A Finished Work

When God brings you to a "place of contentment" it does not mean that He has brought you to a "comfort zone" where you will stay in for the rest of your life. Just the opposite. It’s a place where He wants to stretch and grow you - by taking you to new levels with Him that you never thought possible. As long as you are attached to the Vine, daily seeking His desires and where He’s working, then you will be content in the places He asks you to go. Will you be scared at times? Of course. Any time God moves the peg, it must humble us and cause us to remember who we were and really who we still are (sinners). But God sees us in our finished state – complete (on earth as it is in heaven) as His new creations with all the potential that goes with it.

Just like God did with Gideon:

Judges 6:11-16

11 The angel of the LORD came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. 12 When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, "The LORD is with you, mighty warrior."
13 "But sir," Gideon replied, "if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, 'Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?' But now the LORD has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian."
14 The LORD turned to him and said, "Go in the strength you have [God’s strength] and save Israel out of Midian's hand. Am I not sending you?"
15 "But Lord, " Gideon asked, "how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family."
16 The LORD answered, "I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites together." [emphasis mine]

Gideon saw himself as weak, and the least in his family with no power to do anything for Israel. But God called him a Mighty Warrior. God saw him as a finished work - complete. God told him to “go in the strength you have.” God was not saying to do it in his own strength but over and over God said HE would be with Gideon. It was God’s strength and God’s power that would deliver them from the Midianites.

Peter is another example of Jesus seeing him as the completed work of God even while he was still yet full of sin (denial). Read about that in Luke 22:31 and Matthew 16:17-19

Wouldn't it be something if we could see those we love - the way God sees them? There are several people right now that God has put in my path to point them to Jesus and His ways. They desire to love and serve God but have a past life of sin that they sometimes find hard to get over even though they know God's forgiveness. Yet God sees them in their finished and completed state of Christ's purpose for them. May we all seek to encourage those around us to believe who they are in Christ and what His purposes are. May we pray for them to be in the center of His will where God can complete the very work He has begun.

Philippians 1:6

...being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. [emphasis mine]

Choosing Joy,

Stephanie