If you are the child of a king, you are heir of all he possesses. We as Christians are known as children of God. We are not the only begotten Son who has been with the Father forever, we are children born out of season. As God’s children, we are heirs of his glory. We belong in an intimate relationship with our Father God. As Jesus is in right relationship with God, likewise so are we. The bloodline within us is holy, for Christ who bought us with his own blood has given us his holy likeness, his perfection. Our spiritual genetics no longer match the nature of the finite Adam but line up with the nature of the eternal God. By faith in Christ, we are no longer limited to our transitory existence in our fleshly bodies, for we have a celestial hope in our beings, an understanding that we are predestined to be with God forever. Our biological shells will be shed someday at our demise, but our spiritual lives will be enclosed within God’s eternal being. We will be heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, like the Father and the Son in their glory. For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory. (Romans 8:29-30) However, this inheritance of his glory comes only to those who endure to the end in the wilderness of life. We are new creatures for sure, but we are in a land of sufferings. We will not escape the hot sun or the parched land of the living within a cursed creation. When disobedience was manifested in the Garden of Eden, the results of this waywardness fell upon all of God’s creation. Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. (Romans 8:20, NLT) As children of faith, we still live in this world: we have not received our new-creation bodies. Gravity holds us down; food, water, and lodging are important to us. We meet all the vicissitudes of life that everyone else meets. The concerns of the fleshly existence will always be with us. Sickness and aging will be a part of our everyday experience. No one will escape these physical and biological demands. The most spiritual of us, even men or women of great faith, will not be able to avoid the realities of the flesh as they grow old. Their skin will sag, their hair will turn white or fall out, their bodies will groan as their joints stiffen. Christ lived in the flesh. He knew what it was to grow weary, to be hungry, to lack sleep. He knew the journey in the wilderness is not always kind to the flesh. But rather than faint because life can be hard, He followed his Father’s will to the end, even to the cross. We who are alive IN CHRIST must also persevere to the end. We will suffer hardships, either through the natural consequences of living or the trials because of our testimony for the living God. Either way, life is not easy. As Paul told Timothy, Endure suffering along with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. (2 Timothy 2:3) The journey must be traversed with adamant faith in the living God. Faith is believing God resurrects the dead, and He has created all things for his purposes. By faith our lives are hidden in his will and not ours.
A good analogy of our lives of faith can be found in Caleb’s life depicted in the Old Testament. When the Children of Israel reached the Promised Land, their faith in God and his power wavered. Moses sent twelve men into the Promised Land for forty days to spy out the land. When they returned to the camp of the Israelites, ten of them said the land could not be taken by them. The cities in Canaan were too fortified, and the men were like giants compared to them. They were unwilling to proclaim by faith that God would take care of the Israelites by giving them the land of the Canaanites. Two of the spies, Joshua and Caleb, presented an opposite view, a report of faith. Joshua is a type of Christ, and the Lord dealt directly with him because of his faith and vision. But Caleb was just an ordinary man of faith, believing and trusting God in everything he did. In the face of opposition, Caleb said, Let’s go at once to take the land. We can certainly conquer it! (Numbers 13:30) However, he did not escape the suffering the Israelites were going to experience in the next forty years of life along with the rejection from others who resented his faith. He along with all the other Israelites were turned back to the wilderness by God. There they would all die except Joshua and Caleb. Because your men explored the land for forty days, you must wander in the wilderness for forty years—a year for each day, suffering the consequences of your sins. Then you will discover what it is like to have me for an enemy. I, the Lord, have spoken! I will certainly do these things to every member of the community who has conspired against me. They will be destroyed here in this wilderness, and here they will die! (Numbers 14:34-35, NLT) Caleb experienced the arid land and the sterile desert existence the same as everyone else. He was a man of great faith, but he had to live in the land of barrenness for forty years, eating the same meal every day, experiencing the searing heat of the sun, living without the amenities of life. We also are like Caleb, even though we possess faith, believing in God’s work through us and in us, we are still in the harsh land of sickness, sinfulness and rebellion. We experience the curse God put on all creation. In America, we go to work at six in the morning and come home at six at night, eking out a living, with little time to ponder the reason for living. Our thoughts are focused on the needs and desires of the flesh, not on our eternal welfare. Diverse pains attack our bodies, not only the pain of childbirth, but attacks of hunger, deprivation, poor choices, a toxic environment, and the like. We who are IN CHRIST are part of all the pressures of our biological existence. There is no escape from the consequences of living in the desert.
Breakfast companions, heirs of the glory of God, endure to the end. Paul told the church at Colossia that as each person grew in the knowledge of the Lord, God was giving each one strength with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. (Colossians 1:11-12) Fear not for God is with you! Caleb received a promise from the Lord for his faith that is eternal. My servant Caleb has a different attitude than the others have. He has remained loyal to me, so I will bring him into the land he explored. His descendants will possess their full share of that land. (Numbers 14:24, NLT) Caleb wandered with the Israelites for forty years, but finally the promise God made to him was realized when the second generation of the Israelites moved into the land of Promise. He suffered for those forty years, but finally he settled where God wanted him to be all along. We who trust in Christ regardless of the circumstances also have a promise. We have a land to inhabit. All creation will know someday that we are people of faith, trusting in the holiness of God to walk us through this wilderness in the clothing of the perfect one, Jesus Christ. All of us will cross Jordan someday to enter into our home. In that place of glory, we will be recognized for who we really are. We are part of the bride of Christ. We are members of the household of God, partakers of the glory of God. Paul says, I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. How true that is dear readers. We are more than what we think we are. We sometimes seem like little ants, walking around on the earth’s surface without much notoriety or impression on others. But in actuality, in God’s glory, we are gigantic galaxies, whirling and spinning, on fire with God’s holy energy, to be seen by all creation forever. Amen! LET IT BE SO, dear Lord!
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