Hope Hangs Upon Seeing

The Need Of The Hour

That brings us, then, to the need of the hour, the need which, of course, is the need of every hour, of every day, of every age. But we are made more and more aware in our time of this need, and in a sense, we can say there never was a time when there was a greater need for people who could say and can say, I see! That is the need just now. Great and terrible is that need, and not until that need is met will there be any hope. Hope hangs upon this, that there would arise people in this world, this dark world of confusion and chaos and tragedy and contradiction, people who are able to say, I see! If there should arise a man to-day who had position, to exercise influence and be taken account of, and such a man who saw, what new hope would arise with him, what a new prospect! That is the need. Whether that need will be met in a public, national, international way or not, I do not know, but that need must be met in a spiritual way by people on this earth who are in that position, who really can say, I see!

You see, Christianity has so largely become a tradition. The truth has been resolved into truths and put into a Blue-Book, the Blue-Book of Evangelical Doctrine, a set and fenced up thing. These are the evangelical doctrines, they set the bounds of evangelical Christianity in preaching and in teaching. Yes, they are presented in many and various forms. They are served up with interesting and attractive anecdotes and illustrations, and with studied originality and uniqueness, so that the old truths will not be too obvious, but will stand some chance of getting over because of the clothes in which they are dressed up; and a very great deal depends upon the ability and the personality of the preacher or the teacher. People say, I like his style, I like his manner, I like his way of saying things! - and much depends upon that: but when all those trappings have been stripped off, the stories, the anecdotes, the illustrations, and the personality and the ability of the preacher or teacher: when that has all gone, you have simply got again the same old things, and some of us come along and outdo the last man in the way of presenting them in order to gain for them some acceptance, some impression. I do not think that is unkind criticism, for that is what it amounts to; and no one will think that I am asking for a change or dismissal of the old truths.

But what I am trying to get at is this: it is not new truths, it is not the changing of the truth, but it is that there shall be those who, in presenting the truth, can be recognised by those who listen as men who have seen: and that makes all the difference. Not men who have read and studied and prepared, but men who have seen, about whom there is that which we find in this man in John 9 - the element of wonder. "Whether he is a sinner, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see". And you know whether a person has seen or not, you know where it has come from and how it has come: and that is the need: that something, that indefinable something, which works out in wonder, and you have to say, That man has seen something, that woman has seen something! It is that seeing factor which makes all the difference.

Rich

Debunking the Spooky

I really liked this from T.A. Sparks, trying to live as a believer apart from recognizing that what Jesus prayed for in John 17, “Father I pray that they will be one as we are one, you in me, me in you, us in them, has been fulfilled when you were received of the Father~”He that is joined to the Lord, is one spirit.”
Whatever way you prefer to put it, supernaturally natural, or naturally supernatural, we are living out in this world Christ in us as us, and we are definitely not trying to imitate Jesus.

Rich


From: The Risen Lord and the Things Which Cannot be Shaken - Chapter 6

The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:2).
We speak about natural laws. What are natural laws? Take the law of nourishment. Provided that law is complied with, honoured; and at the right time the body is given what it needs, not more, not less, the law of nourishment deals with that and quite spontaneously works out in development, growth, to express itself in various ways. It is the working of a natural law spontaneously. You do not sit down with the law, and watch it, and worry about it. What you do is to feed yourself, and leave all the rest to the law. If you violate the law you know all about it, but acting rightly in relation to the law you will not be fretting all day long about the law of nourishment, you will simply be taking your meals and getting on with your work. The result is that you are able to work, able to go on; you are nourished.

