November 2, 2021
Why Is It Called the Mystery…and Why is It Important?
Recently we had a large gathering of Christian believers from near and far who came to Atlanta to hear God’s Word in what we call an Advance. The theme of the Advance was called ‘The Great Mystery’.
For years I have heard teachings on the topic of the Mystery, but it wasn’t until recently, nearly 47 years later that it started to dawn on me how important the Mystery really is. In Colossians 1:26,27: “Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
The mystery was hid from ages and generations. The prophets of old did not know what the mystery was and that is very significant to our lives today. Why?
1 Corinthians 2:7,8: “But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”
Jesus Christ was God’s plan for defeating the Adversary and for our redemption. The principle key for anybody to be born again of God’s spirit is to believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. To have a resurrection, you have to be dead. If the Devil had known that God was going to raise Jesus Christ from the dead after 3 days and nights in the grave, he wouldn’t have crucified Him. Now anybody who makes Jesus Christ Lord in his life and believes that God raised Him from the dead receives eternal life spirit that cannot be marred or lost. What a great truth!
The Devil absolutely does not want millions of people moving about with God’s spirit in them. The Mystery opens up all these great truths. The prophets of old saw the sufferings of Christ and the glory that would eventually follow, but they didn’t know what was in between the sandwich. God hid it because He didn’t want the Devil interfering.
Here we are with “…Christ in us, the hope of glory”. The next thing for us to do is to find out all that is involved with the Christ in us. We have the 9 manifestations of the spirit that are available to us and our new birth realities, which include our sonship rights. Realities are in a way responsibilities. Our primary responsibility is to God: to love Him with all we have and then to love ourselves and then our brothers and sisters in Christ. We also need to develop an understanding and expectation of the hope of Christ’s return.
The more we build a love of Christ’s return the greater will be the release of stress in our lives, which means the more peaceful we will be . 2 Timothy 1:7 ‘For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” That’s what God gives and when we build His Word in our lives and look at the return of His Son, the stress thins out and we will be much more at peace.
There’s a song called “The Family of God”. The first line of the song is , “I’m so glad I’m a part of the family of God…” We should be glad we’re in the Family of God. It’s one group of people, who when they are living the love of God, won’t let you down. The Family of God needs to go on to the next generation as well. It’s certainly doing that in this area and in other areas as well. The younger people need to use their energy to keep things moving. That’s a godly responsibility.
Ephesians 6:1 “Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.” Assuming your parents are wonderful believers, children are to follow the example set down regarding working God’s word in their lives. We don’t want the Mystery to die out like it did in the 1st Century.
All of this and more was covered in less than 2 days at our Advance. How wonderful it was to be with almost 200 people who love the things of God, are speaking in tongues and looking forward to Christ’s return. There is a section toward the end of Acts 2 that for me summarizes the weekend and all that it held.
Acts 2:41-47 “Then they that gladly received his word were baptized;
And the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and in fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believed were together, and had all thing common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart. Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.”
That’s sounds pretty good to me. I’m glad I was a part of it.
Thanks for reading. Respectfully submitted. Will Grove