We’re already two weeks into the new year, and today I will continue with the second and final part of the theme: God’s plans for your life. If you need to catch up you can read part one here.The passage is based off of Jeremiah 29:11-14.
3. God’s plans are better than mine. Isaiah 55:8-9 says: “My thoughts are not your thoughts,and my ways are not your ways,” declares the Lord. “Just as the heavens are higher than the earth,so my ways are higher than your ways,and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts. ” God is omnipresent, so he is already in the future and because of that he knows what’s best for me. God knows everything. I do not. I can pray for a particular situation, and I can be completely honest and tell the Lord what is my desire and dare to think that my understanding seems to be better. But I’m not omniscient, so I have to trust that the result is better in God’s hands than mine .
God’s thoughts are above mine. My way of thinking is clouded by sin, by my limitations, and defects of a fallen world. But not God! All of His thoughts are perfect, and pure. Therefore, any plan I make, I have to submit to God, my schedule has to be written in pencil, not in ink, so that God can erase and change at His will.
The apostle James speaks very clear: “Pay attention to this! You’re saying, “Today or tomorrow we will go into some city, stay there a year, conduct business,and make money.” You don’t know what will happen tomorrow. What is life? You are a mist that is seen for a moment and then disappears. Instead, you should say, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and carry out our plans.” However, you brag because you’re arrogant. All such bragging is evil. Whoever knows what is right but doesn’t do it is sinning.”(James 4:13-17). Does this mean I should not make plans? Of course not! What it’s trying to tell me is that I have to submit my plans to God, depend on Him and know that he can change and even cancel them. And I have to remain content in that, because His plans are better.
4. God’s plans require faith and perseverance. (V. 12-14). The million dollar question is: Will I know God’s plan for my life? The answer is yes, and no. These verses reveal God’s heart. He tells us that when we pray, and when we seek Him, we will find Him.
In Jeremiah 33:3, we have a promise that we may know, but have not studied in depth: “Call to me, and I will answer you. I will tell you great and mighty things that you do not know.” The original word toknow in this verse implies [to discern, distinguish, learn from experience]. If we ask, God can reveal many things. But these things are not always what we want to know. Sometimes those great and mighty things (mysteries, things inaccessible) are the spiritual realm: peace that surpasses all understanding, joy, strength.
Many times we feel, as I said last Monday, we are going through a dark tunnel, and we see no light at the end. But look at what God says through the prophet Isaiah: ” Who among you fears the Lord and obeys his servant? Let those who walk in darkness and have no light trust the name of the Lord and depend upon their God” (Isaiah 50:10). The reality is that God’s plans require faith. While you walk through the tunnel, in the dark, without a ray of light, you have to trust in God’s plans which He will reveal in His own time.
I love this passage from Hebrews 10, because many times when we can not see or understand what God is doing, we become discouraged. “So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.” You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For, “In just a little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay.” And, “But my righteous one will live by faith. And I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back.” But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.” (v. 35-39) God wants a people who persevere—who trust.
In Conclusion: We have started a new year that often we set goals, and resolutions for. Maybe you are “exiled in Babylon” and you can’t see an exit, or a solution, or a future. You feel as though you’re in that dark tunnel. Remember these truths and make them yours in 2013:
God knows the plans He has for you, and for me.
They are plans for good and they are good.
They are better than any plans you and I could ever make.
He asks us to seek Him, to believe and persevere. So that He can fulfill his purpose in us.
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