Posted on 05/13/2005 9:13:11 PM PDT by Choose Ye This Day
God Names Me His Beneficiary!
Into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. (1 Peter 1:4)
I'M A RICH MAN - God Himself has named me His beneficiary!
I came to the conclusion long ago that a Christian who places a proper value upon the true riches of eternity will have little inclination to fret and worry about being remembered here in some relative's last will and testament.
Peter deals with this matter of the reality of the divine benefits, describing our future inheritance with the words "that can never perish, spoil or fade."
He indicates that those persecuted and down-trodden strangers in the early church were believers in Jesus Christ, elect and begotten. The electing and the begetting were means leading into a hope and an inheritance, but they were not the end.
We would all be better Christians and wiser students if we would remember this - God rarely uses periods. There is rarely a full stop in His dealings with us - it is more likely to be with the effect of a colon or a semi-colon. In most instances, what God does becomes a means toward something else that He is planning to do.
Therefore, when God elects a man it does not mean that the man can sit down at his ease and announce, "I have arrived," because the election is only unto a begetting. Can any man who is begotten of the Spirit and has become a Christian believer presume to say, "I have arrived! Put a period there and write finis across my experience"?
No, of course not. God begets us into His provision and that which is still before us is always bigger than that which is behind us. This is certainly true of His provision for us in the divine inheritance.
We ought to get the facts straight
Now, I think we ought to get the facts straight. Peter was not merely using a figure of speech when he insisted that the begotten one, the true Christian believer, is actually the beneficiary of God. This is not a figure. It is not just a poetic phrase and neither is it an isolated reference. It is openly taught from Genesis to Revelation that the true believer stands to benefit from an inheritance. God being who He is, His beneficence and His benefits are infinite and limitless.
I believe that God always touches with infinity everything that He does and this leads to the thought that the inheritance we receive must be equal to the God who gives it. Being God, He does not deal in things which are merely finite. Therefore, the inheritance that the child of God receives is limitless and infinite.
What a contrast to our small gifts and legacies and benefits on this earth!
I recall that my father used to drive along the way and point to some great farm area and comment: "I hope before I die that I can buy that and leave it to you." But he didn't leave very much. I signed a quit-claim to one little piece of property and hurried it back airmail special.
We do benefit from our parents, however. They give us certain physical and mental inheritances. But they cannot give us what they do not have and it is always limited on this earth. Even the world's richest man can only leave what he has - nothing more. Somewhere, the millions give out and every estate has a boundary.
But, God being who He is, the inheritance we receive from Him is limitless - it is all of the universe!
That is the reason why no hymn writer has ever been able to state the facts, all of the facts, about God's eternal provision for His children. They can only sketch it. It is rather like gathering sea shells on the shores of the vast ocean that stretches away with island upon island, continent upon continent, all belonging to God and to His people in redemption. It all comes from Him!
The infinite benefactions of God
We humans should remember that when our high flights of imagination have taken wings upward we can be sure that we have never quite reached as high as His provision, because our imagination will always falter, run out of energy and fall weakly to the ground. In contrast, there is no limit to the infinite benefactions of God Almighty to His redeemed ones.
Brethren, the Christian believer stands to receive riches for all parts of his being.
We are physical and mental and moral and spiritual - and I suppose we may say social. We are all of these.
Some Christians do not like the word social because they think it means going to church and eating out of a box, like a church social. But we are social in our being. We do have relationships - with the neighbors, in our precinct, to our state, our country and, in a larger way, to the whole world.
I have always thought that Bernard of Cluny, writing about 1140 A.D., knew what he was talking about when he said:
I know not, Oh, I know not What social joys are there; What radiancy of glory, What joy beyond compare.
He says there are social joys in heaven and I think it is perfectly true.
But man also has a spiritual life and a moral life, a mental life and a physical life. He may also have hidden facets of his life that are not thus classified for we are more than mental or physical beings. We are more than moral, although morality ought to touch all the rest of our being.
And, we are more than spiritual beings, although if we were not spiritual beings, we would not be much better than the beasts.
The point I make is this: we stand to receive infinite benefits from God in all parts of our nature. I refer, of course, to Christian believers, the promises having been made to the redeemed. The sinner, the alien from God, has no moral right even to get old, to say nothing of dying, because the older he gets the nearer he moves toward the grave and judgment and hell.
But the redeemed and believing child of God can afford to get sick and to get old. He even has a right to die - for God has made provision for a new body and for the mental life, the moral life and the spiritual life - a provision which is actually unsearchable.
