Chip Off The Old Block
By Phil Scovell
The church I had been pastoring had folded. I felt more
than a failure; I felt like I had failed god. Life had stopped
suddenly.
Attending another church was worst than miserable.
Furthermore, the attendance had been steadily dropping and the
pastor's sermons were consistently demeaning, personally
degrading, and spiritually disappointing. thus, I had stopped
listening to most of his sermons and tried practicing the art of
day dreaming. It worked, too.
One morning, as I was day dreaming, I realized the pastor
was teaching on the perfect will of God, so I started listening.
I quickly reverted to my day dreaming when I discovered he was
literally saying, "If you don't know the perfect will of God for
your life, you aren't much of a Christian." I already knew that
I was a lousy Christian and I didn't need him to remind me.
Besides, my day dreams were more interesting than his Mickey
Mouse preaching had become.
As I tried to occupy my time till church was over, I heard
the Holy Spirit say, "You are the perfect will of God." I
immediately rejected this as a lie because I knew better. The
statement, however, remained fixed in my mind. So, I began
trying to analyze it. I asked the Lord, after several minutes of
incredibly frustrating meditation, to show me where in the Bible
it says "I am the perfect will of God. "Romans 8," immediately
sprang to my thoughts. I almost laughed. I had Romans 8
memorized. I let my mind quickly run through the chapter.
"Nope," I said, "nothing there, Lord. You'll have to do better
than that." Yet Romans 8 stayed firmly imprinted in my thoughts.
For the next two years, I occasionally thought about what
the Holy Spirit had told me in church that day. I tried
repeatedly to figure out what the Lord was talking about but
discovered nothing.
One day, as I was working in my office doing high speed
cassette duplicating for a church, I began thinking about being
God's perfect will. I stopped my work, walked to my bookshelf,
and pulled out my Braille bible volume containing the book of
Romans. A Braille Bible is 18 volumes and each about three
inches thick. Sitting down at my desk, I turned to chapter 8 and
said out loud, "Ok, Lord. You said I am your perfect will. I
don't believe that is in this chapter or even in the bible. So,
I am going to start reading the chapter from the beginning and
when I get to the right verse, you let me know," and I began
reading. My fingers soon stopped on Romans 8:29:
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be
conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn
among many brethren.
I sat motionless for some time trying to comprehend what I
had just read. I knew, without any doubt, this was the verse. I
had read the Bible well over 100 times from cover-to-cover and
this chapter more than any other. Yet, I have never once
considered the powerful meaning of this single verse concerning
who I was in Christ Jesus.
When I was about 9 or 10 years of age, before going blind, I
worked as a volunteer at in a plaster shop. They made figures
out of plaster molds which we then sold to amusement parks, and
the like, for gifts if you won at some competitive game.
the figures were made by pouring hot plaster into a rubber
mold, then quickly dumped out, which left a coating of plaster on
the inside walls of the rubber form. Later, when the plaster had
cooled and hardened, we pealed the rubber form away and trimmed
the excess that remained. Following a thorough drying process,
the figures were ready for painting.
This illustration is the exact meaning of "to be conformed"
to His image. We are the predestinated, whatever you interpret
that to mean theologically, but whatever it means, we are cut,
shaped, molded and formed, in His image. Thus, we look like
Jesus. When we pray, live, worship, sing, or serve, the Father
sees us as one of His sons, or daughters, and we look just like
Jesus. Furthermore, this whole thing, theologically speaking,
was settled before the foundation of the world, that is, before
anything was created, (See Ephesians 1:4). Literally, before all
things, it was planned we would spiritually, to the Father, look
like Jesus.
All my life I have listened to sermons preached on the will
of God. It was always something we did, such as ministry work,
for Jesus. Never once did I hear a sermon preached, it isn't
what we can do for Jesus that counts, it is what we allow Him to
do for us, and in us, that makes the difference. We are the
perfect will of God. It is not based upon how much theology we
have learned or how much doctrine we can teach but only on Jesus
and Him alone. If your Christian life isn't based on Jesus
alone, then it is time you realize that you are His perfect will.
Stop working for Jesus and let Him work for you.
Safe Place Fellowship
Phil Scovell
Denver, Colorado
Mountain Time Zone
WWW.SafePlaceFellowship.COM
End Of Document
Go To HOME: SafePlaceFellowship.com