House Church Talk - God has a plan

[goodword at bresnan.net]

To be a believer in Jesus Christ is to believe in the God who holds all things 
together in this universe.  

We believe in the God who has all things under His own control.  He permits 
evil to run a certain course, but has also provided a plan to rid all creation 
of that evil, and to redeem all who have called on Him for help and mercy.

God loved the people of earth enough to give up His own beloved Son, so that 
anyone at all who believes in Him will have not perish but will have life 
forever.  God did not send His Son into the world to condemn us but to save the 
world.  Whoever believes in Him will not be condemned, and whoever does not 
believe is already condemned because they've not yet trusted in the name of 
Jesus Christ.

In fact there is absolutely no other name under heaven that has been given to 
anyone whereby a human being may be saved.  

To believe in Jesus Christ is to believe in the God who loves all people, and 
to trust in the Judge who provides us with a way out of judgment.  Jesus Christ 
came down to us knowing full well that we would soon reject Him and kill Him.  
He came down to us not to enjoy the pleasures of this world, or the happiness 
of mortal existence as a human being, but to become one of us in order to save 
us all -- whoever should trust in Him.  And He was soon rejected, after only a 
few years of public teaching and healing.  We put Him to death, just as He knew 
we would.

But He did not struggle against that death or fight to preserve His own life.  
He laid down His perfect, sinless life, and endured the shame, the mockery, the 
agony and the dying itself in order to pay for our sin, to bear it away, and to 
make a way for everyone who trusts in God.  We may argue about theological 
details and the meanings of words, but no one who trusts in God can argue away 
what Jesus has done for us.

He suffered under the wrath of God for the sinners who populate this weary 
planet.  He bore our sins in His own body on the cross.  He died a sacrificial 
death as an unblemished lamb provided by God in our stead.  And the death of 
Jesus Christ on the cross took away our sins once and for all time.  Whoever 
trusts in Him becomes eternally blameless, above all reproach, for there is no 
more sin to be imputed to them.

To be a believer in Jesus Christ is to believe that God has a plan, a very 
great plan.  We believe in the God who knows all things, and who prepares all 
things, and makes all things work together for the good of those who belong to 
Him.  He has a plan for every human life on this earth, and His plan unfolds 
each day without interruption.  We are either a part of God's plan for the 
damned, the condemned, those who do not trust in Jesus Christ, or we're part of 
God's plan for the redeemed, those who are blessed forever, those who will live 
in the very Presence and joy of God for all eternity.

God has a plan for my life and for your life.  If we trust in Jesus Christ the 
plan of God is to one day perfect us in every way.  We will be perfectly 
blessed with joy, with perfect health, with perfect knowledge and wisdom, with 
perfect hearts and minds forever.  We walk today learning how to be holy, but 
one day we will be complete, made perfect in holiness.  We learn obedience 
today by the things we endure, and we learn faith by trusting God in every kind 
of difficulty and testing.  But one day we will awaken to a perfect faith, 
knowing without any reservations that God is truly and infinitely righteous, 
good, and fair.

Today we may have many questions hard to answer -- maybe impossible to answer --
 as pilgrims walking this earth.  But one day we will know as now we are known 
by the Lord.  We will understand all things then, and our strange pathway in 
this life will all make perfect sense.  That age will know and understand this 
age, but this age can only look to that age with hope & expectation in faith.  
Someday that which is perfect will overtake all that still lacks perfection 
today.

God has been faithful in every age to do whatever He has promised to do.  He 
has unfolded His plan in wonderful ways, showing His love for human beings, His 
great grace, and His unfailing mercies to everyone who turns to Him in faith.  
The Lord rejects no one who dares to hope in His mercy and goodness.  The Lord 
delights to forgive, and to wash clean, and to make right.  And He will one day 
make all things right forever.