The law of the Spirit of Life in Christ is like that. It is a law of Life, and it works out in a practical way when respected and honoured. It works out spontaneously in certain directions. It has its own results quite naturally. The law of the Spirit of Life in Christ is that law by which we become aware. That is the simplest way of putting things. The Lord Jesus knew that at a certain time He could not act, could not speak; He had no movement of the Spirit in quickening, no Life so to do at that time; in His spirit there was no movement of Life; the law was not active in the positive way. But when the Father, Who knew what was required in speech or action, saw that the time had come, He did not bend down and speak with an audible voice into His ear, and say, Now is the time! Say this! Do that! He simply quickened Him inwardly. The law of Life became active in that direction, and He knew by an inward quickening what the mind of God was. That is what Paul means when he says, "The mind of the Spirit is Life."

I wanted to include the following as an after thought that fits so well with what Sparks has said in the above. It's from the book, Christ-Esteem (Where the Search For Self-Esteem Ends).

"It is very important for our understanding and experience of the Christian life that we recognize that all Christian benefits, gifts, and fruit are found in the person of Jesus Christ who dwells within us. They belong to Jesus, not to us. As a result of various movements and emphases within the church, Christian consciousness often becomes directed at various spiritual pursuits. Some Christians go after inner, mystical experiences. Others attempt to discover their spiritual gifts or want to learn how to speak in tongues or to heal people. Many Christians today are pursuing prosperity or success as a characteristic by-product of being a Christian. Sanctification is desired as a reflection of individual personal holiness and morality. This separation of the content of the Christian life and the experience from the person of Jesus Christ is no small matter! It will inevitably lead into numerous distortions such as humanism, mysticism, occultism, or legalism."

"Our focus is not to be directed at spiritual gifts and blessings but at the person of Jesus Christ. If we desire the forgiveness of sins and a righteousness that is acceptable to God, God gives us Jesus. If we seek peace, joy, and love, God gives us Jesus. If we desire comfort in the midst of sorrow, hope when things look hopeless, assurance when plagued by doubt, and contentment through the changing scenes of life, God gives us Jesus.
All spiritual gifts are simply manifestations of the new life of Christ dwelling with us, manifested spontaneously as we walk in the Spirit by directing our consciousness unto Jesus.
The theme of the letter of Paul to the Colossians is the centrality of Jesus Christ. The substance of the Christian faith, according to the apostle Paul, is found in the person and work of Christ. He warns the Colossians against seeking spiritual substance outside of Christ.

"See to it that no one carries you off as spoil or makes you yourselves captive by his so-called philosophy and intellectualism and vain deceit (idle fancies and plain nonsense), following human tradition (men's ideas of the material rather than the spiritual world), just crude notions following the rudimentary and elemental teachings of the universe and disregarding [the teachings of] Christ (the Messiah).
Therefore let no one sit in judgment on you in matters of food and drink, or with regard to a feast day or a New Moon or a Sabbath.
Let no one defraud you by acting as an umpire and declaring you unworthy and disqualifying you for the prize, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, taking his stand on visions [he claims] he has seen, vainly puffed up by his sensuous notions and inflated by his unspiritual thoughts and fleshly conceit."

I Don't Mean to Disturb You

I think that our lives being changed, transformed is but the spill over of getting to know the Father of our spirit. Thing is, it is so comfortable to settle for these changes as they can become that which charms us away from the source of it all, does that make sense?

A friend and I were sharing this morning how that in the midst of his very unsettledness there are those religious ones with the great and perfect theology that would berate him in that if he indeed had faith, a trust in the Lord, then this would not be his plight. I adamantly disagree, in fact I see where my friend is along with many of my siblings in Christ, being where they are at because of their deep trust in Him!

I loath what a form of godliness does to any of us in that a mind set can easily become like this, "see how He is changing me, I use to be such a pain in the ass relationally, I use to try and control everyone around me, I use to be, do this or that but no longer, oh wow, how impressive is that? Doesn't that just make you want to warm up to this Pharisee?

