Wednesday, October 25, 2017

In You, Not From You

Have you stopped to wonder what God might be doing with you?  It is much different, wondering what you might do for God.  They seem to be interchangeable...the one is the other but they aren't.  We fuss greatly over whether or not we have been of use, whether we have made enough of our opportunities; utilized our talents and resources well.  God owns the cattle of the thousand hills and is the architect of all we see in life; at what point does He fret over the part we play in His plans?  It is an absurdity to think that God wrings His hands at the waste of time and energy He has put into us.  If the Cross means anything, it is that God has thoroughly saved us and He did it Himself without our help.  He can raise the dead, build an army and put together a congregation at any moment He wishes.  We are not needed at all to do a single thing to make sure His work is done.  Salvation is God developed in you, stripping you of Sin and the damage it has done and recreating your life in its entirety so that you can be in union with Him.  At every point, whether you are praying or preaching or helping someone in need, that work is being carried out in you and if you join in the rebellion of Adam by rejecting Christ here or there, you simply make it a miserable process for you and those about you.   When Abraham up and left his home and made his way west and south, he did not know what would come of his trip...he just was certain God would take him where He wanted him.  This life in God is like that.  We cannot know just what Christ is doing with us and how it really is going at any given moment.  All we can do and all we are to do is simply obey the Lord at every turn.  As we do so, we can have confidence that we will arrive at the destination of God's choice and be who He wants us to be.  In the end, the work will be done whatever it was supposed to be.


Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money."  Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.  Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that."   James 4:13-15 NIV

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