Wednesday, September 28, 2011

I Am Who God Says I Am


I Am … Who and What God Says I Am! – The Divine Reckoning of the Renewed Mind, Part 22

Posted April 10, 2010 by sandres2k8
Categories: Identification

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I Am … Predestined

For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the First-Born among many brothers. Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them He also called: and whom He called, them He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified (Romans 8:29-30).

Having predestinated us to the adoption of children to Himself by Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will … In Whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinatedaccording to the purpose of Him Who works all things after the counsel of His Own will (Ephesians 1:5, 11).

I am predestined. This is who and what Father says that I am.

I am predestined “to be conformed to the image of His Son.” This is my destiny – predetermined. My destination has been pre-set, pre-fixed: I will be like Him.

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him (I John 3:2).

Just Who is the Lord Jesus Christ, into Whose image I will be made? He Himself is the “image of God.”

Christ, Who is the image of God (II Corinthians 4:4).

Who is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15).

Jesus Christ – God’s Son – is “the image of God.” I – a son of God – will be conformed to His image.

… As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly (I Corinthians 15:49).

Who will change our lowly body, that it may be fashioned like to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself (Philippians 3:21).

Paul Billheimer has written wonderfully about this truth.

Created originally in the image of God, redeemed humanity has been elevated by means of a divinely conceived genetic process … to the highest rank of all created beings … This union goes beyond a mere formal, functional or idealistic harmony or rapport. It is an organic unity … We become … actual generated sons of God (I John 3:2), “partakers of the divine nature” (II Peter 1:4) … generated by His Own life …

God purposed to have a family circle of His very Own, not only created but also generated by His Own life, incorporating His Own seed, “sperma,” “genes” or heredity. Long ago, even before He made the world, God chose us to be His very Own, through what Christ would do for us (Ephesians 1:4; also 5:25-27, 32). In order to obtain this personal, organic family relationship, God conceived the infinitely vast and infinitely wise plan of creation plus redemption … in order to bring “many sons into glory”(Hebrews 2:10) …

Christ is the Prototype after which all other sons are being fashioned … God’s purpose in the plan of redemption – to produce … an entirely new and unique species, exact replicas of His Son with whom He will share His glory and His dominion, and who will constitute a royal progeny and form the governing and administrative staff of His eternal kingdom.

While we recognize the infinite distinction between the “Son” and the “many sons” born into the family, yet such is their heredity … that He recognizes them as bona fide blood-brothers …

Christ is the divine Prototype after which this new species is being made. They are to be exact copies of Him, true genotypes … As sons of God, begotten by Him, incorporating into their fundamental being and nature the very genes of God, they rank above all other created beings and are elevated to the most sublime height possible. (Destined for the Throne, First Edition, 1975, pp. 33-37)

This is my predetermined destiny. I am who and what Father says I am.

I am predestined.

Clyde L. Pilkington, Jr.
Bible Student’s Notebook
© 2010

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