Your Life: God’s Project

Those who cleanse themselves from the latter will be instruments for special purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.
2 Timothy 2:21

“Fan into flame” (2 Timothy 1:6). “Stand firm” (1 Corinthians 16:13). “Be strong” (1 Corinthians 16:13). “Endure hardship” (2 Timothy 4:5). “Avoid” (2 Timothy 2:16). “Flee” (1 Corinthians 6:18).

At first glance the Christian life might appear to be a do-it-yourself project—until you try it and discover how inadequate your own strength is.

But God never asks of you what he has not first empowered you to do—a truth John Calvin understood.

WALK WITH JOHN CALVIN
“It is clear beyond contradiction that we are called to holiness. But the calling and duty of Christians is one thing, and it is another to have the power to make it happen.

“We do not deny that the faithful are required to purify themselves; but that this is a matter which belongs to the Lord he declares himself, when through the prophet Ezekiel he promises to send forth the Holy Spirit that we may be cleansed (see Ezekiel 36:25-26).

“Therefore, we should beseech the Lord to purge us rather than vainly attempt such a matter in our own strength without his aid.”

WALK CLOSER TO GOD
It is one thing to read the Word of God; it is another to live it.

Enthusiasm is easier than obedience. But it takes more than zeal and grim determination for believers to become “instruments … useful to the Master.”

For that to happen you need strength that only the Master can supply, and strength to stay morally clean and spiritually sensitive.

The world would label such a lifestyle “narrow.” God calls it “holy.”

And he is calling you to it—today!