From where I have been planted, I am seeing that rather than things becoming, falling more and more into place, I am being increasingly unsettled, disturbed, and how I rejoice in this. Sort of reminds me of the line from the movie, All Dogs Go To Heaven, "If this is torture, then chain me to the wall."
It's a love hate thing with me in that the ONLY thing going for me as my wife loves to say, is JESUS, and it's this Jesus that continues to lovingly disturb me and this keeps unsettling me more and more.
If we supposedly have our lives looking like we've got our shit together, then with Christchuns it usually points to their great faith and sound theology. We only need Him as long as we still have a few unwanted warts and blemishes, but what happens after all of the spiritual botox injections have accomplished the miracle of making a silk purse out of a sows ear?? I guess we don't need him any more, rather we can begin to sell our brand Christchunanity to those poor peons that have somehow missed it.

I am glad to be among the base, poor, foolish, and weak ones of this world allowing His glory to be seen in the midst of life that continues to be unsettled.
I think its time to examine why LG, aka Life is Good don't you?

Rich

United with Christ or Hooked Up to An I.V.

If the man Christ Jesus is not our personal mediator between God the Father and ourselves, then because there are no vacuums, there is going to be someone else a surrogate and substitute which will leave us with but a form of godliness lacking any and all power.
The Father has covered all the bases, he has left nothing to chance, those who have ears to hear and eyes to see will not live vicariously from the regurgitated revelation others received, they will in fact thrive and flourish as a result of feeding and feasting upon the hidden manna of Christ in them, the hope of Glory!

I love when Jesus asked those (disciples) who followed him “Who do you say that I am,” the responses were varied and mixed, then Jesus asked, “Who do you say that I am,” to which Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of God.”
Jesus acknowledged that this was not a result of any human ingenuity, but the direct initiation of the Father’s doing.
It is upon this foundation alone that only He can lay the building and establishing of His church will be built.

I am witnessing so many that are trying to find a short cut of knowing Him personally, and believe me there are so many that have set themselves up as a substitute for the man Christ Jesus in the lives of those He alone has fathered.
Many have fled what has been coined as “the institutional church” but in my opinion I see many of those who were and are part of that exodus now hooked up to an IV (intravenous), having an appearance of life but perhaps are simply once again being deluded into having but an facsimile of life derived from what the ‘grace teachers’ are laying out for their nutriment.

I love the graphic illustration in the book of Acts where a certain Jew was trying to exorcise a demon from a person, the demon in that person manifested it self by saying, “Jesus I know, Paul I know but who the hell are you.”
There are NO shortcuts to know Him and as our brother Peter said, “Continue to grow in the grace and the true knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

I want to include a quote from something I read today that beautifully stretches this out even further. This was taken from A Wilderness Voice (Michael Clark & George Davis) “All Things New."

We are comfortable with our old wineskins because it gives us the feeling that we are in control. Where men are in control, God is not! He is forced to leave those old wineskins behind and find new ones to pour the new thing He is doing into. God always leaves old wineskins to their religious rigidity and chooses new ones for His new wine. Men prefer the old wine over the new because it is no longer alive and doesn't stretch their religious wineskins. As they cling to their traditions, they make what God is currently saying to them of no effect, and doom themselves to become spiritually extinct. Men call this the "Post Christian Era" for a reason. Christianity has ceased to be relevant with His relevancy. God continues to reach out to a dying world so we have a choice to make. We can either move on in the flow of His Spirit or cling to our dead and "safe" traditions and institutions.
Jesus told Nicodemus that those who are of the Spirit of God are like the wind with no man knowing from where it comes or where it is going. The wind is symbolic of the Spirit of God and it by nature refuses to be confined by the structures built by men. One dear brother put it, "The opposite of the wind is bricks!" We either move with the wind or are left behind. God will move on and we will be left standing there like that old Pharisee saying, "How can these things be?"
Paul wrote,
Therefore from now on know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet from now on know we him no more. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2 Corinthians 5:16-17 KJ2000, emphasis added)
The nature of Christ's continued working in us is to make all things new within. The wine is always stretching our wineskin. As He does, even our ideas of who He is are no longer static because we cease to know Him after the flesh. After being confronted by the living God at the end of his trial, Job cried out, "I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear: but now my eye sees you. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes" (Job 42:5-6 KJ2000). We all should abhor the religious self in us that has been limited to the hearing of men as opposed to hearing the Spirit. When Saul of Tarsus (later known as Paul) had his first encounter with the living Christ, he was knocked to the ground and blinded. The first words out of his mouth should be our continuing prayer: "Who are you Lord?" God delights to manifest Himself to those who want to see Him as He is. "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God."
Our old things pass away as the Spirit draws us deeper into His wondrous, uncontainable truth that He prepared for us from the foundations of the world. Life is no longer static and dead. Instead we are alive with a continuing fresh view of the greatness of our God and His Christ. Yes, "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him. But God has revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God" (1 Corinthians 2:9-10 KJ2000).

