Text: “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6, NASB).
Truth: Through our life as a believer, God will continue his good work in us.
Commentary: Being confident is a process that begins earlier as a conviction and continues to be held as true. This earlier conviction that Paul is now confident about concerns the good work that God begins in us. What he starts he will continue to work at, perfecting it until the day the Lord comes for us. I believe before we were ever born, God had a perfect design for each believer in Christ. During our lifetime he will work out that design so that we will fit perfectly into the body of believers he is forming.
Numerous times I have thought about this good work that God does in our life and I have come to the conclusion that it parallels the physical birth of a child. In love making there is foreplay that results in stimulation preceding the act of intercourse, which under the right conditions results in conception. The child conceived continues to grow in the womb until a particular time when it is born out into the world.
For the spiritual birth, the foreplay is that time during which the Holy Spirit brings a person to that point of seeing his or her need of salvation. God uses various means to develop the awareness and conviction of one’s need of the redemptive work of Christ in their life and at the right time and under the right conditions the imperishable seed of God (1 Peter 1:23) results in a new creature in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17) being conceived within our heart. At this point life comes into our spirit and light fills our soul and the process of spiritual growth begins. As with the child growing in its mother’s womb, the spiritual child continues to grow until the physical death of the body results in the spiritual person being born into the vast realm of eternity we call heaven. At physical death we come forth, clothed with a new resurrected body, completing our salvation.
This entire process of spiritual foreplay, conception, growth, and birth are under the careful guidance of God and will result in a perfect spiritual person that will fit exactly into the body of Christ. The person that God the Father chooses, he will create the foreplay needed to bring that person to the point of asking Jesus Christ into their life. From this point forward to physical death, God is patiently at work conforming us into the image of his Son (Romans 8:29). Just as physical birth begins as foreplay and continues to the point of a child entering the world from its mother womb, spiritual birth begins at some form of contact with the light of the gospel and continues until physical death causes its separation from our body into eternal presence with God. This is the process of being born again and is under the careful control of God.
Application: This good work that God does in us can be done with or without our cooperation. How much we cooperate with him in the process will determine, at times, how much pain we experience. Each of us is free to make that choice.
· How do you encourage and cooperate with God in this good work he is doing in you?
· Explain what you think he is trying to accomplish in your life at this time.
Prayer: Father, thank you for choosing me and causing me to become a new creature in Christ. Lord, bring me to that point of weakness where I can experience the power of Christ being perfected within me. Perform your good work within me to bring me to the point where I fully understand that life is not about me, but about God.
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