The Will of God Pt.II
Rejoice Always
According to Paul, the purpose of the church is that we, God’s people, should grow spiritually so that we increasingly attain to Christlike holiness and maturity. This principle is perhaps most clearly expressed in the fourth chapter of Ephesians, a letter that is widely regarded as the most full and developed expression of Paul’s pastoral philosophy. There, he writes that we are to attain “to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.… Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (Eph. 4:13–15).
This definition challenges the kind of Christianity that is common today. For many church members, Christian faith resides in the background of their lives. They think little about the Bible or God or their own spiritual condition, and they draw from very little of the power for godliness that is available to them in Christ.
Pray without Ceasing
Give Thanks in ALL Circumstances
Thinking on this truth caused the Scottish preacher George Matheson to grow in spiritual maturity. Matheson had often trusted God to help him manage the near-blindness that he had suffered since childhood, but he could not remember ever thanking God for this dreadful affliction. Then he prayed: “My God, I have never thanked you for my ‘thorn’. I have thanked you a thousand times for my roses, but never once for my ‘thorn’.… Teach me the glory of my cross; teach me the value of my pain. Show me that my tears have made my rainbows.”