In this blog post on Latter Rain, we’ll explore the importance of obedience as to how you grow and change. A magnificently large portion of your mental health relates to your spiritual health. Purpose, lifestyle, and feelings are all connections between your spiritual health and your mental health. How you view certain aspects of life as a spiritual being impacts the way you experience life in your mental health. So, if you want to learn why you should adjust and adapt to how God calls you to live, continue reading.
Visiting the Carpenter
First of all, you must know what is a carpenter. A carpenter is someone who constructs and repairs wooden structures. They envision a wooden structure like a table or a chair, and then, they set out to build the thing. And the unique thing about carpenters is that they first start out with nothing but with some materials. At the beginning, there’s no table, no chair, there’s nothing, but, there’s a vision of a chair or table in their head.
Now, God came in the flesh as Jesus Christ and before He started His ministry with signs, wonders, and miracles, He worked as a carpenter.
Mark 6:3 World English Bible (WEB)
3 Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James, Joses, Judah, and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” So they were offended at him.
As Jesus Christ’s ministry unfolded, the crowd in the above verse could not understand who stood before them! Unfortunately, they did not realize that Jesus Christ was a carpenter to prove a certain point.
1 Corinthians 15:46 World English Bible (WEB)
46 However that which is spiritual isn’t first, but that which is natural, then that which is spiritual.
Why did He do it? I’ll tell you why, He did it to let you know that God can take your nothing and make it into His something. Moreover, God was proving a point through the natural means as a carpenter so that He might prepare them for the spiritual means. He’d shown Himself as a physical carpenter so that He might prepare them to behold Him as the spiritual Carpenter of carpenters, soon enough.
Just as a carpenter starts out with nothing but a vision and some materials to bring about something useful, God only needs a vision to make you into something glorious! That’s just the way God gets things done.
And there isn’t a single person who can get in His way until He’s done what He’s set out to do.
Isaiah 22:22 World English Bible (WEB)
22 I will lay the key of David’s house on his shoulder. He will open, and no one will shut. He will shut, and no one will open.
When a carpenter pulls up his sleeves, bears the pinches of splinters in his palms, and gets to work with his hammer, that pile of wood ought to become what the carpenter wants. In a similar but heightened manner, the Carpenter of carpenters, Jesus Christ, pulled up His sleeves, carried a wooden cross, let the splinters of hell tear at his back, and bore the flesh-splitting pinch of nails in His hands and feet. Your life ought to become what He sees in His vision for you.
A Vision and A Purpose
As a person, made in the image of God, God has a vision and plan set out for your life. You do not need to fall into depression or extreme lows, because God went to the lowest possible point of human experience to give you the greatest experience a human being could ever enjoy!
So, whatever trauma you’ve been through, whatever hell you’ve experienced, Jesus knows it all! He knows it to an extent you could never dream of imagining.
Isaiah 53:3 King James Version (KJV)
3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Jesus experienced social rejection, He experienced physical pain of the highest order, and He died on that rugged, wooden cross. As a matter of fact, when you look at the above verse, they called Jesus Christ, “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.”
According to the verse, people associated grief and suffering with Jesus Christ. He suffered to such an inhumane extent that whenever people would think of the person of Jesus Christ, they’d have to think about suffering, too. But, you see…
He had a vision.
This vision was not anything to laugh at. This vision was pulling Him to embrace His suffering and to keep on going. He didn’t die on a wooden cross, humiliated and despised for nothing. I’ll tell you what He saw… It was you.
Hebrews 12:2 King James Version (KJV)
2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
He saw you as you were called to be, as a victorious, blessed, joyful child of God. There ain’t a carpenter like Jesus Christ.
2 Corinthians 5:17 World English Bible (WEB)
17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.
Adjust and Adapt to His Vision
Jesus Christ died on the cross so that by His suffering, you would not have to suffer as He did. No one but Jesus Christ is perfect. We’ve all lied, we’ve all stolen, we’ve all done things which are far from moral perfection.
Romans 3:23 King James Version (KJV)
23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Furthermore, the only way for a morally perfect and upright God to excuse us from the punishment that awaited us, was to unleash His fury upon a perfect individual. That perfect individual was Jesus Christ, God Himself, in the flesh as a human being!
If you still do not comprehend as to why Jesus Christ died on the cross for you, visit this post, which might shed more light on the matter.
But, for those of you who do understand, and who have not accepted Him already, I urge you to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour.
Matthew 11:29-30 World English Bible (WEB)
29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
For those of you struggling with depression, God deeply cares for you and wants you to listen to His plan for your life. To those struggling with suicidal thoughts, Jesus Christ died and rose again for you; His will is for you to live for Him. For those of you who can’t seem to take your mind off grief and trauma, I advise you, to think about the suffering Christ whose suffering makes you whole. And to those who are happy with their life as it is, I tell you that without Jesus Christ, your life will never be complete.
Your life is not meaningless, it is not purposeless, it is not the by-product of a purely naturalistic reality. There is meaning within you. Your life is His and His alone.
Ephesians 2:10 World English Bible (WEB)
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before that we would walk in them.
Therefore…
Allow the Carpenter of carpenters
to bring about His vision
so that the life you indeed hold
will become something glorious to behold!
By Andre Wijesekera