Rich

Self-Rule, Self-Effort

A New Way Of Living-Continued

Rich

This suffering we endure is the Father’s best for us. The Father uses all things for our good (Rom 8:28-29). The evil doings of Joseph’s brothers was ordained of God and meant for the good. “But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good...” (Gen 50:20)

Paul sat in the Roman Caesar’s prison, yet he said he was the “prisoner of the Lord” (Ephes. 4:1a). We see from this that Paul considered his suffering to be actually at the hands of the Lord. Trusting God His Father, Paul learned to be “content in whatever state” the Lord placed Him (Philip 4:11).

Our suffering is often at the hand of other people. People who are ignorant of the truth of the indwelling Christ will often persecute the Christians who desire and seek to walk with Him single mindedly. Frankly, these most often are other Christians who do not know Him intimately. The cruelest sufferings I’ve endured in this life have been at the hands of my “brothers and sisters in Christ”. Paul says we may be may denigrated, defamed, and vilified as we seek to walk with Him. “And labour, working with our own hands: being reviled (vilified), we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it: 13Being defamed, we intreat: we are made as the filth (refuse) of the world, and are the offscouring (scum) of all things unto this day.” (1 Cor. 4:12-13). You will be misunderstood if you follow Christ within you. Jesus was misunderstood by the men who reviled and killed Him because He claimed, as we do, to be one with the Father as His offspring bearing His very life.

Peter says it’s not at all strange for a Christian to suffer. It’s the smelting or purifying furnace for God’s glory to be revealed in us. “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery (smelting) trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: 13But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. 14If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified.”(1 Pet 4:12-14)

The suffering God prescribes for us, are for our good, since suffering does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. We cannot make our self trust God – so it is He that is at work in us to will and to do of His good pleasure (Phil 2:13). “But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.” (1 Peter 5:10)

Jesus came “in the name of” or authority of the literal Person of the Father. Paul, suffered for Christ’s “name’s sake,” that he might also bear the authority Christ. “But the Lord said unto him (Ananias), Go thy way: for he (Saul/Paul) is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name (my person) before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: 16For I will shew him how great things he (Paul) must suffer for my name’s sake (name = person, for the sake of the expression of Christ’s life)” (Acts 9:15-16).

“The Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” will flow out of us in the person (authority) of Christ – but first we must be broken in soul for the release the flow of His Spirit. Many want to speak with God’s authority but this only comes as we submit to or suffer His Lordship from within – then our speaking will be His speaking.

Every Believer Needs a Revelation of Christ Living Within Them

This is the 17th part of a series my friend Art is doing, I thought it would be worth reading for any that are interested.

Rich

As we have seen, we need the Holy Spirit to reveal the truth of our present state to us and this often comes through our suffering and enduring difficult life experiences that are common to all men. Our Father does not just “permit our sufferings,” as some would say, He actually oversees and orchestrates our sufferings according to our need… “for the good.” The Fathers great desire is that we ultimately find and realize Christ is really alive in us, and that He is trustworthy to be our all-sufficient life supply.

