We have plenty of good sermons, Bible studies and church programs, but how much glory have we seen manifested in God's people in life and power? Sonship is a radical call for us to come into a mode of being that is definitive and normative in faith. If we miss it here, we have missed the faith in its most essential elements, and condemn ourselves, therefore, to a cultural Christianity. This kind of 'Christianity' can exert a certain benign influence on society to take the rough edges off, but it can never usher in or reveal the life and power of God.It does not take much to transmute holy things and make the common. Where are those, like the apostles, who turned the world upside down? Where are the sons of whom it could be said in the synagogues of today: And they were amazed at His teaching, for His message was with authority? Only a word of this weight and power can truly drive out demons, heal the sick, set the captives free, open blind eyes and even raise the dead.
In Christian life and ministry there is a consequence for the son who follows this radical baptism of death, and the subsequent walking out of this life in His power. The consequence is the fiery trial, the testing of one's faith. The temptations that test us may not come to us as neatly as they are described in Luke's gospel. Numbers of Christians are bewildered at why they continually face trials and testing. When they think they have graduated from one, lo and behold, within a short time, there is another trial of a more demanding kind. We need to consciously identify trials. We need to recognize that they are not mere happenstance. They are in the purposes of God. By them we are probed and tested regarding our intention with, in, and for God. Passing such tests is by no means and end, but a beginning of something of a qualitative kind that is being established in our inner being. Testing will be with us thoughout our jouney of life as followers of Jesus, the Pattern Son.
"The Temptations of Christ, A Call to Sonship and Maturity" by Art Katz _________________ KLC
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