The truths in some chapters in the Bible are especially precious because they explain the present dealings of the Lord upon us and certain experiences we undergo. They also give us a picture of the future which shows us what God is working out in us and what He intends to work out through us.
In the Word, the Lord tells us, in effect, “Now, you are going through some dealings; let Me explain why you are going through them.”
Sometimes we feel that the Lord is dealing rather drastically with us and that it is completely unwarranted. If the Lord is doing all of this just to refine a bit of carnality out of us, it would seem to be like burning down a house to rid it of a few termites. However, God has an ultimate purpose in mind that warrants all His dealings upon us.
The Word says that He scourges every son whom He receives. Whom He loves, He chastens (Hebrews 12:6). Why does the Lord whip and beat us? So that we will become partakers of His holiness. That makes sense.
If God must put that kind of pressure upon us to enable us to leave the human realm and appropriate His holiness, if God must put us under great pressures to drive us into Him, we set our hearts to submit to it.
There has no temptation overtaken you but such as is common to man. God says He will not tempt you above what you are able to bear (1 Corinthians 10:13). This is true. He does not tempt you more than you are able to bear, because He makes a way of escape so that you may be able to bear it.
You cannot bear it in yourself; that is certain! He always gives you a problem that is beyond your wisdom to solve. He always puts you in a situation that is a little above your spiritual development to handle. The answer is there; but when you stretch for it, you cannot quite reach it.
When you are tempted above your capacities to resist, then you must reach into the Lord because you are unable to meet the temptation in yourself. This, then, is the way of escape: you appropriate a little more of the Lord. When the temptation has passed, there is a greater residue of the divine nature in you. He drives you into Himself by making it impossible for you to remain on your present level. Growth becomes a necessity; you must grow. People grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord because they are pressured into it (2 Peter 3:18).
For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren. Romans 8:29.
God has a plan and a program. The Lord is not going to stop dealing with us until we are completely conformed to the image of His Son. He is the first-born among many brethren, and we shall be like Him (1 John 3:2).
Can we believe that one day we will be just like Jesus? Just like Him? Yes, we can believe that because He became just like us. He was in all points tempted just as we are (Hebrews 4:15). That means He became just like us in order that we can become just like Him—completely conformed to the image of God’s dear Son.
God’s plan for you is a big one. That is the reason you do not go to church just to get a little inspiration. When you start walking with God, He puts you through a number of tests, and you become very discouraged. That is the idea. You must come to the limits of human encouragement and reach into the Lord.
God does not drive you into a corner to see if you will find hidden resources within you and turn and fight, as a rat would do. Rather, He puts you in a place where you no longer have what the situation requires so that you will reach in and appropriate something from Him. This is the way the divine nature comes.
We learn to grow. It works that way in the natural as well as in the spiritual. When a young man who has been sheltered is suddenly exposed to a need, and a responsibility that is absolutely essential is put upon him, something happens to him. The day before it would appear that he could never do it, but in his necessity he reaches for something and finds it, and overnight he becomes a man.
We are children of God. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow-heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him, For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. Romans 8:16–18.
The whole purpose of God must ever be in your mind. Though you may be deeply convinced that the sufferings you are going through are terrible, if you will look ahead to see what God is trying to work in your life, you will come to the conclusion that the suffering of this present time, whatever He orders for your life, is not to be compared with the glory to come.
You have no idea how beautiful the plan of God is for your life. He was not caught unawares when you accepted the Lord. When you stumbled into a walk in the Spirit and it suddenly became alive to you, did the angels have to hold a special meeting with Saint Peter to figure out what to do with you since they never expected you to serve the Lord? No, in His foreknowledge, God knew. That is what Romans 8:29 says, For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son.
When you open your heart to the Lord, someone else is taking over. You are no longer your own person. You become aware that God is working out a destiny. He has a plan, and He has a program to bring to pass that plan. He is not working it sovereignly to force you to conform. He works a willingness in you. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Philippians 2:13. When God gets hold of you, and your willingness is a little short, He has a way of making you willing. When you become very willing to do His will, then you do it. He works in you both the will and the performance of the will.
It would be difficult for present-day organized revival campaigns, even of the greatest magnitude, to equal what the prophet Jonah did when he brought an entire city to repentance.
But when God first gave Jonah the commission, he looked to the Lord, and then he turned around and went the other way just as fast as he could go. We have to assume from that little book of four chapters that Jonah did not intend to preach to Nineveh. He was not willing. But a few days later, Jonah realized that God does not compel a man to go against his will, but He makes him willing to go.
God respects your will. But He has ways of making you change your mind about a situation. Have you changed your mind about many things since you have started to serve the Lord? Do you find you are much more willing now than you used to be? Maybe you are learning the fear of the Lord.
God foreknew us, and He has planned great things for us. He works in our lives. He brings us to the place where that which was once repulsive to us in the natural becomes the delight of our lives.
Once we were enemies of the cross and would have shunned anything that destroyed our individuality, anything that conflicted with our ambition, our plans, our goals, and the selfish gratification of every instinct we have. Once we would not have tolerated the work of the cross in our lives.
The world cannot understand our allowing the willingness to be worked in us. People wonder why we would rather go to church than pursue the pleasures of the world.
They cannot understand that the longer we walk with God, the more completely delighted we are with what He is doing. He is working it in us. We do not want anything else because He has brought us to the place where we have turned away from all other interests.
We are heirs of God; the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that is to be revealed in us. If so much is already working in us, how much more there must be for us in the ultimate plan of God! We are not just a people of destiny raised up for God to use to speak a word at this time of the Kingdom. He has a plan for all eternity for us. We are not accidental members of the Body; we were brought into it by the power of God.
We tend to back away from the real commission God has for His people in this generation before we realize what we are supposed to do, the steps we are to take now toward the loosing of creation from futility and the faith we are to have. We can begin to move right away in that which is our eternal destiny. Many of us would be surprised to find that we can begin to walk in it right now.
I deplore doctrines that make me visualize a truth or an experience from afar with no opportunity to participate in it now. Ephesians 1:13, 14 tells us that the Holy Spirit was given to us for the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession. That means God gave the Spirit to us as a little sample of what is for us by-and-by.
When we have the witness of the Holy Spirit with us, we have the first installment of our inheritance. God is trying to tell us that we do not have to wait until the sweet by-and-by, but that we can take a step toward it in the well tested here-and-now.
When you go into a candy shop and choose a box of candy, the saleslady wraps it up; and before you leave, she slips one little piece of candy across the counter to you. You get more excited about that one little piece of candy than you do about the whole box (especially if you have to save that box and not open it for a few days). You nibble away at that one piece delighted with your first earnest of what is to come!
God also gives you a sample of what is to be yours. The Lord gives a word over you; for example, that you will prophesy. You have a little maiden flight in prophecy and think that now the word over you is fulfilled. But that was just a little sample. The best is yet to come.
The sons of God, who will be manifested in loosing creation from futility, have available to them steps that can be taken right now. Sometimes I imagine the Lord looking down upon each one of His sons and saying, “Have I got a plan for you!”