February 04

Christ’s ministry to us today is three-fold:-

• As High Priest, He sprinkles us with the Blood for our cleansing and sanctification and intercedes with the Father on our behalf.
• As the husbandman, He has gone to prepare a place for us in the house of His Father where there are many rooms.
• As the only-begotten Son of the Most High God, He is preparing His brethren for eternal life through guiding us into holiness here and now. There is no half-way house between heaven and earth where this work can take place. The time of preparation is now, the place of preparation is here.

This is the time of preparation; if we were ready for heaven at the time of our conversion God would have taken us instantly. But we were not; a period of preparation for the heavenly kingdom is essential and we should not seek to short circuit Christ’s discipleship and God’s plans for our growth into spiritual maturity.

The quality most needed in every generation of Christians is humility; the arrogance and pride of the natural man dies hard, but no-one will be ready for heaven until it is dealt with utterly. Every redeemed person needs the humility of spirit that can only be brought about by the manifest presence of God.

Only then can we breathe the air of life eternal and gain a glimpse of what it will be like to dwell forever with Him. To live in this world encompassed in this sense of the Holy presence of the God and Father of mankind is not only beautiful, it is essential to the survival of our faith, and to our sanctification.