The Heavenly Builder
For we are laborers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building (I Corinthians 3:9).
The work of grace is compared to a building; the carrying forward is gradual. If it is large, there is much to be done in preparing and laying the foundation, before the walls appear above ground; much is doing within, when the work does not seem perhaps to advance without; and when it is considerably forward – yet, being encumbered with scaffolds and rubbish – a bystander sees it at a great disadvantage, and can form but an imperfect judgment of it.
But all this while the architect himself, even from the laying of the first stone, conceives of it according to the plan and design he has formed; he prepares and adjusts the materials, disposing each in its proper time and place – and views it, in idea, as already finished. In due season it is completed – but not in a day. The top-stone is fixed, and then, the scaffolds and rubbish being removed – it appears to others as he intended it should be.
Men, indeed, often plan what, for want of skill or ability, or from unforeseen disappointments, they are unable to execute. But nothing can disappoint the Heavenly Builder; nor will He ever be reproached with forsaking the work of His Own hands, or beginning that which He could not or would not accomplish.
Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6).
Let us therefore be thankful for beginnings, and patiently wait the outcome.
John Newton (1725-1807)
Author of the Hymn, Amazing Grace
John Newton’s Letters
November 11, 1775
Tags: Christian Quotations, Devotionals, Devotions, Gleanings, Quotations, Quotes
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