I Am to Become Successor

Tuesday, May 07, 2013              2 Corinthians 3: 16-18 (The Message)

I Am to Become Successor

When we simply accept the fact that we are accepted, we experience grace. This experience of grace transforms everything. Believing you are a beloved child of God opens your life to receive unconditional blessings from God. In this new way of living in the Spirit, we refuse to make resolutions and vows; for that is to trust in the flesh. We expect to be blessed. We don’t hope to be better (hence acceptable) because our right standing with God is in Christ only. We learn that to be disappointed with our self, is to have believed in our self. We learn that to be discouraged is unbelief, as to God's purpose and plan of blessing for us. More and more we learn that the lack of Divine blessing in our lives comes from unbelief, and not from failure of devotion. If devotion came first, then blessing, we would reverse God's order and practice performance based acceptance, law, not grace. The law made blessings for the child of God depend on devotion. God’s grace confers undeserved, unconditional blessing. (Principals of Spiritual Growth by Miles Stanford)

Our acceptance of God’s acceptance of us is the path to our new identity as “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17 NRSV). What does it mean that we are “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ”?  Henri Nouwen, in his book, The Return of The Prodigal Son, answers this question by helping us correctly understand Jesus’ parable of The Prodigal Son (Luke 15).

"If the only meaning of the story were that people sin but God forgives, I could easily begin to think of my sins as a fine occasion for God to show me forgiveness. There would be no challenge in such an interpretation. I would resign myself to my weaknesses and keep hoping that eventually God would close his eyes to them and let me come home, whatever I did. Such romanticism is not the message of the Gospels. What I am called to make true is that whether I am the younger or elder son, I am the son of my compassionate Father. I am an heir. . . . as son and heir I am to become successor. I am destined to step into my Father's place and offer to others the same compassion that he has offered me. The return to the Father is ultimately the challenge to become the Father. . . . Being in the Father's house requires that I make the Father's life my own and become transformed in his image."

It is God’s work to form Christ within me. It is my work to accept my acceptance and to become a successor, to step into my Father's place and offer to others the same compassion that he has offered me. This is seeking the life in Christ as my way of life.

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  In addition to this BLOG they are distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com. The Kindle version will follow soon.

·        The second edition First Think – Then Pray has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.