God's work in Christian believers, individually and collectively, always is based on a specific purpose. God has a definite plan in Christ that He is carrying out. Paul states: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to {his} purpose." (Romans 8:28)

If we are to enter the overcoming life of victory in Christ it is important that we recognize we are part of God's plan that is moving toward fulfillment according to His wisdom and unlimited power.

It is God's will for us that we, by diligent and consistent faith in Christ, enter our individual role in the Divine plan, and then rest with Christ as the Father brings all the enemies of Christ under His feet.

God is the Creator and we are "his workmanship, created in Christ unto good works" (Ephesians 2:10). What God begins He also finishes (Hebrews 12:2). He is following a blueprint and a time schedule. He knows exactly what He is doing with every creature in Heaven and on the earth (Acts 15:18). God is God.

We recognize, certainly, that man is commanded to seek and to serve God faithfully. We recognize also that God is God and that all people, things, and events are in His power.

The sovereign workings and initiative of God are illustrated in the manner in which he apprehended Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus. Saul was not on his way to church. He was not proceeding down an aisle in response to an altar call. He was on his way to arrest and torment Christian believers.

In complete command of the situation, as always, Jesus ordered Saul to "Arise and go into the city." Jesus then made known to him that God has a purpose concerning the Gentiles as well as the Jews, and that he, Saul, had an important part to play in this purpose.

God had laid out a design for Saul's life in which he would become the Apostle to the Gentiles. Saul was to have an understanding of the plan of salvation and of the way in which grace operates to redeem people. Christ gave all this to Saul at the moment of his becoming a Christian—in fact, while Saul was in the midst of putting Christians to death (Acts 26:11-18).

God's purpose, which He is pursuing in line with His sovereign will according to His own Divine counsel and foreknowledge, with people whom He has chosen (we are not in any way minimizing the role of our will in choosing to serve Christ), is to bring to full stature the Body of Christ.

Christ is God's anointed King and Deliverer. The Church of Christ is His Body, "the fulness of him that filleth all in all" (Ephesians 1:23). Christ is the Lampstand of God. The Body of Christ is the second "lampstand," of Revelation 11:4.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the eternal dwelling place of God Almighty and the chief Cornerstone of the habitation that God is building for Himself. We Christians, being members of His Body, are part of the same dwelling place. We are being "builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit" (Ephesians 2:22). We are "lively [living] stones" in God's Temple (I Peter 2:5). (from The Temple of God)