Internal transformation, part 1
24Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, 25of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, 26the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. 27To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 28Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.
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At its very core, God does not ask you or me to live out this great Christian life.
What He is saying though is that ‘I want to give you the life of Christ on the inside, and He–Jesus–in you and through you is able to do what I know already that you can’t do.’ See.. God is not up there in heaven getting His own satisfaction in humouring Himself with our constant failures and inadequacies; it’s not like He’s trying to condemn us more and more for failing to obey Him and all that He’s commanded us. It’s not a saddist game He’s trying to play with us–He’s not asking us to do it! There’s only one guy in the whole world throughout its entire existence that has ever successfully 100% pulled off the Christian life–and He was so good at it, they named it after Him!! 
< --His name is Jesus.
And so, Christ is saying to you, and He's saying to me: I want to live in you, I want to be life within you;-! It is Christ in us that's gonna make this life of ours work...it is the only way we can ever be acceptable sons and daughters of the Father: through His son Jesus living inside of us.
What is your hope of glory? what makes you complete? Is it Christ in you, the hope of glory? Or is that which makes you whole and supremely satisfied something else?!? Coz what I see, is that we’ve had a lot of other “hopes” in this vaporous existence of ours…this world that we live in has a lot of other hopes of glory, but it’s all external hope.
The world says that for you and me to be complete we need to have something done to you. you need to have someone with you… (it’s all about relationships–that’s how you feel complete.) You gotta have the right circumstances around you to have a sense of completion in life. you gotta improve your view of you, and have something said about you. to have a position or title or degree bestowed upon you, plus have more things that are owned by you, and to wear the right thing on you –that’s how you can feel more fulfilled. you only feel complete when great things that are accomplished through you.
These are all external things. They are all external modifications that the world says this is how you make your life complete.
But God’s shown me so much in recent days and weeks, that you and I have bigger problems than can be satisfied by all these external modifications. we don’t need any of these modifications to our external self. each of them in and of itself, and even all of them combined cannot merely encapsulate what is required to be fully sufficient as a person, to be rescued and saved from our spiritual death.
The Lord’s telling us, we need an internal transformation. You and I cannot find peace and serenity, joy or happiness, except in Christ…I need to be transformed on the inside, daily, not just one time. You have to be sanctifed by the daily cleansing of His Holy Spirit. And yeah, God with us is great–”Emmanuel” is His name–but that is still not good enough God knew before the foundation of the world…fellowship with our Heavenly Father cannot even cut it, I’m sure you’ve experienced this. “I know God’s with me, and He’s gonna get me through this.” But you didn’t get through it, you failed, you messed up again, allthewhile God was with you, and hence, you went back to rededicate your life to God. However, God knows it is impossible for us to be sinless, hence He gave us Christ in us, and allowed us also to be in Christ.
He is our hope of glory, He is satisfaction, our sufficiency, our completeness. He is in us, and we too are in Him.
And so, again, stop trying and start dying (to self power and self trying). Embrace surrender, trust God with our lives, put your faith in Christ who is life, and is the source of all Hope and Glory. To stop sinning, and for everything we do with our hands and our feet, with our bodies and our minds, with all our strength and soul–whatever it is we do must always testify to God’s glory and renown.
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God,
what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2, ESV)
