But, as I found out more than 48 years ago, that’s not the case. When God put together the plan of Redemption, He didn’t design it to be just eternal fire insurance. That’s not the sum total of what Jesus shed His blood to accomplish.
No. God had much more in mind. He sent Jesus to pay the price for sin so that He could be our Father and we could be His children. He did it so He could have a family! A family He could fellowship with on His own level, now and throughout all eternity. A family called the Church. A family filled with sons and daughters who are born in His image and grow up to be like Jesus!
“Well Gloria, that sounds great, for sure,” someone might say. “But no one can really be like Jesus.”
God says we can. He told us so very clearly in Ephesians 4:11-13: “He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.”
Look again at that last verse. It makes it clear that we don’t get born again so that we can live forever as spiritual babies, or as just old sinners barely saved by grace. We’re destined to become perfect, which means “mature, or full-grown Christians”; to become “in every way more and more like Christ” (verse 15, "New Living Translation").
According to Ephesians 5:25-27, this is God’s endgame, so to speak, for the entire Church: “Christ…loved…and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.”
Notice that doesn’t say Jesus is going to present to Himself a Church that’s just been saved from hell. It doesn’t say He’s coming back for a Church that’s just looking forward to going to heaven. It says He’s coming for a glorious Church—a Church that’s full of the manifested glory of God.
Do you know what happens when the glory of God manifests? Sickness and disease leave people’s bodies. Crippled people jump out of wheelchairs. Demons that have been oppressing people have to flee. Miracles, signs and wonders take place that make it possible for people to actually see God’s power and glory with their eyes.
It’s Time for Right-Now Believers
I know what you may be thinking: If God wants to manifest His glory that way through the Church, why isn’t it happening more?
Because what we believe for is what happens among us!
When we believe for healing, healings take place. When we believe for people to be filled with the Holy Spirit, they get filled. When we believe to see the same kind of miracles in our midst that Jesus saw during His ministry, they start to happen.
Jesus told us Himself in John 14:12-13 that’s the way it would be. He said: “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”
BVOV : 29
