Tailor-Made for Other People

Tailor-Made for Other People

Have you ever thought about what God made you for? As a born again Christian, having experienced the transforming power of Jesus Christ, for whom does he intend you to live?

Of course we must live for God, but how do we do that? Is all our attention meant to be upon ourselves and our own spiritual growth? The most practical way of advancing our own spiritual lives is to live for others – shift our focus from our own needs alone, to the needs of others. All the great men of God in the Bible, and out of it, were marked by their selflessness and service to others for the advancement of the kingdom of God.

The apostle Peter made this very clear, as did the apostle Paul in referring to a Christian brother named Epaphras:

Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently. (1 Peter 1:22 – KJV)

Epaphras, who is one of your number, a bondslave of Jesus Christ, sends you his greetings, always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers, that you may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God. (Colossians 4:12 – NASB)

God did not create us in Christ to live for ourselves alone; He tailor made us for other people.

Tailor-Made for Other People

© May 17th 1995 – by Christopher Shennan)

“Tailor-made for other people,”

Are the words that touch my mind,

When I think of all the trials

In my life — of the ugly kind.

 

I had felt as if the scissors

had snipped away some part

That was desperately needed,

To fully satisfy my heart.

 

You see, I had found the pattern

That I thought was best for me;

That I thought would suit ambitions

That my inner eye could see.

 

The pattern of my future life,

And the cloth from which it was made,

Would have to fit the image

Of the plans that I had laid.

 

But then, when the cutting started,

And the pattern soon took form,

I knew it would never fit me;

I wished that I’d never been born.

 

So I cried to God, my Tailor,

And complained that the suit He’d made

Fell sadly short of the fashion,

In colour, in shape, in grade.

 

He replied, “You’ve been mistaken

And deluded in your thoughts.

Your life was the cloth I needed —

With my own blood it was bought.

 

“You are not your own. I fashioned

Each contour, each colour, each line,

For the needs of other people —

For a purpose truly Mine.

 

“You’ve been tailor-made for others,

Not to satisfy your whim;

And I’ve made your life on purpose

So its light will ne’er grow dim.

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Picture by Joanne Shennan – used with permission