The word unsearchable
I like that word unsearchable. It is a good word. I am reminded that Clarence Darrow thought he was inferring something nasty when he insisted that Christians always say "It is a mystery" when there is some aspect of Christian faith or truth that defies description.
I have never accepted it as a nasty remark. I take it in a friendly way because the Christian does run into mystery almost everywhere he looks. The difference between the believer and the worldling is that the world is always running into mystery and calling it science or some such thing, while we are frank to admit that we don't know what it is. I admit that I do not know the full implications of the word unsearchable.
We get a hint when we talk about the unsearchable riches of Christ - riches that cannot be counted or measured, riches that cannot be fully searched out. These are riches that have so many glorious ramifications and endless qualities that their value cannot be comprehended.
They are the unsearchable riches of Christ and because God is the Living God and the Christian stands in the relationship of child of God, he has the promise of the divine inheritance - the riches which cannot be fully searched out.
Now, God's benefactions are dispensed in three ways and if you will really consider these, you will be helped when you think and pray and read your Bible!
First, I believe God is busy giving us direct, present benefactions.
There are some things which God gives directly in this present age while we are still on our feet, still alive, still conscious, still in this vale of tears and laughter.
For instance, He gives forgiveness. He is pleased to bestow forgiveness upon His believing children.
He gives eternal life. This is not an inheritance to be received at some time in the future; our life in Him is a present bestowment. It is now a present gift which we have. The forgiven sinner has this life the moment he believes.
God also gives us sonship: "Dear friends, now are we children of God" (1 John 3:2a). In this relationship there are many other gifts we receive from God - and if we do not possess them it is because we are not God's children by faith.
Countless other gifts
Perhaps I should also speak of countless other gifts. We ask God to help us, and the Lord mercifully does it. I consider these the little and the trifling things, yet we make a great deal of them. But they are really the passing things compared to the great present benefactions of forgiveness, reinstatement in favor with God, sonship and eternal life.
Then, God has a second way of dispensing His blessings and that is by giving them as a reward for loving and faithful service in His name. The Bible portrays this truth - that some of the riches of God may come in the nature of a reward.
We are aware that all things belong to God, all riches and all blessings, and even though we talk about earning a reward, that is not really a proper expression. There isn't any sense in which we humans can earn God's benefactions.
Actually, as loving and faithful children of God, we are meeting a condition whereby God can bestow blessing as a reward for meeting that condition. That's about all there is to it.
He has said, "Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things" (Matthew 25:21a). He has spoken of his rewards with the admonition: "Be faithful even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life" (Revelation 2:10b). These are things that God will bestow as the result of faithful and loyal service and they are future rewards, not yet to be received.
The third manner of God's bestowment is by way of inheritance. The blessings and riches of our divine inheritance are also to be realized in the future. These are not riches that will come to us for anything that is worthy or superior in ourselves, but because of our relationship in faith to the One who is the fount of every blessing.
He delights to honor
In this inheritance the riches come from One who possesses and owns all to another whom He delights to honor and who can establish his rightful claim. This is a principle that we know well in our probate courts - this is why we have recorded wills and bequests. These must all go through the probate court process and those who are named in the wills must establish their identification and rights to the inheritance through relationship.
Now, I repeat - an inheritance has not actually been earned. A boy may be very much of an ingrate and still prove his right to an inheritance because his father delighted to honor him and, because he was his son, made him his sole heir. The will is written and witnessed and on record so when the father dies it is only a matter of going before the proper authorities and proving identity and relationship as the rightful son. It is the right resulting from a relationship - not necessarily the right of goodness. So, there is an inheritance that belongs to the children of God by virtue of the fact that they are truly children of God.
But here I want you to note how many earthly things are upside down in contrast to that of the heavenly.
Among men, a legacy is received at the time of the death of the one who gives the legacy, the testator. But in the things of God, the legacy comes upon the death of the legatee, that is, the person who inherits.
That all sounds confused enough without my confusing it more, but I will try to put it in the form of another illustration.
Suppose a man has a son, an only son. He executes his will making his son the sole heir and giving him everything in the estate. But as long as the father lives that will does not become operative for the son as heir.
But, one day the father is stricken and dies.
After the proper period of mourning, the son goes before the probate authorities and proves that he is the one who is to receive the inheritance. He comes into possession of the inherited estate because his father had died and the will has become operative on behalf of the son.
In the kingdom of God, it is exactly opposite - just the other way around!
