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God’s Altogether Other Purpose

We know that for those who love God, that is, for those who are called according to His purpose, all things are working together for good. (Romans 8:28 ISV)

Go back to the place where, for the time being, the Lord has put you, where He has called you to live your life and do your work in all the trial and difficulty and suffering of it, and do not strain to get out of it. Do not lose the present value of it by always living mentally or hopefully in a time when you will be out of it, but go back there and recognize that if you are the Lord's, if you love God and are called according to purpose (as you are if you are in Christ), God is seeking to do something with you and in you by means of the conditions of your present situation. You will only defeat God's end if you try to get out, and will fail to recognize and accept what He is seeking to do. I can think of few things more regrettable and grievous than that we should look back upon any part of our life and have to say, "I might have realized some great purpose of God in that period of my life if only I had taken another attitude toward it than the one I did take; I was chafing, impatient, all the time looking for a way of escape; I was rebellious, living in another mental world of my own creating, in which I would do and be this and that; and I missed all that God intended at that time." I say, there can be few things more grievous than that.

So we must go back to the sphere and conditions in which the Lord has placed us, with this attitude God has a thought which relates to me as one of His Own; and that thought is, that through the conditions and sufferings of my life He should develop in me the features of His Son. On the one hand, the features of the old creation may be seen to be more and more terrible and horrible, as I recognize them in myself; but over against that God is doing something which is other than myself, not me at all. He is bringing into being Another, altogether other, and that is His Son. Slowly, all too slowly; nevertheless something is happening. That sonship is not very much manifested yet, but it is going to be manifested. What God has been doing will come out into the light eventually conformity to the image of His Son; "that He might be the firstborn among many brethren." So we look out upon the people of God on the earth amongst whom we are included, and we have to adjust our ideas as to why we are here. There may be things to do, but God is far more concerned with the being than with the doing, and we have to learn all over again what service is.

Your thoughts are very deep.

We … do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. § That you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! § “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” § Many, O Lord my God, are Your wonderful works which You have done; and Your thoughts toward us cannot be recounted to You in order; if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.

Ps. 92:5;  Col. 1:9;  Eph. 3:17;  Eph. 3:18;  Eph. 3:19  ;Rom. 11:33;  Isa. 55:8,9;  Ps. 40:5

Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.

Those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same. § They sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind. § He who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption.

He who sows righteousness will have a sure reward. § He who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.

There is one who scatters, yet increases more; and there is one who withholds more than is right, but it leads to poverty. The generous soul will be made rich, and he who waters will also be watered himself. § He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

Gal. 6:7;  Job 4:8;  Hos. 8:7;  Gal. 6:8;  Prov. 11:18;  Gal. 6:8;  Gal. 6:9  Gal. 6:10;  Prov. 11:24,25;  2 Cor. 9:6

Broken Bread

Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and broke it, and gave it" (Matt. 26:26).

The Lord Jesus is not going to break' anything in our lives that does not require breaking. But that of the old which remains unbroken, which we seek to hold back from the processing of His nail-pierced hands, will continually leaven and spoil our attempts to feed others.

"How often we have murmured under trial only to see later the preparation of the Lord Jesus of our hearts that we might be His ministers of comfort in an hour of need in the life of another (2 Cor. 1:4). Afflictions, therefore, many times are the advance token of the Father that we are being prepared for a special ministry of comfort to others. This is a principle seen throughout the Word. All that would be used of the Father in the hands of the Lord Jesus to meet the needs of the hungry-hearted must first be made a blessing by Him. This involves being broken in His hands. This process is necessary because of our tendency to think more of working for the Lord Jesus than becoming a channel for the outflowing of heavenly bread to broken hearts on every side." -H.R.

"Others come to us in their deep need, and, with our hearts breaking, we are called upon to give out of our emptiness and loss what we seem to need ourselves. We are asked to claim victory' for others in distress, when it seems that we are in greater distress than they. Thus it was at Calvary! He who had loosed others from bondage was given up, as it appeared, to the full rage of the murderous enemy. He who had done the mighty works of God for others, lay in impotence and weakness in the hands of men. Yes, this is the Cross. Life, power, blessing, deliverance for others - and nothing for thyself, but to lie in the will of the Father, and accept from His hand all that He pleases to permit to come upon thee."

"Come and let us return unto the Lord; for He hath torn, and He will heal us; He hath smitten, and He will bind us up" (Hosea 6:1).

The Life Within

The Mind of Christ