...Did you not hear the law?
Dtmy 18:13 Thou shalt be perfect with the LORD thy God.
Ok. Honor the LORD according to His due. Surely this power is in you. Surely you love the LORD enough to serve Him according to His righteousness.
If God wanted you in perpetual subjection to Him...first of all He wouldn't give you freewill to choose anything else. Nor would He teach, counsel, comfort, or care in anyway. The adoption unto Him to be called sons to God would be perposterous even blasphemous thing to suggest. Apart from Grace why should the Most Holy even so much as exert Himself in creating you (for surely this was not our due according to the law). If we had power and worth within ourselves why couldn't we do it ourselves? Should we not have loved and desired fellowship with God enough to stand on our own?
But precisely as our salvation (the works of the Son making manifest the works and heritage of the Father), the master came first in service to us because we had not the strength or righteousness to do as we ought to have done before God. God offered Himself (His abilities and wisdom and righteousness) because that was exactly what was necessary in order for any fellowship with Him to exist.
"When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Why should God have had to do it, if we could have done it ourselves. "I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain."
And likewise as creation, the works of God being perfect need not be done again, nor have anything added to nor taken from it.
...And even Christians promised to reign forever in Christ, cannot reign higher than the glory they truly expressed unto Christ throughout their lives; for "I say unto you, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little," and "He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. If therefore you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own?" For we are transformed into the very image of God through Him, whom we claim to honor as God; if we truly obeyed the gospel of grace and the commandments of love then being "joint heirs with Christ" shall be a blessing beyond all comparison and comprehension, and likewise if we have seduced and intoxicated ourselves with the notion of reigning as God yet have not obeyed and honored the Word, then we shall bear the just judgment against us saying, "Not everyone that says unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that does the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? and in your name have cast out devils? and in your name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity."
..."But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me." As we are transformed according to the abundance of His grace, so too the manifestations of the LORD, "I Am That I Am," and His works are commensurate to our faith bestowed upon Him. For "Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father do: for whatsoever things he does, these also do the Son likewise." If this is true of our example, Jesus Christ, than it is also true concerning the Church: And if this is true according to man, it is following the precedent of that which is true concerning God. We are as powerless to move before God in spiritual things without His grace bestowed upon us as God is to move physically before us apart from our faith; because God will not contradict your will, who was made after the likeness and image of God, even as His will cannot be contradicted! It is not than the weakness of God which prevents Him to intervene in our circumstances and according to our desires, but rather our lack of faith to believe that He both can and will! We have no healings, because we no longer believe in miracles; we no longer receive prophecies because we believe we already know or can find out on our own; we no longer devote ourselves to intimate fellowship with God because we trust in ourselves or our idols to perform those things which only God can truly accomplish! "According to your faith be it unto you."
Even as in judgment the LORD's testimony and translation upon us shall become our name and definition by which we are known and identified for all time, so too our testimony of Christ defines who God is and how He is permitted to maneuver within our lives. For by our will, being made in the likeness and image of God, we are granted the opportunity to honor God as we would want to be honored; for by our will, the Word is as humble in our hands as is our souls before Him. Therefore let us serve Him as we would want to be served, and glorify Him as we would want to be glorified, and allow Him through our faith the space and reign in which to maneuver and work His wonderful works in the midst of us that we may be empowered and enlightened by His Holy Spirit to take full advantage of the endless grace bestowed unto us that we may partake in the fullness of the reign we have through Christ in His body. For you cannot reign higher than you allowed God to reign and can only be glorified as you have glorified Him!
Behold the state of fallen man, though made in the likeness and image of God: look what has become of the reign and dominion which the LORD granted you in grace by your lack of faith in Him! By our actions we suggest that the LORD is forgetful, shortsighted, deceitful, foolish, weak, selfish and prideful, subject to death/age; therefore because that was our testimony (acting or speaking according to our faith) that is what we have become. Because this was the glory ascribed unto God, so too is the glory we bear after His likeness! "Be you therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and you shall not be judged: condemn not, and you shall not be condemned: forgive, and you shall be forgiven: Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that you mete withal it shall be measured to you again. And he spoke a parable unto them, Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the ditch? The disciple is not above his master: but everyone that is perfect shall be as his master."
