ARE YOU A WORK IN PROGRESS?

Paul makes it very clear in Phil. 1:6 NKJV being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;  that we are a

WORK IN PROGRESS

Margaret and I live in a growing and developing Retirement Village, and many new buildings are constantly  being erected There is:
The foundations
The walls
The roof
The interior fittings
Almost every day there seems to be something new happening in the structures.

THAT IS WHAT GOD IS DOING IN US

God instituted a plan in eternity past when He chose us (Eph.1:4 AMP. N.T. Even as [in His love] He chose us [actually picked us out for Himself as His own] in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy (consecrated and set apart for Him) and blameless in His sight, even above reproach, before Him in love. That He would so work in us and so bring us to maturity and spiritual perfection that we could spend eternity in heaven with Him.
From the moment we were born again, and the Holy Spirit came into our life, God began a work of grace in us. He sure knew that we couldn’t do it on our own, but has made everything available to us 1 Peter 1:3 NLT By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. The MESSAGE Bible says Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received!
I am sure if I prepare a list of those things God has made available to us, I will surely miss  something out, but God has given us:
His Word
The Holy Spirit
Jesus ever lives to make intercession for us
God wants us to have Disciplemaker/Mentor to walk with us
God placed us into the Body of Christ and led us to be planted in a local church.
Put all these things together PLUS
Our constant daily co-operation is the big key here, because if we are honest sometimes it seems two steps forward and three steps backwards.
Learning the life of SURRENDER has and is the greatest lesson I have to learn and continue to learn. We must learn to visualise ourselves for example like clay on the Potter’s wheel, and we must let God’s Hands shape us into a vessel of honour, or visualise being taken regularly into God’s operating theatre, and the Divine Surgeon comes in with scalpel in hand and we notice there is no anesthetist  and we must to lay still until the surgery is over (and there will be numerous surgeries over the years. If we wriggle and react to the Surgeon’s scalpel, God will lift His hand we will roll off the operating table, go all around the mountain, and end up again in the operating theatre, the quicker we learn to lay still the quicker the surgery will be over.
The writer of the Book of Hebrews describes God as a Father who needs to discipline His children, Heb. 12:5_11 NLT And have you forgotten the encouraging words God spoke to you as his children? He said,
“My child, don’t make light of the Lord’s discipline,
and don’t give up when he corrects you.
For the Lord disciplines those he loves,
and he punishes each one he accepts as his child.”
As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children. Who ever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father? If God doesn’t discipline you as he does all of his children, it means that you are illegitimate and are not really his children at all. Since we respected our earthly fathers who disciplined us, shouldn’t we submit even more to the discipline of the Father of our spirits, and live forever?
For our earthly fathers disciplined us for a few years, doing the best they knew how. But God’s discipline is always good for us, so that we might share in his holiness. No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it’s painful! But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.
As parents we discipline our children because we love them, and do not want them to grow up rebellious, Solomon says in Proverbs 22:15 MESSAGE Bible Young people are prone to foolishness and fads; the cure comes through tough minded discipline.
Hebrews 12:10 says  if we respond to God’s dealings, we will be partakers of His holiness,, and verse 11 says it will yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness..
Let us not complain about the Potter’s Hands, or the Surgeon’s scalpel, or the Father’s rod of discipline, let us visualise the end result, as Paul describes in 2 Cor.3:18 AMP. N.T.We are constantly being transfigured into His very own image in ever increasing splendor and from one degree of glory to another; [for this comes] from the Lord [Who is] the Spirit. The NLT says makes us more and more like Him as we are changed into his glorious image.
I really want  people and God especially TO SEE JESUS IN ME ,and that I let the Lord complete His plan and process in me, so I can spend eternity with Him. so let us obey the Forman and let Him get on with the job of completing the construction. AMEN