God Has A Plan

Intro: For those who are listing to this message and those who are here live, many of you knew what my wife has been battling shingles and let me tell you, seeing her suffer was hard, during this process I was seeking and asking God why or how could some one suffer so much that loves you very much.

Them my mind went to thinking, God has a plan for all of us. The fact that “God has a plan for your life” is well in meaning, but often falls a bit flat to me when I’m faced with reality. It doesn’t change what I am, still in the middle of and, to be honest, we know God has plans. He created the universe, certainly He is mindful of our lives.

In light of this my mind search and my heart wondered, and I kept praying and asking God what is the purpose in all of this, and during this whole time only 4 words kept coming to my mind over and over, God Has A Plan.

So I accepted it and so did my wife and were trusting in his plan and the propose in all of this. Then it brought me to thinking What is his plan for us and what are his plans for all who trust in him and follow him.

Then I was lead to this question. Does God have a plan for each of our lives? If so, how does he reveal it? How do we hear him and discern his voice from others?”

The verse many Christians think of with regard to his plan is Jeremiah 29:11, which says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

Now it might be argued that this verse properly speaks of the nation Israel and not of any individual, yet Christians rightly connect this to God’s relationship with believers under the New Testament. One this is for sure, to say that God has a plan is completely true. He is Sovereign and all knowing.

This means, as Psalm Chapter 139 says, each day was planned before one of them came to be. Because God knows everything, He already knew your poor mistakes, your choosing of sin, and the consequences that will come to be because of these rebellious choices.

He has already planned how to bring good out of our rebellion, how to bring you closer to Him through your sins. And yes, even in his plans He knew which trails your going to endure.

For many of us we usually seek to know God’s plan because as some point we have decisions to make, and sometimes they don’t want to make them badly. More so we are seeking direction, as we should, so we want to know God’s plan.

Let me say that there is something of a category error involved here. When the Bible speaks of God’s plan, it relates it to the sphere of his sovereignty and not to the sphere of our responsibility. God never tells us to figure what his secret plan is for us.

We do, however, have quite a bit of knowledge about God’s will, not in terms of the details of our lives but in terms of what obedience to him demands.

God’s will is that we should obey his Word, that we should glorify him in all things, that we should love him with all our hearts and minds and strength and love our neighbor as ourselves. That is God’s plan for your life, so far as your responsibility is in view.

Reading: Philippians 1:6 - And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Prayers….

Title: God Has A Plan

God has plans. From the very beginning when He created this world, He had a plan. For day and night, heavens and earth, land and sea, sun and moon, birds and fish, animals and humans, He has always had a plan.

Just four verses into His Word in Genesis 1, we see that He likes His plan. He calls it good. Indeed, near the end of creation, He calls His plan very good.

His plan is good because of the purpose it will serve. It is good because of the hope it will give. It is good because of the lives it will save. But really, it is good simply because of the God who calls it so. Creation had only to be created for it to be called good.

But still, God has plans. He has them for you. He knew the span of your life before you were formed in your mother’s womb. He knows the hairs on your head, the thoughts in your mind, and the hours that you will live on this earth. He would not leave such attention to detail merely to chance. God has plans for you, and they are good.