November 6

"But when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me, even from my mother's womb, and called me through his grace, to reveal his Son in me . . ." Galatians 1:15-16

God had set Paul apart before he was born. Even the profession he learned before his conversion was preplanned. God works like that. All that happened to you before you were saved, as well as after, has some definite meaning. Whatever your character and temperament, whatever your strengths and weaknesses, all are pre-known by God and prepared by him with future service in view. There is no accident, for everything is within God's providence. Nothing comes by chance.

Having been thus set apart from birth, none of us can afford to be casual or frivolous in our attitude to life. Each one of us must expect to discover what God has planned for us, and in his time and way to enter into it. God does not write off as valueless our unregenerate days. He does not want us to deny the very human elements in our makeup by presenting instead a false, because unreal, front. He has a use for the persons we are and intends to use the real us, purified by the cross, and not some pretense, in his service.