A pattern is a blueprint to measure and fit God’s building, and we need this blueprint to build God’s house in this great project undertaking. To build the house properly we follow the blueprint strictly, assuring all the materials are available. Jesus has given us the design and plans to His house; He gives all required abilities, anointing us and providing all the building materials to accomplish the work of building His house. We need nothing more. If we lack any of these items, we can ask and He gives it to us. Some resources we already have; others we acquire along the way.
Often, the acquiring of abilities and building supplies does not come easy. It comes through life’s experiences. Sometimes we are simply misdirected, acquiring abilities and building materials that God has no desire in using. It is best to let these die on the altar lest God confronts you with circumstances that put these items on the altar for you.
God has no problem asking you to abandon careers, college degrees, great talents, even strong personality traits.
We might think we possess these things because God wants to use them; else why would we possess them in the first place? However, the wisdom of the cross destroys our conventional wisdom of building practices. At other times we argue with the Potter saying, “I need these certain temple building abilities and materials.” The Potter knows why you do not need them so quit contending with God.
For building sake, God gave us apostles like Paul who demonstrate the end product, what we call a prototype, a model. Looking at Paul’s life unrolls the blueprint revealing the details that built God’s temple, in a man who served Jesus without reserve.
I CORINTHIANS 10:11 – Now these things happened to them as an example (pattern), and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.
God gave the lives and events of both the Old and New Testament characters as examples. If these examples were significant to the previous generations of Christians, just think what it means to us who are closer to the ends of
the ages.
We learn from the things these examples did wrong and God judged; we learn from the things they did right and God rewarded. God wrote about the defective examples in scripture to admonish us. God is saying that the lives of those in scripture—warn us, they are given to correct our life; that is why they happened. For instance, some events of the life of Moses happened as a blueprint, a blueprint to warn us to change our course, following God’s course. Just as the man of God we examined earlier, Moses did not heed God’s specific instructions; God told Moses to speak to the rock, instead Moses struck the rock. The consequence of Moses not heeding the instructions of God would cost him; Moses did not get to lead the people into the Promised Land.
God’s hope was for Moses to enter in; this was the finishing line for Moses. Moses saw the Promised Land before he died but never finished his course to enter into that land. We must learn from such examples if we are to avoid the same pattern of unbelief. Remember, it is how you finish that counts. We observe Moses suffering, working hard, and seemingly doing everything right until one day when he disobeyed. This example is one to edify us to obey. You can lead a billion people to the Lord but in the end it is how you finish that counts.
An excerpt from “Temple Builders: The High Calling”
John Robert Lucas