Paul viewed his life experiences and needs in this same way of trusting in God’s “provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ”; this was Paul’s expectation and hope that made him bold.

Philippians 1:19-20a (NASB) for I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, 20 according to my earnest expectation and hope, that I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness…

But how shall we trust Christ if we don’t yet have the revelation that He really lives within us. Sadly, most Christians do not “know” their true status or position in Christ; nor have they “seen” the real hope of their becoming a glorious expression by Christ’s life, now available to flow to and through their soul.

Faith is the evidence of things not seen, yet faith comes by having “seen spiritually.” This kind of seeing may be called “revelation knowledge.” It is crucial for believers to genuinely know Christ’s faithfulness. This may be demonstrated by the old story; “You’ll never dare write a check against the money in your account if you don’t know there is money in your account.” Until this truth of Christ literally indwelling us as our new life is revealed to us personally, we will continue to live beneath our means as Christians.

We do not come to this kind of “knowledge” of our own self-effort, teaching, and studying alone. True knowledge only comes by divine “revelation.” I’ve found that revelation may come to me on the heels of life experiences, good or bad. Yet, most times I have been positioned to “see” as result of a suffering where I endure a difficult if not insurmountable life situation. Such sufferings may reveal just how hopeless and helpless we are within ourselves to live in rest and peace. Our situations usually reveal the core of our failure - our lack of trust in the Father’s hand in our life. We need the Lord’s Spirit to dispense “revelation” to us. Our growth in grace and knowledge is entirely the result of His work in our lives. Again, Paul says this is the Lord’s work. “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13)

Most rebirthed Christians have not yet genuinely come to “know” Paul’s mystery gospel of “Christ in you” – this requires God-given “revelation.” Paul came to that revelation only when God determined that it would occur.

Galatians 1:15-16a But WHEN IT PLEASED GOD, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, 16 TO REVEAL HIS SON IN ME…

While our position, status, or right standing in Christ is fixed and sure, it’s only by His work in our lives, His grace, and His mercy, that the necessary revelation of our present hopeless state of living can be seen. Yet, only then can we come to “know Him” and begin to walk in accord with Him in our spirit.

With that key revelation we begin to decrease and He is elevated to be LIFE and LORD of our lives. Paul says we are not to look to Jesus of Nazareth as our example or what He said to guide us in this. 2 Corinthians 5:16b …, though we have known Christ after the flesh (as Jesus of Nazareth ), yet now henceforth KNOW WE HIM NO MORE. Rather, we must see “Jesus Christ according to the REVELATION OF THE MYSTERY”; this then establishes us.

Romans 16:25 “Now to him that is of power to STABLISH YOU (makes you resolute) according to my gospel, and the preaching of JESUS CHRIST, ACCORDING TO THE REVELATION OF THE MYSTERY, which was kept secret since the world began

The “mystery” (secret) of Christ, which needs to be revealed to us, is the former secret of “Christ in you.” This is Christ ever-present in us as our new life.

Having this “revelation” is critical. Thus, Paul prayed accordingly for the Ephesians.

Ephesians 1:16-18 (AMP) I do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers. 17 [For I always pray to] the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, THAT HE MAY GRANT YOU A SPIRIT OF WISDOM AND REVELATION [of insight into mysteries and secrets] IN THE [DEEP AND INTIMATE] KNOWLEDGE OF HIM, 18 By having the eyes of your heart flooded with light, so THAT YOU CAN KNOW AND UNDERSTAND the hope to which He has called you, and how rich is HIS glorious inheritance IN the SAINTS (His set-apart ones),

What then is the “inheritance” that is “in the saints”? It is “Christ in you” ( Col 1:27).

Paul knew every believer needs a “revelation” of Christ; not revelation of “Jesus of Nazareth or that Christ simply exists. No, rather, believers need a revelation of Christ from a specific perspective that Paul described as “Christ according to the REVELATION OF THE MYSTERY” (Rom 16:25). That mystery is “the mystery, which is… Christ in you” ( Col 1:27b). Only by such revelation may a believer begin to trust Him as their life. This revelation is crucial to Christian living.

