17 October 2021 - Manna by Dorothy and Tony Callies
Theme: His Workmanship (A highly skilled worker)
Ephesians 2:10 “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained (to become a Christian worker or minister) that we should walk in them.”
The movie called, “The Gospel of John” the part that impressed me when Jesus quoted, “My Father and I are always working.” It was from John 5:17 that Jesus had just healed the man of 38 years of being crippled, he got up and walked. It happened on the Sabbath day that the religious Jew complained against Him for working on Sabbath day. Still Jesus said that He and His Father are always working.
Why this impressed me? I tell you why. In our everyday lives, I often wondered what does God do when things happened to us. I read one story of a man who wrote about his friend who had just lost his wife and he was in deep grief. He asked God a question, “What do You do when a man is grief over the loss of his wife?” It felt like there’s no profit when a person is grief. (What does it profit when a person grief?)
Then he received a vision: A melting pot of gold with refining fire. The dross (a waste or foreign things) appeared on top of melting gold, Jesus wiped the dross from the top of the melting pot. The refining fire makes the gold clearer. Jesus explained that He was working on man’s life of grief, making his gold richer as Jesus continued to remove the dross of man’s life. So the man’s grief was not a waste, but a “grief” was a refining fire.
That really hit me! Because Jesus was working but we don’t see it. That’s what FAITH is all about. Ephesians 2:8 “By grace you are saved through FAITH; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.”
Using the verse John 5:17 to remind me that Jesus is working which was why Paul explained, ““For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works” (Ephesians 2:10) The word, workmanship means the art or skill of workman: Craftsmanship also means a highly skilled worker. That we should walk in them meaning be trained in God’s Word to become His worker? Something to think about.
My friend if you are grieving, know this that Jesus is working … He is not ignoring you … as we sometimes felt that way. I just know that God does cares no matter how Satan tried to “buffet us” that God doesn’t care. I used the John 5:17 to tell Satan off that God is working … and boy that’s feels good!
May God richly bless you!
Dorothy
