"Called According to Purpose
Emphasis and note in thy heart this morning, but I feel it to be a very important and vital one, has to do with this matter of being called according to purpose. We have seen just a little I think in the earlier hours of this conference that God was certainly moving according to purpose when He came and sovereignly called Gideon. And God is still moving according to purpose; no more in the days of Abraham or Moses or Gideon or David or Elijah or any other, no more than now. Until the purpose is reached and fully realized, God will still be moving according to purpose and will still be choosing according to purpose.
The purpose is comprehensive and quite clearly defined. Through one brief letter the Apostle Paul has given us comprehensively and definitely the purpose. We are not going to dwell upon the purpose this morning, but rather upon the calling according thereto. The Purpose is the ultimate of all God's activities, the ultimate of the initial apprehending of lives and calling into fellowship with His Son in what we variously call Conversion or Being Saved or Being Born Again. However we put it, it is the initial movement of God in bringing us into relationship with Himself in Jesus Christ. But the purpose is more than that. It is the ultimate of all the progressive preparation, training, and discipline of those who have been brought into that relationship with Himself. These are not things or ends in themselves. All this beginning and continuation of the Lord n line is moving on according to purpose.
The great need dear friends, where you and I and all the Lord's people are concerned is to really become gripped and mastered by that fact. It is as though the Lord would come to us and say, "Now stand at My side and look on, look right on to the end, to the ultimate. Look with Me right over all time and all vicissitudes to the end and see with Me a universe, people, with those who are just showing forth, manifesting forth My glory, My eternal glory." Called unto His eternal glory that runs alongside called according to purpose, called unto His eternal glory. Now the Lord says, "Do you see that? That is the ultimate, that is the purpose - the showing forth of My glory in a people."
He would perhaps say that of course, there will be different degrees of glory. There will be one glory as of the sun, another glory as of the moon, another glory as the stars. There will be differences in glory and of glory. Those differences will depend entirely upon the people concerned. How much glory there will be in and manifested through and by those people will depend entirely upon how much their hearts are set upon MY GLORY. How far their hearts are undivided hearts, pure hearts in this sense: that there is no alloy, no mixture, no two thing which cannot be reconciled, that is purity of heart, and "Blessed are the pure in heart." He would say that. And then He would say to us, "You see, that is the end. You have got that vision? You see, the purpose? That you're called according to that purpose."
Then He would say, "now, for a moment look around, look upon the many who have not yet been brought into that initial relationship with the purpose and then look upon all those who are the Lord's, and what do you see? How much glory do you see? How much going on to "glory"? Ah, how much that is very, very contrary to the glory of God. You see! Now then, he would say, "although I have called you according to the ultimate purpose, I now call you to some situation which exists which is not in line with that ultimate purpose, in order that you may be used to bring it into line." That is purpose within the purpose.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 10)
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