What is God's Intention For Your Christian Life?

  What is God’s intention for your Christian life?  I heard a message this week that put it all together in one enlightening sentence.  All week long I’ve been thinking about that message which was a Wednesday night sharing on Living Stream Ministry’s website (If you click on the link Webcast Subscription Service, you can register.).  The speaker started off by asking three thought provoking questions:

What is the governing vision of the Bible?

 Has that governing vision been worked into you?         Are you directed by that vision?

Then he went on to give the best definition of this vision:   "The governing vision of the Bible is that God wants to work Himself in the Trinity into His chosen and redeemed people to saturate their entire being for the producing of the Body of Christ consummating in the New Jerusalem.” He said it’s a huge job for God to work Himself into millions of believers.  Think about it—we're not inanimate objects; we're living beings with a will!

 So in order to accomplish this he said the Triune God had a council for each one of us what sequence of events would be necessary to work Christ into us. Step back from your life and take a good look at it from this perspective. I was very touched by this particular statement: “God has a detailed arrangement for your whole life.”

Anyway on Friday I was reading on my break Chapter 36 of the Life-Study of Colossians, and after the opening paragraph on page 303 was the subtitle—God’s Intention.  I’m thinking to myself, wait a minute I just heard a message on Monday on this subject. 

“…we need to see that according to the full revelation in the Bible God’s intention is to work Himself into His chosen people. This intention is the focal point of the divine revelation in the Scriptures.  In order for God to work Himself into us, He must be triune….This indicates that the Father cannot be separated from the Son, nor the Son from the Father.

….Through the process of death and resurrection, the Son became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45), the Holy Spirit who gives life.…As the all-inclusive Spirit, the Triune God is working Himself into our being. The deepest part of our being is the spirit, which is surrounded by the soul and the body. Christ as the processed, all-inclusive life-giving Spirit is in our spirit, seeking to spread Himself into all the parts of our  soul and eventually to saturate our bodies to make us absolutely the same as He is.  When this takes place, our whole being will be permeated with Himself (Lee, Witness.  Life-Study of Colossians. Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1979, Print).

 I'm going to close this post with the prayer at the end of this chapter:  "We need to pray, 'Lord Jesus, I want to be taken over, occupied, and possessed by You  I want to give You my full capacity and all the room in my being.  Lord, I don't want to be limited or frustrated in my experience of You.'" (Page 311).

You can listen to excerpts from the Life-Study of Colossians given in 1979 on The Life-Study of the Bible with Witness Lee. 

Other Posts on the Life-Study of Colossians:

What is God's Will in Colossians 1:9?
What is the Stewardship of God in Colossians 1:25?
What is the Hope of Glory in Colossians 1:27?
What is the Mystery of God in Colossians 2:2? (Part 1)
What is the Mystery of Christ in Ephesians 5:32?   (Part 2)
What is the Greatest Mystery?
What is God's Intention for Your Life?
From the Life-Study of Colossians - What Happens When We Pray?
How Does God Get the One New Man in Colossians 3:10?
What Does Colossians 2:7 Say About Spiritual Growth? (Part 1)
What is the Goal of Spiritual Growth in Colossians 2:19?  (Part 2)
What is Christ Doing at the Right Hand of God in Colossians 3:2?