The missionary went back to his hut in a rage. He wanted to be out among the unevangelized. God said to him, "Whose are your mind, your body, your hands and your feet?" The dedicated servant had to answer, "Lord, they are yours. I handed them to You years ago." God seemed to respond, "Then if I want to mend boots, please do not stand in the way!" He was humbled by the voice of God and came to the realization that he was only to be God's servant. Do we realize this in our lives so that we can be used for His glory as instru ments of His divine working and manifestation? The ultimate purpose of God's indwelling our lives is to make manifest through us to others the knowledge of Christ. Christ is right ly called "the Life." Paul says that He is our life. Galatians 2:20 shows that the real consuming thrust of his life was not he himself, but the Saviour working through him. While the Apostle is alive and func tioning he is in an entirely differ ent awareness. It is always God's purpose to be fully redemptive. Our existence is completely centered in His perfect will. Jesus spoke of God working through Him. He drew aside the vail to reveal to His disciples what the true operation was. It was the Father who lived in Him. It was not simply God who influenced Him nor told Him what to say. He showed us that the life we are liv ing should be wholly for others. When God comes into any hu man situation, He comes in to be the Redeemer in its completeness. To be a Redeemer, one has to give himself for others. To save others, we must lose ourselves. Christ de clared, "He that loseth his life shall
paid for the lesson. He had to turn himself over completely to the One who would work His works. God always engineers the situa tions that bring us to a final shatter ing of the self illusion. We cannot do it. All we can do is to choose, and then turn ourselves over to the One who works. After all, "we are His workmanship." Do you remember when Peter was out in his boat fishing and the Lord told him to catch a draught? The disciple was defensive, for af ter all, he was a master fisherman. Finally we hear him say, "Never theless, at Your will I will let down the nets." He did and found aston ishing and absolutely overwhelm ing results. It was not so much the haul of fish that surprised him, but the fact that he had failed to see the purpose of God in taking the place of self in our lives. This is the thing we do not find easy to give up. We still want to make all of the decisions. The Lord has to show us, and sometimes it is by painful process. He is the only One who can handle His work. We go along with Him to be the means of His manifesting of His power. I remember one of our greatest leaders in the Congo who was a young man from the slums of one of our big cities in England. He had no particular academic quali ties or social graces, but God called on him. He arrived at the mission station and there was a crisis in his life as he was handed a pair of boots with the instructions, "Please make a good job of these. There is a good many of them that need your attention. Since you are very clever with your hands, see what you can do with them. Imagine coming all that way just to take care of shoes?
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