◄ The Full Measure of Christ ►

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. Even before He made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in His eyes. (Ephesians 1:3,4 NLT)

That which has been chosen before the foundation of the world and which has been foreordained unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, has been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies. That is the fullness of God thought for His own, as a full, comprehensive, utter thought. We have not yet come into all those blessings, not because God has not given them, but because we have not grown up into them. We have not grown up into Him in all things. That is the point of our word, the urge to come to God thought, the measure of Christ.

What is God thought? The full measure of Christ, the fullness of the stature of Christ. That is God thought for us. Let us lay hold of God thoughts; let us by faith appropriate those thoughts, let us believe in God thoughts, let us seek to get into line with those thoughts, and take the Holy Spirit and His energies to form us, and constitute us, that God thoughts may become living expressions in us. That is His purpose: to bring us to the full measure of Christ. All that we need to do is to state that as a definite fact, but, mark you, it represents a tremendous responsibility. We cannot talk, and hear about things like that without coming under tremendous responsibility. If this is the revelation of God from heaven in Christ through His Word and to our hearts by the Holy Spirit, then it involves us in very great responsibility. Is it necessary to speak about responsibility? Ought not God thought for us really draw out our hearts in unspeakable gratitude and worship? Ought we not to recognize these other words here associated with the calling: ccording to the good pleasure of His will,the Lord delight? You remember what Joshua and Caleb said when they reported on the land: f the Lord delight in us He will bring us in.That is only what we have here. Christ is the Land of God fullness, and it is according to the good pleasure of His will that we should come into that fullness.