Being a follower of Christ is all about a surrendered life, and there are costs involved we never even knew of. Sometimes I sense the Lord doing something in me, and I can’t even tell what it is. Often I’m experiencing some discomfort, pain or suffering in a way that I can’t put into words. 

It’s not necessarily that my external circumstances have changed; by anyone’s account, my life appears to be going along just swimmingly. But there is an apprehension that something is being pulled at, perhaps pulled out, or prodded, deep within me. Maybe it’s another death of some kind, more learning to let go of my soul-life on a deeper or different level.

However, I’m learning that during these times, I can remain confident and assured that He is right beside me and is leading me in all of it. I can almost hear the craftsman busy at work—chiselling and adjusting, bang- bang! with the hammer. 

I imagine Him there, covered in white dust from the stone He is carving, or in yellow sawdust from the timber, He is sanding. I can even imagine power tools grinding away at times while not knowing what He’s up to. But He is working away diligently without telling me anything.

He might be breaking things apart to change the shape or chiselling away at a better design. He might be hammering in nails to connect pieces to other pieces. He might be sawing off sections that need to be discarded. He might be sanding and polishing. 

Whatever He’s up to, He’s working to a plan. And that plan is Him. He is the plan. God the Father, by His Spirit, through the life of His Son in us, is always conforming us more and more into the likeness of His Son Jesus, the Christ.

For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren… (Romans 8:29)

God has one goal: to see His Son gloriously expressed as head over all things. We are kind of His kind.

And He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfilment – to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. (Ephesians 1:9-10)

God has already achieved this outside of time since He is not subject to time and dates, though we may not yet see it manifested with our earthly sight. This is why the scripture above says, “when the times will have reached their fulfilment”. This is also why we must live by faith and not by sight.

We remember Jesus’ words on the cross when He breathed His final breath, “It is finished”. How has God done this already? What did Jesus mean when He said, “It is finished”?

…by setting aside in his (Christ’s) flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two (Jews & Gentiles) thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross… (Ephesians 2:15)

God has created this one body, this new humanity, this new man, in His Son, through Jesus’ death on the cross. There, Christ conquered the power of sin and death, opening the way for all who believe in Him as God’s Son to be reconciled with God the Father. 

This new humanity is the entire body of believers, i.e. the church – whether Jews or  Gentiles, i.e. European, Asian, Caucasian, African, Arabic, Slavic, black, white, brown, yellow, young, old, male or female, and so on. This is a new race in which Christ dwells as our head.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28, BSB)

And in Him you (plural) too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit. (Ephesians 2:22)

We see and experience with our physical senses a fallen world all around us that is rapidly increasing in darkness. So one could ask, just how Christ is manifested as head over all things in the heavens and the earth today?

His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to His eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Ephesians 3:10-11)

It is through the church that God displays His manifold wisdom to all powers and dominions, and this has been accomplished in Christ because it is only in Christ the church exists. As members of His church, His body, this one new man, this new race – we are the bearers of Christ’s image. 

Christ is God’s plan. And God, through Christ, is having each member of this one new man conformed more and more into His image so that Christ is expressed for who He is, head over all things.

Now Christ is the head, and no head exists without a body, just as no body exists without a head. So the head and the body are one. Just as your head and body are part of you, Christ’s head and body are all part of Him; He is both the head and the body. So it stands to reason that we collectively are also His body and are being conformed to His likeness.

This means ongoing work inside us as individuals. Is it any wonder Jesus’ earthly vocation before going into ministry was as a craftsman? Some say He was a carpenter, some say a stone mason, but either way, He was a craftsman, a builder. His earthly vocation was a reflection of His spiritual ministry. 

Jesus created new things while working as a young man for his earthly adopted father, Joseph. In Jesus Christ, we have been made a new creation for His heavenly  Father.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:7, ESV)

Our lives as disciples of Jesus Christ are all about being conformed to His image, to the glory of God the Father. That means being spiritually chiselled, broken, repaired, refined, re-shaped, hammered, sanded and polished, so His church becomes a glorious masterpiece. Not displaying us, but displaying Him! But we get to share in His resurrection!

..that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:10)

As a man, Jesus worked as a skilled craftsman. In His ministry, He ministered as a spiritually skilled craftsman to those around Him, and He still does. What is He building now? He is making a dwelling place where He and His Father can live and where He can express Himself as Head, to the glory of the Father.

Lord, build Your dwelling place. Help us to corporately and individually, live a surrendered life in the hands of the Great Craftsman so that we, the church, might be Your masterpiece. May Your manifold wisdom be displayed to all the heavens and earth through us. Amen.