God's plans
Are Your Plans in Vain?
“This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14).
Many in the church today try to determine the nearness of Christ’s return by reading the signs of the times; for instance, the return of the Jews to Israel. Jesus clearly states that the end will come only after the gospel has been preached to all nations as a testimony.
When God Changes Your Plans
Good ideas are not always “God ideas.” We see this in the life of the apostle Paul: “Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia. After they had come to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them” (Acts 16:6-7).
Proverbs 19:21
Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.
A Call for Ordinary People
My heart sings with the thought that throughout scriptural history, when God wanted to do something profound, he often looked for the person who was the least able to make it happen. When he wanted to bring a prophet to the nation, he looked for a barren womb in a woman named Hannah. When he wanted to deliver his people from the hand of the Midianites, he appeared to Gideon — the least of his father’s house in the tribe of Manasseh.
Leaving My Regrets and My Successes
We are called to be a visible expression of who God is to our generation by letting God show His wisdom, power and grace through us. If we are going to honor Christ we must be fully yielded to His will to let Him guide us so that the “desires of Christ” in us might be fulfilled. As we simply behold the victory of Christ we will be enabled to let go of our regrets as well as our successes and we will be empowered to lay hold of God’s divine plan for our life.