In the same way that Jesus walked along, from town to town, making right anyone 
who was willing to be touched by Him, so also God will make all of heaven and 
earth right before Him forever.  And there will be no more sin, no more 
weakness, no more fear, no more sickness, no more hunger or suffering of any 
kind.  The children who died unloved in this generation and in the evil 
generations before us will rest in the very arms of God Himself, for He is a 
true Father to the fatherless, and He is the Protector and Provider of widows 
and orphans.

To believe in Jesus is to know the God who never forgets anything except the 
sins that have been confessed to Him and rejected by the sinner.  Whoever loves 
their sin will partake of the fruit of that sin, but whoever hates evil and 
loves God will be filled with righteousness, sealed in mercy and kept forever 
by the God of our salvation.  The Lord will not remember their sins on the day 
when they appear before Him, but He will reward them for the grace of God that 
has worked in them and through them.

King David and a host of others has rejoiced, saying, "God is the Rock of my 
salvation!"   And the Lord truly is the high and solid rock of safety for all 
who trust in Jesus.  The Lord keeps all who are His, and provides for their 
every need.  And whatever they have lacked in this life is made up for, a 
thousand million fold, in the life (that true and endless life) which is yet to 
come.

A day dawns soon.  It is the day of eternity, the day without end, the day that 
has no setting sun or scorching heat ever again.  Already the eastern sky grows 
brighter.  Already I hear music that is not of this world.  Soon, my brothers 
and sisters, very soon we will see the Light of God face to face.  We will 
behold with our eyes -- our own eyes! -- the perfect Lamb of God that has taken 
away the sins of the world.  In the dawning of that day we will finally walk on 
streets made of a gold that we've only imagined before.  At long last we will 
understand angels, and heaven, and eternity, and all things.  We will behold 
the stars and galaxies -- and every universe there is anywhere -- from a 
different vantage point.

To believe in Jesus Christ is to have a hold on a sure hope.  And that hope is 
a little different for each believer, for we tend to shape our hopes according 
to the difficulties we endure right now.  All God's children have shoes.  No 
more aches and pain.  No more separation from loved ones who've gone on before 
us.  No more suffering or evil.  

But the one hope we all possess is the certainty of being with Jesus.  For He 
said, "I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for 
you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; so that where I am, there you 
may be also."  (see John's Gospel, chapter 14).

Wherever Jesus is today, at the right hand of the Father, and seated with Him 
in the heavenlies, is where we will also be forever.  The Lord Jesus will 
return for us all, whoever has this hope in Him, and He will takes us to the 
place that is prepared for us.

God has a rich and wonderful plan.  Never forget that His plan is much, much 
bigger than whatever we may face today.  And He will bring His plan to a 
perfect completion.  As the Lord told Israel through Moses, "If any of you are 
driven out to the farthest parts under heaven, from there the LORD your God 
will gather you, and from there He will bring you."  (from Deuteronomy, chap 30)

David wrote this, "The LORD redeems the soul of His servants, and none of those 
who trust in Him shall be condemned."  (from Psalm 34)

The many promises of God are recorded in Scripture -- in the Bible -- and much 
of His great plan is revealed there also.  As we read in faith the pages of 
Holy Scripture our hearts are renewed in hope.  Whoever believes in Jesus has 
many wonderful treasures prepared for them in the pages of the Bible.  We do 
well to give it our full attention.

This is the last day of 2003, and as I look ahead to 2004, I have no idea what 
to expect.  I have hopes and some plans of my own.  I have some goals and some 
deadlines to meet.  But in all things, I know one this single truth:  God 
Himself has a plan for me.  And in that perfect planning of God is my joy and 
my ultimate victory.  I know this because Jesus has already come down to this 
earth, and has already died for me, and has already risen from the dead.  He 
has ascended back into heaven and is now at the Father's right hand.  And He 
sent a message by His servants to say that He is coming again soon.  

Everything is on track.

Who knows?  This could be the dawning of that great day.

Jim