Paul no doubt prayed for revelation for the Ephesians because he realized that God alone controls and dispenses “revelation.” God had managed exactly when Paul would receive the revelation of Christ indwelling him (Gal 1:15-16). I recall questioning a learned teacher of the mystery gospel of “Christ in you.” He has taught this for many, many years. I asked him; “Of all the Christians who routinely attend your teaching, how many do you suppose have had a revelation of Christ in them?” His answer was 10%. That admission reflects the fact that no man can dispense revelation to another. No man can decide to dispense revelation to another. We can share what has been revealed to us, but it requires the Lord’s Spirit to reveal it to another child of God.

My prayer is that through this series you may have the revelation of “Christ in you” as your “ALL.”

Crusades And Causes

I simply loved reading what Os Chambers had to say in the quote below, such wonderful succinct and to the heart revelation this is!
It is so appealing joining a cause or crusade to try and get this world of nasty liars cleaned up, without revelation of His heart and how He has treated us, we will in our own polite way become hate mongers.
When is the Son going to rise and awaken in our thinking, that apart from revelation, it will be either a blatant or subtle form of trying to legislate some form of ‘Christianized morality’ on people.
Whether it’s trying to get men to be manlier, or to see the injustices within our governments to get their act together, or whatever, if it isn’t you and me simply loving every person He loves and has forgiven, then ‘IT’ sadly becomes a cheap substitute.

This in particular spoke to me, “The disposition of sin is not immorality and wrong-doing, but the disposition of self-realization - I am my own god. This disposition may work out in decorous morality or in indecorous immorality, but it has the one basis, my claim to my right to myself.”

Which one of us was NOT ruled by that disposition of “self-realization-I am my own god”?
It talks about us having been by nature ‘children of wrath, sons of disobedience’ and how was that altered in us, by someone laying their own brand of morality on us, or was it simply choosing to respond to his relentless invitation to accept His full to overflowing heart of love for us?
Then how do we think anyone else is going to begin to want to respond, choose life over death unless they see something much more than cleaned up versions of morality much like freshly fallen snow covering up a pile of shit?
If a person isn’t at a heart level transformed, then simply getting whatever results we think are needed and necessary from them, is only going to put a pretty face on the Devil.

Rich

The Bible does not say that God punished the human race for one man's sin; but that the disposition of sin, viz., my claim to my right to myself, entered into the human race by one man, and that another Man took on Him the sin of the human race and put it away (Heb. 9:26) - an infinitely profounder revelation. The disposition of sin is not immorality and wrong-doing, but the disposition of self-realization - I am my own god. This disposition may work out in decorous morality or in indecorous immorality, but it has the one basis, my claim to my right to myself. When Our Lord faced men with all the forces of evil in them, and men who were clean living and moral and up right, He did not pay any attention to the moral degradation of the one or to the moral attainment of the other; He looked at something we do not see, viz., the disposition.
Sin is a thing I am born with and I cannot touch it; God touches sin in Redemption. In the Cross of Jesus Christ God redeemed the whole human race from the possibility of damnation through the heredity of sin. God nowhere holds a man responsible for having the heredity of sin. The condemnation is not that I am born with a heredity of sin, but if when I realize Jesus Christ came to deliver me from it, I refuse to let Him do so, from that moment I begin to get the seal of damnation. "And this is the judgment" (the critical moment), "that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light."

God’s Work Now Is “In Us”

This is part 2 of God's Work Now Is,"In Us"
Please read part 1 first on this same blog.

