Spring 1992

Qualification for His Purposes
Wade E Taylor

"For we are his workmanship created unto good works
which God hath before ordained that we should walk
in them" Eph 2:10.

Our Lord knew us long before we knew Him. Knowing we would be saved, He quietly guarded our lives and maneuvered us into the area of what He calls "good works." Then He waited until He was free (our being saved)to begin the processings which would make us the "product" He desires to produce; a son in the Image of His Son.

The Lord uses the circumstances in our lives as a tool to produce within us this "image" of His Son. Thus, the life situation we find ourselves in is not an accident, rather is an "arrangement" made by the Lord to use as a means of changing us.

"For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be
conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the
firstborn among many brethren" Rom 8: 29.

I have said to the Lord, "If only I did not need to relate to the people who are within my pattern of life, if only I could be somewhere else, doing something different; then I could be spiritual." Most of us feel this way.

The Lord placed Adam and Eve in an environment that was desirable in every way. All things were created for their comfort and well being, and worked for their benefit in perfect harmony. The Lord came daily in the cool of the evening and manifestly walked with them.

Only one simple thing was required of them. They were told to not partake of one particular tree. However, Adam and Eve, in a perfect environment with only one thing to obey, utterly failed.

We may feel that if our situation in life could be different, or made a little easier, we would be very spiritual. We spend much of our prayer time explaining this to the Lord. However, the Lord has an answer to this. He will tell us that this has already been tried and it did not work.

The Scripture tells us that "We must through much tribulation enter into the Kingdom of God" Acts 14:22b. Life was never easy for Jesus. "Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered" Heb 5:8. Scripture records the fact that there were those who had "trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world wa snot worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth" Heb 11:36-38.

From these, the Lord has gained an army of overcomers, those who have risen above their circumstances. These developed into a spiritual maturity and quality that the Lord could not have gained in any other way.

On the property at Pinecrest is 20 acres of Pine Trees that had been planted close together in rows. The forester told us that every other tree should be removed so the rest would come to full maturity. We were told that we would loose some trees, as the trees held each other up. When we cut every other tree, some did fall over. Their roots had not gone deep within the soil, as they had each other to depend upon.

"A mountain tree if it would see
The far horizons and the stars,
May never know a sheltered place
Nor grow symmetrical in grace.
such trees must battle doggedly
the blasts, and bear the scars."

This mountain tree is a lone tree and will never be "symmetrical in grace" like those in the safety of the valley below. Rather, it will become knurled and twisted due to its adverse environment as it clings to a place of vision that few will ever see. It is important for us to come into a personal relationship with the Lord wherein our dependence is upon Him, rather than others.

There was a pattern in ancient Israel that went something like this. "Israel, being blessed by the Lord became prosperous. In their prosperity, they became fat and forgot God. He sent persecution, and being persecuted they repented and cried out to the Lord. He heard them and send a deliver. In their freedom, they became prosperous and forgot God. This repeats again and again, as it is typical of human nature.

It is in times of difficulty and chastening that we meet the Lord. In times of peace and prosperity when all is going well for us, we tend to forget the Lord, or we casually seek to keep Him around, just in case we have a need.

The Lord has a way to deal with this. We are the "product" that He is working upon. He knows how to make "arrangements" wherein He gets our full attention. It is important for us to recognize that the Lord's using the adverse circumstances of our lives to change us will accomplish within us much more than any blessing that He might pour upon us.

The ultimate purpose of the Lord is to prepare a people who truly know Him, and are fully available to Him for His purposes. The perfect environment of the Garden of Eden did not accomplish this. Rather, out of the pressures of life, an army of "overcomers" are forming who are being made capable of responding to His every command and desire. Through the pressures of life, the Lord is gaining something He could get in no other way. Once we understand this, we will be able to rightly interpret the difficulties we face in our lives and maintain a correct attitude towards them.

The intention of the Lord is far higher than simply populating Heaven. Many make Heaven to be the goal of the Christian. Heaven is indeed a wonderful place and we will be there, but it is not to be the goal of our salvation. In many ways, our concept of Heaven is a projection of the frustrations we face in life. We project these into a desirable arrangement, and this becomes our Heaven.

In the days of slavery, slaves sang "I've got shoes, I've got shoes, and I'm gonna walk all over God's heaven." They were restricted, and heaven represented to them a freedom from this restriction.

We were created with a free will to choose our pathway in life. The danger is in the fact that the Lord has made it easier for us to go the wrong way than the right way. There is a reason for this. The Lord placed two representative trees in the garden; The tree of life, and in the midst of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

A description of the "Tree of Life" is given in Isaiah 53. It can b said that Jesus is the tree of life. By changing the word "He" to "it," we have a description of how the tree of life looked to Adam and Eve. There was nothing in its appearance that would attract them.

"For it shall grow up before him as a tender plant,
and as a root out of a dry ground: it hath no form
nor comeliness; and when we shall see it, there is
no beauty that we should desire it" Adjusted from Isaiah 53:2.

The description of the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil" is quite different. The appearance of this tree was attractive.

"And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food,
and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be
desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof,
and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her;
and he did eat" Genesis 3:6.

The "Tree of Life" appeared as a root out of a dry ground having no visible fruit. But the "Tree of Knowledge" was seen as being very desirable and good for food. Why did the Lord make an arrangement like this when it would seem that the opposite would have been right?

The Scripture admonishes us, "Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it" Matt7:13-14. Notice that the obvious, easy way is not the right way. There is a high cost to coming into the highest that the Lord has for us.

Our Heavenly Father has predestinated us to be made conformable to the image of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the first born among many brethren (overcomers). Jesus grew in Wisdom and in Stature. He was tested in every point as we, yet without sin. He became the first overcomer. Now, He can say to us, "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in My Throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in His Throne" Rev 3:21.

"Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the MEASURE of the stature of the fullness of Christ" Eph 4:13. This "measure" tells us that we, His body, born-again as "babes in Christ," must grow until we, the body, become proportionate to the Adult Head that Jesus became.

Jesus fully obeyed His Father. On the Cross, He perfectly fulfilled His Fathers will and then said, "It is finished." Thus Jesus, as the head of a corporate body, is a fully developed adult head. But we begin our spiritual journey as a "born again" baby. Peter tells us, "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby" I Peter 2:2. We become a one year old, and on through the stages of growth into spiritual maturity until the "body" we have become can visibly relate to the head in the right proportion. "For the earnest expectation of the creature WAITETH for the manifestation of the sons of God" Rom 8:19. The Father will only manifest a rightly proportioned corporate Body.

Thus, the "end" will come when the Body has grown into a level of spiritual maturity where it can be joined to the Head and manifested. Only the Father knows when this corporate level of growth has been reached. It is not a pre-determined date, but the result of the development of the Body to the "measure" of the head, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus said, "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in My Throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in His Throne." Not every Christian is an overcomer. Not every Christian grows to spiritual maturity. Only the Bride who has fully prepared Herself will sit with Him in His Throne.

Thus, there is "a people within a people," those who have given themselves to the full processing of the Father as His workmanship that they might be brought up into full maturity, "To the measure of the stature of Christ."

To become a partaker with Him in His millennial reign is conditional. "And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father" Rev 2:26-27.

"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus
unto good works, which God hath before ordained that
we should walk in them" Eph 2:10

As we become "His workmanship" and allow the Lord to bring forth the "product" He desires, we will be made ready to become a part of all that He is about to do in the earth.