If we are going to be trained in how to fight in this battle, we must first clearly understand that the battle is all about Love. Our Savior and King was a specialist and He wants nothing less than to train us in the Art of War… Loving others back to Life and wielding His power and authority against our enemies, those that work on behalf of the kingdom of darkness. Attempting to thwart that for which we were made as Image Bearers, to steal, kill and destroy our intimacy and connectedness with God and each other.
Remember the story from the Garden of Eden? Adam and Eve were tricked, lied to, told that God was holding out on them, and they could create a better part for themselves (…be like God). Sin entered the story and we fell. Sin-full, Adam and Eve were no longer innocent or naïve but tainted. Strategically, they were escorted outside the garden lest they eat of the Tree of Life and stay. Now marred and scarred from the wounding assault, Life is diminished to life. They were haunted by the hope that one day they would get it all back. What is broken will be healed, the old made new, what was lost will be returned. That is the movement and rhythm of our Larger Story: Restoration…making it all sinless again.
Restoration comes through increments and installments. First, the Father shows us what living as His son looks like in Jesus. Then the Father rescues us through the Son, making the greatest exchange ever made, one Son’s life for many…Jesus’ life for ours. Bookended between the first and last verses of Romans 8 are the details of this amazing transaction.
For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. Romans 8:3-4 (NIV)
For those whom He foreknew [of whom He was aware and loved beforehand], He also destined from the beginning [foreordaining them] to be molded into the image of His Son [and share inwardly His likeness], that He might become the firstborn among many brethren. And those whom He thus foreordained, He also called; and those whom He called, He also justified (acquitted, made righteous, putting them into right standing with Himself). And those whom He justified, He also glorified [raising them to a heavenly dignity and condition or state of being]. Romans 8:29-30 (AMP)
Look at The Message translation of Romans 8:29-30…
God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.
Are you kidding me? Now that is GOOD NEWS! He became like us so we could become like Him! Jesus, near the end of his life and just before the cross, gave instructions to his closest friends, the disciples:
Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can't bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can't bear fruit unless you are joined with me. I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you're joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can't produce a thing. John 15:4-5 (MSG)
