Chip Off The Old Block


By Phil Scovell





     The church I had been pastoring had folded.  I felt more than
a failure; I felt like I had failed god.  Life had stopped
suddenly.

     Attending another church was worst than miserable.
Furthermore, the attendance had been steadily dropping and the
pastor's sermons were consistently demeaning, personally
degrading, and spiritually disappointing.  thus, I had stopped
listening to most of his sermons and tried practicing the art of
day dreaming.  It worked, too.

     One morning, as I was day dreaming, I realized the pastor was
teaching on the perfect will of God, so I started listening.  I
quickly reverted to my day dreaming when I discovered he was
literally saying, "If you don't know the perfect will of God for
your life, you aren't much of a Christian."  I already knew that I
was a lousy Christian and I didn't need him to remind me.
Besides, my day dreams were more interesting than his Mickey Mouse
preaching had become.

     As I tried to occupy my time till church was over, I heard
the Holy Spirit say, "You are the perfect will of God."  I
immediately rejected this as a lie because I knew better.  The
statement, however, remained fixed in my mind.  So, I began trying
to analyze it.  I asked the Lord, after several minutes of
incredibly frustrating meditation, to show me where in the Bible
it says "I am the perfect will of God.  "Romans 8," immediately
sprang to my thoughts.  I almost laughed.  I had Romans 8
memorized.  I let my mind quickly run through the chapter.
"Nope," I said, "nothing there, Lord.  You'll have to do better
than that."  Yet Romans 8 stayed firmly imprinted in my thoughts.

     For the next two years, I occasionally thought about what the
Holy Spirit had told me in church that day.  I tried repeatedly to
figure out what the Lord was talking about but discovered nothing.

     One day, as I was working in my office doing high speed
cassette duplicating for a church, I began thinking about being
God's perfect will.  I stopped my work, walked to my bookshelf,
and pulled out my Braille bible volume containing the book of
Romans.  A Braille Bible is 18 volumes and each about three inches
thick.  Sitting down at my desk, I turned to chapter 8 and said
out loud, "Ok, Lord.  You said I am your perfect will.  I don't
believe that is in this chapter or even in the bible.  So, I am
going to start reading the chapter from the beginning and when I
get to the right verse, you let me know," and I began reading.  My
fingers soon stopped on Romans 8:29:

For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be
conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn
among many brethren.

     I sat motionless for some time trying to comprehend what I
had just read.  I knew, without any doubt, this was the verse. I
had read the Bible well over 100 times from cover-to-cover and
this chapter more than any other.  Yet, I have never once
considered the powerful meaning of this single verse concerning
who I was in Christ Jesus.

     When I was about 9 or 10 years of age, before going blind, I
worked as a volunteer at in a plaster shop.  They made figures out
of plaster molds which we then sold to amusement parks, and the
like, for gifts if you won at some competitive game.

     the figures were made by pouring hot plaster into a rubber
mold, then quickly dumped out, which left a coating of plaster on
the inside walls of the rubber form.  Later, when the plaster had
cooled and hardened, we pealed the rubber form away and trimmed
the excess that remained.  Following a thorough drying process,
the figures were ready for painting.

     This illustration is the exact meaning of "to be conformed"
to His image.  We are the predestinated, whatever you interpret
that to mean theologically, but whatever it means, we are cut,
shaped, molded and formed, in His image.  Thus, we look like
Jesus.  When we pray, live, worship, sing, or serve, the Father
sees us as one of His sons, or daughters, and we look just like
Jesus.  Furthermore, this whole thing, theologically speaking, was
settled before the foundation of the world, that is, before
anything was created, (See Eph. 1:4).  Literally, before all
things, it was planned we would spiritually, to the Father, look
like Jesus.

     All my life I have listened to sermons preached on the will
of God.  It was always something we did, such as ministry work,
for Jesus.  Never once did I hear a sermon preached, it isn't what
we can do for Jesus that counts, it is what we allow Him to do for
us, and in us, that makes the difference.  We are the perfect will
of God.  It is not based upon how much theology we have learned or
how much doctrine we can teach but only on Jesus and Him alone.
If your Christian life isn't based on Jesus alone, then it is time
you realize that you are His perfect will.  Stop working for Jesus
and let Him work for you.

He's ready when you are.
www.SafePlaceFellowship.com