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creation and redemption but He’s not finished working.
Philippians. 1:6, “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.” 1 Thessalonians 5:24, “Faithful is He who calls
you, and He also will bring it to pass.” He’s still working. He’s
not finished. 2 Corinthians 3:18, “But we all, with unveiled
face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being
transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as
from the Lord, the Spirit.” 1 John 3:2, “Beloved, now we are
children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall
be. We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him,
because we shall see Him just as He is.”
There is still a work in process. God is still conforming
us to Jesus. He will complete the work. In His mind and in His
purpose it’s already finished. Romans 8:30, “…and whom He
predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these
He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also
glorified.” Entering rest is not only believing that everything
that He has already done makes Him happy but we must also
believe that everything that He is doing right now in our lives,
He is satisfied with. If I start believing that, the peace of God
will flow over on all sides and at all times.
What I would like to do is to illustrate His present work,
right now and how His present work pleases Him. I want to
illustrate it by His title “The Potter”. Isaiah 64:8, “But now, O
Lord, Thou art our Father. We are the clay, and Thou our potter;
and all of us are the work of Thy hand.” If we can understand
the potter and the clay, it will help us with His present work.
The illustration that I want to give is from Jeremiah 18 which
talks about the prophet going to the potter’s house. “Arise and
go down to the potter’s house, and there I shall announce My
words to you.” Let me give the background of this story.
The background is that God, after the captivity, was
going to bring them back to Jerusalem. To do that he was going
to use a man named “Cyrus”. Just like they didn’t understand
how a Holy God could use sinful Babylon, they couldn’t
understand how a Holy God could take a sinful man like Cyrus