GOD MOLDS US INTO A PALACE WORTHY OF HIS PRESENCE
__________________________________________________
Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage; but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself. – C.S. Lewis
God has amazing plans for us. He wrote out our extraordinary destinies before we were even created. When we surrender to Him… when we allow Him complete and unrestricted access to our lives, He will step in and work mightily to unfold our destinies before us.
Perhaps all we want God to do when we come to follow Him is change a few areas… maybe rearrange some priorities… possibly alter one or two behaviors. Yet our Lord does not work that way. He wants all or nothing. His love for us is so vast, so deep, so high, so wide… beyond our comprehension. We are His temple, the dwelling place of His Holy Spirit.
Of course we never wanted, and never asked, to be made into the sort of creatures He is going to make us into. But the question is not what we intended ourselves to be, but what He intended us to be when He made us. He is the inventor, we are only the machine. He is the painter, we are only the picture. How should we know what He means us to be like?… We may be content to remain what we call “ordinary people”: but He is determined to carry out a quite different plan. To shrink back from that plan is not humility; it is laziness and cowardice. To submit to it is not conceit or megalomania; it is obedience… We have not yet had the slightest notion of the tremendous thing He means to make of us. – C.S. Lewis
To all who belong to Christ, obedience to His teachings demonstrates a deep, devoted and loyal love to Him. It is an expression of a life transformed by grace. The promised Holy Spirit… the wondrous, abiding presence and fellowship of Jesus… comes to dwell within all who believe.
Anyone who loves Me will obey My teaching. My Father will love them, and We will come to them and make Our home with them. – John 14:23
Are we surprised that God changes us so radically when He comes to live within us? We see His extraordinary handiwork in our lives. He sets us apart from the world for His kingdom, His will and His purpose. His plans for us are perfect. We need to just yield to His mastery… to let Him have free rein to mold us and shape us into His new creation. Our God can work the miraculous in us, if we let Him. He will fashion us into a palace worthy of His holy presence.
† Eternal Takeaway – Let God’s perfect plan unfold by surrendering wholeheartedly to Him †
