by T. Austin-Sparks
Date messages given unknown.
Edited and supplied by the Golden Candlestick Trust.
What we are concerned with is God's forming of vessels. God is forming, or seeking to form, vessels. As our illustrations are coming from this little workshop where we are working on the wood, we might be reminded of the little phrase in Haggai 1:8, "Go up to the mountain, and bring wood." So the material we are thinking of at the moment is that which corresponds to the wood which is to be shaped for the house of God, and first of all there has to be a preparation of the wood. This workshop of God is a very real thing. We are called according to His purpose, we are His workmanship, He is working in us to will and to do His good pleasure. The work of God upon us, as we shall see as we go on, is often, and perhaps more often than not, hard to us naturally, difficult to bear, the deep grooving, cutting, and shaping. It is hard to nature, but grace will see the work done, and this letter to the Ephesians, in which first the great purpose is revealed and then the workmanship is mentioned, is a letter in which grace is everywhere.