The Father promises and provides an inheritance to His children, but this inheritance is not to be validated by the death of God, but actually upon the death of the child of God or at the coming of Christ, which adds up to the same thing in terms of the inheritance.
Paul knew about the inheritance and he expected it. He wrote about the fact that believers are co-heirs with Christ. He declares that we will realize this in its full implications when we see Christ face to face in a future time. I have said that only a Christian has the right and can afford to die. But if we believers were as spiritual as we ought to be, we might be looking forward to death with a great deal more pleasure and anticipation than we do!
Anticipate the second advent
I say that if we are truly believers in the second advent of the Savior, we will be anticipating that second advent. Common sense and the perspective of history, the testimony of the saints, reason and the Bible all agree with one voice that He may come before you die.
Nevertheless, "it is appointed unto man once to die" (Hebrews 9:27, KJV) - and the Christian knows that he may die before the Lord comes. If he dies, he is better off, for Paul said, "I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far" (Philippians 1:23b).
The difference between a believer living on this earth or being promoted into the presence of Christ is the difference between "good" and "better," according to Paul.
Now, in conclusion, the Christian's future is still before him. I will give you time to smile at that, because it sounds like a self-evident bromide if ever one was uttered. But I assure that it is not a self-evident banality; it is rather a proof that we ought to ponder soberly the fact that many Christians already have their future behind them. Their glory is behind them. The only future they have is their past. They are always lingering around the cold ashes of yesterday's burned-out campfire. Their testimonies indicate it, their outlook and their uplook reveal it and their downcast look betrays it! I always get an uneasy feeling when I find myself with people who have nothing to discuss but the glories of the days that are past.
Yes, the Christian's future is before him. The whole direction of the Christian's look should be forward.
Always looking forward
Paul was an example for us in this regard for in his soul and spirit he was always looking forward. In his writing we find that he looked back only very briefly and I take it as we read that it is perfectly proper to occasionally steal a quick, happy backward look to see where we have been and to remind ourselves of the grace and goodness of God to us and to our fellow believers.
There is a small word from the Latin - spect - which has different forms and it means to see or to look. In our English, that little word has two prefixes which can be used. They are retro, meaning backward, and pro, meaning forward.
Do you know that the richness of your Christian life, your usefulness and your fruitfulness, depend upon which prefix you attach to that word? You are bound to be looking somewhere! Even if you are blind, you are looking somewhere for your soul has to dwell either on the past or on the future. Your soul is facing in some direction as a Christian and the Bible advises us to look steadfastly unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith.
We are either retrospective or prospective in our outlook and our whole future depends in great measure upon which way we look. In that, I mean our future here on earth and perhaps even our future in the world to come.
We ought not emphasize the "retrospective." Let us speak of the past only when we have to. Paul wrote, "Forgetting what is behind I press on!" (Philippians 3:1314a). There were only a few times when he had to do it, but he stood and pointed back and told of his conversion - and that's legitimate!
But it is my advice that we ought not to get locked into that position of looking back. Why should you get a sore neck from looking back over your own shoulder?
Personally, I have found that God will take care of that fellow behind me, even if I can feel him breathing on my neck.
Prospect is the word for you and me. Look forward! Look ahead! Live with faith and expectation because the Christian's future is more glorious than his past!
One moment of the Christian's tomorrow will be more wonderful than all the glories of his yesterdays. Methuselah lived 969 years on earth and yet if he died and went to be with God, and I think he did, one single hour in the presence of God was more wonderful to him than any part of his 969 years on this earth!
So, Christians, let us look forward! Look forward with expectation and hope because we are begotten again unto an inheritance and that inheritance comes from God our Father and is ours by virtue of our relationship to Him in faith.
Yes, we do have the benefits of present gifts and there are things which will be considered rewards; but the inheritance is ours because we are children of God!
That means that we have every reason to cheer up, believing and hoping, and looking forward to that day of God. For the most eloquent tongue or the most exquisite poetry can never adequately paint for us the glories that we will possess eternally by inheritance, by virtue of our sonship to God and our gracious relationship to Christ, our Savior!
Interesting read ping. I apologize for any inconvenience.
Thank you so much for the ping!
D*mn straight!! With that mindset Amen and AMEN!
Thanks for the ping. He, like Chambers, has a way of beginning the day with a soothing nudge that can turn into a loud remonstrance if you don't follow through.
Tozer ping.
Another old thread resurrected.
Enjoy
Thanks for posting this thread, even though it was ten years ago.
Tozer is timeless and this really speaks to where I am today in my life.
Great reminders.
Great title!
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