Romans 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son… I was in the photographer's dark little closet. He had in his hand the little plate of glass that in the camera had been exposed to the light and had caught upon its sensitive surface an image. But there was no appearance of an image. There was nothing but a cloudy surface. "If there's an image there?" said the photographer, half inquiringly. But it must be "developed," he told me. He poured upon a glass the chemical solution, and in a moment what a weird change! Out of the cloud I saw the outlines of a face stealing, breaking its way through all obscuring shadows, growing clearer and clearer, till in a moment the artist took the plate to a window, and there it was most plainly, the picture of a face. Developing the image! I have often thought of it in its spiritual significance. God's work inhuman souls will vary. In all His children there is the same positive fact of the receiving of Christ's image upon the sensitive surface of their hearts. In some that likeness comes at once to the front of a man's life. You see it in the very look. You hear it in the voice. You almost feel it in the grasp of the hand, so warm, true, and sympathising. Best of all you see it in his life, a life flaming in its consecration from the very start. There is Christ, you say. To-day I plead for the souls where a work of grace has begun, and yet it may be very imperfect. You believe something is there, and yet faith may be perplexed at times when it would affirm that work. There are inconsistencies in the life, and you sometimes doubt if the Lord's mark is upon the soul. Still you can but feel that the person has come in contact with Christ, has caught His image, and, though that image is under a cloud, it only needs to be developed. I plead for these souls. I ask for patience in their behalf. Let us be willing to wait, just as God waits for the first faint tint of dawn to kindle into the flaming glory of sunrise, for a seed to expand into a shoot, for your soul and mine, so wayward and capricious, to slowly, slowly come round to a place at His feet. Thomas Erskine said, "If we are faithful and patient, we shall have the life God taught to us and nourished in us. But we are in such a hurry; we think something must be done immediately." We may apply these wise words to our dealings with others, and so have patience with their imperfections. (E. A. Rand.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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. |
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