Rich

Paul says we need to let Jesus’ attitude or mindset become our mindset. Philippians 2:5 (NIV) Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: What was Jesus’ mindset? Jesus attitude was that He trusted and relied upon the Father unto death. Though He is God, Jesus did not exert His self to act independent of the Father (John 5:19).
Well-meaning self-effort of Christians applied according to “the mind of the flesh” is absolutely impotent; making them unable to live out the Christian life. Thus our corrupted soul’s mind needs to be renewed. Romans 12:2b (KJV) …be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind…
But how is our mind and mindset to be changed? Genuine change in our soul’s mindset comes about only through the work of the Father’s hand, working through “all” of the situations and circumstances of our lives, which are “working…for the good.”
Romans 8:28-29 And we know that ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER FOR GOOD to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. 29 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.
Only the Lord can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. God is working by using “ALL things” that occur in our lives.

Today, under “the dispensation of the grace of God” (Eph 3:2), God’s relationship with His own is as a literal loving Father of His Spirit-birthed children. His work is deep within, deeper than our mind. He, as Father, placed His Spirit “seed…which is Jesus Christ” (Gal 3:16, 1Peter 1:23) into the womb of each believer’s human spirit, birthing them to new life.
We can rely upon our loving Father because He is also omniscient (all-knowing) and sovereign. He is over all things in the lives of His beloved offspring. He works “all things” according to His will, grace, and mercy. He is at work in the believer’s life working “all things…for the (eternal) good” (Rom 8:28) of each one of His children, who are “predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son” (Rom 8:29). Only the Father loves, cares, and knows what is best and necessary for each of His children, for them to come to maturity. It is only by the continued work of His hand that the believer may be “conformed to the image of His Son.” While we are involved in the “working out of our salvation” (Philip 2:12), Paul tells us how that inward “salvation” (sozo) or “completion” occurs. It occurs by the work of God within us.

“[Not in your own strength] for it is God who is all the while effectually at work IN YOU [energizing and creating IN YOU the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight.” (Philippians 2:13 AMP)
Salvation of our soul is not salvation from judgment; that was finished at the cross. It is a salvation from our old fallen self. Thus, God’s concern today is not so much for the believer’s outer deliverance from trials; rather, He is at work through the instrumentality of our trials in order to bring about an inward metamorphosis in our soul. Each trial is instrumental in our learning to let go of self-reliance, to trust Him and His loving hand in our lives.

Each trial is an opportunity for the mortification of our flesh (Rom 8:13) and its mindset of self-reliance. He is at work through each trial, that we might become “conformed to the image of His Son” as the “first born of many brethren” (Rom 9:29b). Paul writes, Galatians 4:19 …I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you. This word “formed” is from the Greek word “morphoo,” meaning “shaped.” The Lord is at work forming Christ in our soul, such that we would become the expression of His life that flows from within our spirit.

Every believer needs to become reformed in their soul’s mind, emotion and will, so as to become pliable to the Lord – making them fit for His use. Though our soul is not of physical material, it needs to be reshaped in its mindset, such that Christ may become expressed in and through our soul’s faculties of mind, emotion and will. Metaphorically, the formation of a shape out of pliable clay is more easily accomplished than with stone because clay may be shaped more readily than rigid stone. The renewal or reformation of a Christian’s soul is a somewhat painful process, whether we are as clay or as stone in the Lord’s hands. For those of us who are as stone in the Lord’s hand, we require chipping that occurs by the many difficult situation in life that the Lord uses to push us to let go of our self-interest and our self-reliance, to trust Him as our all.

The work of renewing our soul to its proper mindset belongs to God our Father. No clay or stone has ever reformed itself – likewise, our reshaping requires the intervention of God’s caring hand in our lives. We must be made to be as pliable to the Lord within us as a rubber glove is to the living hand. Thus, God’s first work in the renewal process is to make us pliable, often by our coming to face seemingly insurmountable situations of life. Only by His work may our soul-self become reformed to His image. Paul calls this reformation being “renewed” in soul, which is also referred to as our “inner” or “inward man.” 2 Corinthians 4:16 … the inward (soul) man is renewed day by day.