With Christ

He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad.

Matthew 12:30

When Christ speaks of being ‘with’ Him, what does He mean?  If we want to understand this, we have to take into consideration other statements which He made which were plain and unmistakable in their meaning.  One of Christ’s plainest statements was, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me.’  According to Christ, if we are to come to God, we must come through Him.  Another plain statement was, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’  He followed that statement with, ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.’  These texts, and others like them, are definitive and not hard to understand.  If we take them in the ordinary manner in which we understand language, they lead us to the inevitable conclusion that acceptance with God the Father proceeds upon the basis of a relationship with Christ which involves faith in Him and results in a spiritual transformation.  This excludes any self-righteousness, the peculiar error of the people to whom Christ was talking when He uttered the words of our text.  The immediate question this raises for each of us is, ‘Am I with Christ?’  This is the most pressing issue to resolve today. 

Our Wise and Holy God,
we rejoice that You have made so much
of Your revelation clear.
We praise You, that throughout the Scriptures,
there is an evermore increasing sight of Christ.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning