Maranatha

12/16/1990

I recognize that “Family” and “Army” are not synonyms for “church” in the experience of most. Self-sacrifice, vulnerability, courage, and holiness, presented to you now in this writing as a way of life for every church of Jesus, have probably not been a huge part of your “christian” experience as you have grown up — they need to be — from here on Home. Even the “angels long to look into these things.” The demons are awestruck and trembling at the infinite Wisdom of our God.a

How could God possibly use mere humans such as you and me to publicly humiliate the principalities and rulers of wickedness in this life, and to bring about their final defeat?! The demons loathe the fact that THERE’s a MANb in Heaven! And, worse yet for these repulsive foes of God and our Faith, this Man of men is only the first of a whole new Race! Not only will our God obliterate the hateful uprising of satan and his disciples, but He will even use, as He Revealed in His
“Firstborn,” mere mortal men, washed in the Blood of the Lamb and learning to walk in His Spirit, to do it. Though He has created us “a little lower than the angels,” He will build us, in His Church (in the measure that we are willing to bear His Cross for others), into His Stature and Character and Fullness as His Habitation.c It is a concluded matter that our God will, in this way, bring about the public shellacking of the enemy!

So be it. Maranatha.

Footnotes

a Ephesians 3:10, 6:12; 1Peter 1:12-13; Colossians 2:15, 1:15-20. Back

b Acts 7:55-56; Hebrews 2:14-18, 4:14-5:8; Philippians 2:6-8; 2John 7 Back.

c Ephesians 2:22; 1Peter 2:4-12; 1John 3:1-10, 5:18-21, 2:8-14;
Romans 16:20; Matthew 16:16-18. Back