Templates of Grace and Truth

Templates of Grace and Truth And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. John 1 v 14 Christ Jesus became flesh and lived among humankind. He still lives not among us but within us. Since He is full of grace and truth, we too will be filled with grace and truth as we grow in spiritual maturity. We behold His glory or His greatness towards us in the course of each day. It is impossible to live in Christ and not have a revelation or a manifestation of His goodness and grace in practical and real ways in our lives. Our natural and vain human nature is to seek our own glory or pride. But, when we understand the Word and believe in it, we begin to seek the glory of God in all of our thoughts, words and actions. When we understand with our minds and believe with our hearts the Word of God, the glory of God is revealed to us. The word “ heart” has in it the hidden truth-hear+t(ransformation). We hear the Word and are transformed gradually and degree by degree into the very glory or greatness of God. The process of transformation is that when we hear or read the Word,the light of Christ or truth enters our darkened minds and hardened hearts. Our minds become enlightened and our hearts softened. The seed of the Word is now planted. Just as a caterpillar feeds ravenously on the greens,leaf by leaf, we need to feed ravenously on the Word, little by little, verse by verse. Then one fine day it lies still and pulls the membrane of the chrysalis over its body, drops its countless tiny limbs and develops glorious wings and then emerges to fly. Christ is the chrysalis in which we remain still and drop our countless tiny desires in exchange for the hope of eternal life. It is Christ in us that gives us hope of glory during our earthly sojourn and in eternity. Prayer and the Word constitute the two wings that enable us to fly. The good we do, the great things we attempt and achieve provide the amazing colours of the wings. The mind continues to intake the Word and feed the heart to grow more and more. Just as Christ dwells in us, we must dwell in the Word of God. The word “dwell” implies that we need to inhabit the Word and the Word needs to inhabit or reside, or cover or fill our lives. His Word must instruct us at every turn. The truths in His Word must convict us of what we should pursue passionately and what we need to avoid like the plague. The Word provides templates for our thoughts, speech, conduct.. The templates provide us a means to avoid temptation or the tendency to fall out of grace or sync with the will of God. The templates also provides us patterns or models to follow or emulate or obey. We need to frequently check and compare our thoughts, words and deeds against these templates. The more we intake the Word and live within its templates, the more we will experience the grace, truth and glory of God. Prateep V Philip