“Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” Philippians 1:6. God is a finisher. He is a Master Craftsman who always finishes the work He starts, and never leaves a job unfinished. The creation record in the first chapters of Genesis demonstrate this: Genesis 2:1-2, “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made.” God’s attention to detail is demonstrated in creation bearing the stamp of His handy work in every design and order.
So it is in our lives as He works with us, “bringing many sons to glory,” fine-tuning His handy work. Romans 8:22-23, “…the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” The Spirit of God within us is groaning and travailing to bring forth the manifestation of the Son of God in practical demonstration in our every day life.
1 Corinthians 10:31 declares, “Whether you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do ALL to the glory of God.” This is the whole fulfilment of God’s plan for me. It is simple and uncomplicated. God has called us to a revolutionary lifestyle in these End Times. Our quest is to glorify God with an ordinary life, not twist things to become bondages. So many complicate this simple command quoted above, 1Cor.10:31, tied to a desperate bondage of seeking God’s will, fearful of making wrong decisions to a fault. The life of God’s Son within us is a life of liberty – not to please ourselves but to live it to Him. Doing “all to the glory of God” is a lifestyle that should increase in us as we walk in it until it becomes a way of life. God is our Father, He loves us and will check us by His Holy Spirit if we make a wrong decision. That is the purpose of His peace within our being. When our peace is disturbed, the Lord wants our attention to consider what we are doing. As we respond to His promptings, instead of ploughing through His “red lights,” we become more sensitive to Him and hear Him more clearly.
Wisdom often takes the form of practical advice which creates a change for the better.
When I am disgruntled and murmuring at life’s circumstances, this pattern becomes my identity and I stop moving forward with God. God lovingly corrects and challenges me. My murmurings or fears can become my identity, which has no place alongside the Son of God “groaning” within me to manifest. The fullness of God requires all of me. Why hang on to my identity? – the right to myself complaining or fearful, to forfeit the manifestation of the life of the Son of God in me, and through me.
The record in Genesis of the life of Abraham is a great encouragement as we can identify with his human faults and failings as he endeavoured to fulfil the will of God with Hagar, producing Ishmael. Abraham, like us, had to learn that the will of God fulfils itself in the fullness of time. God’s timing is immaculate and does not need our “helping hand,” which only results in Ishmaels. Hopefully, we learn from our mistakes and realise there is a higher place to operate from – hearing God’s voice and trusting and resting in the word He has spoken to us.
Abraham moved on in his relationship with God and was called “the friend of God.” He was learning more of the character of God and trusting in his relationship with Him, rather than fretting over fulfilling God’s will. He had come to a place of rest in the knowledge of God’s character, insomuch that when God asked him to sacrifice Isaac, he obeyed, knowing that God had to fulfil His word that “..in Isaac shall your seed be blessed.” If Isaac was sacrificed, God would have to raise him up to fulfil His word – but -as we know, God stayed Abraham’s hand from slaughter. Abraham had passed the test, God had first place in his life.
Abraham became God’s friend. Friends do not hide things from each other, they share intimate secrets. “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him,” Psalm 25:14. In John 15, Jesus said to His disciples, ” I no longer call you servants, but friends.” God wants me to be His friend and reveal the secrets of His treasures to me. If I do not receive them then I cannot share them with others, which is His purpose for the extension of His kingdom. God imparts His wisdom to us in the fear of the Lord, which is a healthy, reverent fear in who He is, giving us confidence in the fact that He has His hand upon our lives and will not let go.
So often in the purposes of God, He comes into our circumstances and persuades us, deals with us as only He can, not necessarily agreeing with us, but then He brings about, through it all, what He has purposed from the beginning!
He lovingly directs and guides, helps us “to get over ourselves” in recognising our prejudices. In the light of His presence, all that once mattered in the identity of my opinions, becomes trivial and worthless. As I give Him free rein to rule my unruly heart, all else pales into insignificance as I receive another measure of the quickening life of His Son, Jesus Christ, and rest in the knowledge and presence of His wonderful love. The Master Potter is finishing the vessel He loveth so much!
