" For we are His workmanship, created of God in Christ Jesus, unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." Does God set a value on these works? It is because they are prepared by Himself. Are they only as things done down here in the wilderness?
No; they are to be carried on into glory. Things wrought in the soul, the will subdued, the affections set right. God is dealing with us now, and He would have us go forward with Him; but this is only the beginning,-not what we shall be when we shall see the Lord Jesus, and be fashioned like unto His glorious body-every limb made glorious.
Is it nothing to have God working in us now, to will and to do of His good pleasure? Nothing that He should want to see the expression of the life of Christ in us, so as to have fellowship with the life of Christ down here? Think what, it will be to have the life of Christ filling the body, in a scene -where the whole will harmonize! We begin it in the wilderness, to end in glory.
The energy of God given to the soul enables us to walk in works which are the expression of that energy, and of our vital union with Christ. God sets each one in his course, and there is a specialty of Providence in connection with every individual. God is great enough to number the hairs of our head; you and I are too little. God is so great that he can count cups of cold water; we are too little, too tiny, to do so; we can only lay hold of general features. I must be holy,-that is quite true; but who marked out the path for a Daniel or a Paul in their day, and for the early Christians in theirs? Who fixed the time of your birth, all your path in life, your trials, your sicknesses? It was God, the living God! God comes in everywhere, in every thought, and step, and act of life-even in turning to speak to any one in the street.
The thought that there are works prepared of God, that we should walk in them, will give importance to many a thing little in itself; it will give sweetness to many a bitter cross, and stop many an act where self-will would have come in. If you look back, you will see much failure and going after your own will, but God was there to turn the page, and to mark out your walk with Him in the path prepared for you.
What a difference whether we look at ourselves as separate individuals or as a part of the temple builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit! As part of this temple, we are precious stones, God's own workmanship in Christ Jesus, and lain as living stones on that foundation, there to rest, shining in all the beauty of another, even of His own Son, the Lord Jesus,-all the weight of the building resting on Him the eternal foundation.
Can you say, "I am a called one-one with Christ?" And what is the hope of such? Nothing less than reaching the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus? It is a real thing that Christ is sitting at the right hand of God in all His beauty and glory, and our expectation is the seeing Him as He is, and being like Him. The Father of glory, who looked at you in all your weakness and failure, will not cease working till, one by one, millions of vases shall be made like that pattern vase at His right hand. He is molding all to the likeness of that One, and when we shall see Him as he is, these bodies of humiliation shall be like unto His glorious body. What a thought! each believer being a vase full of glory; thousands of thousands of vases all to be filled with His glory. God will make you-will make me-to be one of them.
There are two things: the first, God dealing with every individual heart; the other, His taking you as part of a building, a city, where every stone is bright and polished, and each one reflecting the glory of Christ. There every saint will show forth to the eye of God, the Lord Jesus, because they will all reflect His glory.
Shall we find that we have experienced all Christ's love here, when we meet Him in heaven?