[Sons to Glory!]

Here's January 1st in the daily devotional of T. Auston Spark's writings, "Daily Open Windows." A good question to start the year!

Called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28)

God has a very great purpose for His people by their eternal calling
and by their wonderful redemption. A very great purpose ... so much greater
than the majority of Christians have realized. I do not think I am saying a
false thing when I say that perhaps the larger number of Christians have
got little further than to know that they are saved, and to be very glad that
they are saved, to rejoice in being saved. Comparatively few are really in
the good of God's great, great purpose from eternity, "Called according to
His purpose" (Rom. 8:28). It is not for us now to say what that purpose is,
to explain it. It is sufficient to state the fact. We are called with a very great purpose,
not just even to get out of Egypt and the clutches of the devil, but with an object,
a tremendous object, nothing less than the infinite fullness of God's Son, Jesus Christ,
and an eternal vocation. It is a great thing to which we are called in Christ,
but how many Christians are really in it, and if they know they are in it,
are tasting of the meaning of it: that this Life is an inexhaustible Life,
that there are new vistas all the time?

I am not exaggerating. The heavens are opened and we see more and
more, and ever more, of what it is to which we are called. It is just
wonderful ... You are not meant just to be saved and get to heaven, to know
your sins are forgiven and to have a certain number of blessings which
come with salvation. But there lies before you and reaches out through
eternal ages such a purpose of God concerning us all that "Eye hath not
seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things
which God hath prepared for them that love Him" (l Cor. 2:9).

From: The Cross and the Way of Life - Chapter 8