternity. The Bible tells us that there is only "one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1Timothy 2:5). If Christ had sinned, who then would be the mediator for Christ? Who then could stand before God and mediate for Christ? The answer makes known there would be no one to mediate for Christ. Can you see what this means if Christ had sinned? Can we see the tremendous risk that both God the Father and Jesus Christ undertook to realize Their goal or desire to add to Their Family?

Consider Your Supreme Calling

"The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ ..." (Romans 8: 16; 17).

Can we begin to grasp the awesomeness of all this?

God is not now calling the world to salvation - hence the world does not have the faintest notion of why man and what God has in store for us; only the elect - those who have now been called out of this world can understand- and God tells us that we are to be joint heirs with Jesus Christ.

Christ is the inheritor of all that God the Father now possesses and will possess; we are to share all of that with Jesus Christ. Hebrews 2:8 tells us that "All things" are going to be brought under the subjection of man- and this includes the vast and seemingly limitless universe and all that lies even beyond that creation.

On page 363 of Mystery of The Ages, Mr. Armstrong says, "With God's great master plan of seven thousand years finally completed - the mystery of the ages finally revealed, and with the re-creating of the vast universe and eternity laying ahead, we come finally to the beginning."

Who would want to miss out on a future like this? God wants man to inherit all things. Only God's elect knows and understand the purpose behind our calling. James 1:18 declares that God, "Of His own will begat He us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures."

It is God the Father himself who chose and called us out of this world - hence it becomes a very serious calling - a calling that demands the HIGHEST priority and attention; it means that nothing in this world should ever take precedent over our service to God; and to this calling. Jude 1:1 makes it even more serious - for it says, the elect are "sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called."

From this Scripture, it appears that God took some major steps in bringing us to the point of salvation - for it says that He sanctified us - this meant He set us apart for a holy purpose, then He "preserved" us in Jesus Christ.

In preserving us or bringing us to the point where He had called us, who know all the steps that God took in preserving and protecting us all the way until that time when He began to open our understanding to His truth - by way of His Holy Spirit?

In this life, we will never know the answer to that, but considering what God the Father has done through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, this calling is not something to be trampled upon; not something to be taken lightly (Hebrews 10:26-31)!

Always there should be a continuation of serious soul searching just as we do to prepare for the Passover. We should truly be examining our relation with our heavenly Father and consider the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and all that God has done and is continuing to do to accomplish His Supreme desire to make us members of the Divine Family of God.

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