Gen 1:26 And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of heaven and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. Psa. 8:3 When I see Your heavens, the works of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained, (4) What is mortal man, that You remember him, And the son of man, that You visit him?
[Part 1 of 2] The Bible shows us that God needs man. God needs man to cooperate with Him before He can fulfill His eternal plan. In the six days of creation, man was the center of God's creating work. God could only rest after He had created man; He could not rest without man. Although man later fell, God's intention concerning man has not changed. He still wants to gain man. Man's salvation, edification, and maturity in spiritual life is for the satisfaction of God's need. The greatest necessity in God's work is human cooperation. At no time and place has God's work been carried out without human cooperation. Man works together with God, and God cannot do anything without man. (The work of God here does not include His work of creation in the six days. The work of creation in the six days was God's own work, and man had no part in it.) From Genesis to Revelation, we can see that God has always been seeking man, gaining man, guiding man, and working through man. In order to do anything, God first gains some men. If He has not gained some men, He cannot work. We can see this from a few examples. Consider the story of Noah and the ark. At the time of Noah, God clearly wanted to save men. But if He did not gain Noah, He could not fulfill His purpose. God had to find Noah, work through him, and accomplish His will by means of him. God wanted an ark, but He also had to find a person who had a heart for Him. God had to find a person who could cooperate with Him before He could build an ark. He had to find Noah, who sympathized with Him, walked with Him, and received His commission before He could accomplish His work. God had to gain man before He could do anything. In order for the story of the ark to be written, God had to first secure Noah. In him we see a man walking with God and working with Him. (Continued tomorrow)
Bible verses are taken from the Recovery Version of the Bible and Words of Ministry from Watchman Nee, General Messages, Vol. 37, The Collected Works of Watchman Nee, pp. 175-176. Both are published by Living Stream Ministry, Anaheim, CA. Please visit us at www.emanna.com. Send comments to: [email protected].
To unsubscribe from the mailing list, either: Send an email to: [email protected] (No subject or message needed; a blank email will work) or visit www.emanna.com and fill out the unsubscribe form there.
