10.1 The Visibility of Grace

From the Covenant – And I will be God inside of them and they will be a people inside of Me. From Romans 5:2 – We have been brought through faith into this grace in which we stand.

Redemption has three parts. The first two parts of redemption bring us through our first acknowledgment of Jesus into knowing that we live already in all the Salvation of God. This Salvation in which we already live we call Grace. Grace is that living intrarelationship between God and each one of us and God and us as one body together, a life shared together. Inside of this living Grace, we turn around. We are no longer “seeking” Salvation, rather, we are now the Salvation of God through us into our world.

Our Mortal Flesh. Inside this living Grace, we share every particle and moment of life, every next step forward, with God our Father, His Life now part of ours and our life now part of His. Nonetheless a singular problem remains, best expressed by Paul in 2 Corinthians 4. – That the life of Jesus also might be made visible in our mortal flesh. – The physical part of our bodies still die, and the goal remains that the life of Jesus be made visible in these dying bodies.

Peter called the second part of our redemption as “the salvation of our souls,” that is, our story of self become only the speaking of Christ Jesus, faithful and True. Then, Paul called the final part of redemption to be the redemption of our bodies, that moment when Grace becomes visible to all.

Three Gospel Words. That moment and experience when the life we share with God, inside this living and energeoing Grace, becomes outwardly visible to all created things is called by three different terms in the Gospel.

The first term is Victory, that is, Victory over death. The second term is Glory. Glory, in this case, means God’s deepest value and greatest achievement on display. The third term is the most important, however, and that is Resurrection, specifically Resurrection Life, or Resurrection out from death. You see, Victory “over death” deals with what is contrary, but Resurrection out from death is something entirely different; it is the greatest form of LIFE one could ever imagine.

Grace Made Visible. We will consider the profound meaning of Resurrection “out from death” in the next lesson. In this lesson, we want to continue with Resurrection as Grace and Glory made visible. Finally, in the third lesson of this chapter, we will consider the far-reaching meanings of Victory over all that is death.

Resurrection is first Grace made visible. That is, this wondrous relationship between God and each one of us, this sharing of life together, God inside of you and you inside of God as integral parts of each other, becomes fully known outwardly, even in a tangible manner, by everyone walking by. Our focus here is not on what everyone else sees, however, but on the meaning of this Grace we share with God becoming visible and tangible, you and me as the embodiment of Grace.

Walking in Grace. God’s Glorious Salvation, however, means something incredible. It means that you and I walk every moment right now, in the full confidence of Resurrection Life already ours in all ways, even before our bodies are swallowed up by Life. – The LIFE of Jesus made VISIBLE in our mortal flesh. Through faith, we put Jesus upon ourselves, including His immortality and His incorruptibility, in all bold confidence (1 Corinthians 15:53).

To walk in grace is to walk in the expectation of God, inside of His favor. Favor does not mean that everything goes “our way.” It means that we place everything, even the most difficult things that don’t go “our way,” into the acknowledged favor of God with us, together making all things good.

Synergeoing with God. It is the very quality and action of synergeoing with God making all things good, taking that which may have been meant for evil and turning its outcome into goodness and blessing, that is the primary task given to humans. Nothing created can be good in itself. No next moment can be good in itself. As we walk inside of Grace, inside all the goodness and favor of God, so we impart that same Grace and goodness to those things that cannot know God any other way.

Giving thanks inside of and for the sake of all things, speaking good grace, is costly, it is life laid down and love poured out, it is how every circumstance, moment, and interaction comes into the knowledge of God inside of Joy.

Our Greatest Surrender. Giving thanks for the way God made us, for the limitations in which we are wrapped, our inabilities with our abilities, is the only thing that fills our human weakness with God’s strength. As is said, “It’s not the curse that counts, it’s what you do with the curse.” When we give thanks and speak good grace even inside of those things we know God wants to change, we are bringing God Himself, through the strong action of our faith, into the midst of all that we are, sharing all with us.

I am convinced of this, that the moment just prior to our bodies being swallowed up into the Visible expression of All-Grace, will be the greatest moment of surrender to our Father, the greatest moment of deep thankfulness for all our limitation, that we have ever known. It is Grace.

The Father’s Glory. Let’s consider now the Glory of the Father made visible as the Resurrection Life we now bear. Grace made visible and Glory made visible are the same thing, actually, but there is a difference of meaning. More than that, we will consider the Glory of Jesus in the next lesson. Here we speak of the Glory of God the Father. Glory by definition is two things, it is first the deepest value God holds in His Heart and second the outward display of the Father’s greatest achievement.

We have already considered the deepest value in Father’s Heart, that is, Reciprocal Love, you and me loving one another with pure hearts fervently. God’s greatest achievement, then, is the Church as His dwelling place.

God’s Greatest Work. The resurrected Church, brethren dwelling together in unity, is the Glory of God, the open display of the Father’s greatest work, His most brilliant achievement inside of creation. The resurrected Church, believers in Jesus walking together daily in commitment and in liberty, their physical bodies swallowed up by LIFE, is the dwelling place of God, His Temple, the visible form of God the Father to all created things in heaven and earth forever, God among us.

Our question again is – how does the Grace inside of which we live together as believers in Jesus become the very Glory of God made visible? – In that same way, we walk with one another now as if we are the Church already resurrected, already the Glory of God made visible.

Call It To Be So. To walk in Grace together, acknowledging God as all Love among us, is to envelop all the difficulties of being humans together, “trying to get along,” with God Himself. When you frustrate me, when I say something insensitive and hurtful to you, yes, we say freely, “I was wrong, please forgive me.” But walking in Grace goes way beyond that.

As we acknowledge together that, in spite of any ongoing human foolishness, our every interaction IS – IS – IS God among us, the Father as Love, our togetherness as one body inside of Grace, so God Himself shares our life together. God with us is always True, always now. We together call it to be so even when we don’t see anything. We call it to be so against all human judgment and emotion.

Faithful and True. God, the One continuously giving life to the dead and calling into existence things not existing (Romans 4:17). There is no greater work God has done than to bring forth Christians on this earth and in this age, loving one another with pure hearts fervently.

The moment of Resurrection, Glory become visible, is the greatest togetherness, arm in arm, shoulder to shoulder, leaving no one out. “Here we are, God our Father, all whom you have given to us. We enter into You only after our brother and our sister.” It is this anxious care for one another, putting each other first, even in the Resurrection moment, that is the greatest proof to all creation of God at Home, Jesus faithful and True.

Those Whom God Sends. Let me identify for you now those whom God sends in this completion of the age of His patience. They are those who have dedicated their lives, wholly and without reservation, to the Father’s Glory, to that which God values most and to His greatest achievement. They consider neither sect nor deed nor country. Their labors encompass one qualification only – those with hearts who love, or even will love Jesus, and who long to know Him.

They give their lives to the Father through all travail within and without, through the loss of all things, that God might win for Himself a Glorious Church, the gathering together unto Jesus, God in the midst of His people, that every little one who belongs to Jesus might enter into all the life of Christ.