The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"Purposes Far Greater "
God both comforts and chastens His trusting sons and daughters in the Lord Jesus Christ for purposes far greater than we often consider.
"Thy comforts delight my soul" (Psalm 94:19).
"Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O LORD" (Psalm 94:12).
We all require both tenderness and toughness from a Heavenly Father devoted to the glory of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and committed to our truest well being. His administrations of comfort and chastening flow according to His perfect wisdom and "the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Ephesians 3:11). This sometime conflicts with our human understanding and sensibilities, chiefly because our Heavenly Father's working involves matters of profoundly greater significance than merely our personal concerns. As the Lord Jesus prayed, and His Father responded, "Father, glorify Thy Name. There came a voice from Heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again" (John 12:28).
Certainly, this does not mean we do not matter to our Lord far more than we can imagine as individuals.
"The very hairs of your head are all numbered" (Matthew 10:30).
We rightly rejoice in how much we each mean to our Heavenly Father. However, such personal devotion notwithstanding, God's "eternal purpose" in Christ means that we are all part of something far bigger than ourselves, and of far greater consequence than our personal comfort. It is to every individual creature's benefit that God works to redeem His larger creation, whatever such administration of grace and truth may require of each one of us. By and by, all who served as willing servants of such purpose will know that our Lord worked perfectly in our lives, whether in comfort or chastening, to redeem all things for the glory of the Lord Jesus. "And when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all" (I Corinthians 15:28).
A soldier, summoned to to to war, was asked if he feared the possibility of losing his life. He responded, "It is necessary that I go. It is not necessary that I live." As "good soldiers of Jesus Christ," every believer must acknowledge the greatest necessity of our lives and being, namely, our role in the fulfillment of God's ultimate purposes (II Timothy 2:3). This will require both pleasure and pain, comfort and chastening, blessedness and buffeting. Our Father will administer and orchestrate all for the glory of the Lord Jesus, the benefit of others in our lives, and our personal well being. We all matter in personal terms to Him, to the degree of numbered hairs. However, the best way our Father can bless us personally is to work in our lives for the fulfillment of that which is far greater than ourselves. Sometimes this will involve comfort, and sometimes, chastening. Always, it will involve the perfect wisdom, perfect way, and perfect working of a perfect - and eternal - purpose.
"For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be glory forever. Amen."
(Romans 11:36)
Weekly Memory Verse
Oh how great is Thy goodness, which Thou hast laid up for them that fear Thee; which Thou hast wrought for them that trust in Thee before the sons of men!
(Psalm 31:19)
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