Revealing God’s Plan For Your Life
God’s plan for you is to know him. Here are five meaningful thoughts on this:
1) God doesn’t want to use you. He wants to know you.
For many years of my Christian walk, I’ve prayed, “God use me.” It came from a sincere heart to make a difference, but I missed a significant truth about God.
God doesn’t want to use you.
Imagine any relationship where the one party’s goal was to use the other person. That may be the epitome of a dysfunctional relationship.
God wants to know you, and he wants you to know him. Out of that relationship, he invites you to partner with him and participate in his purpose for your life.
2) Christ crucified reveals the level of humility, submission, and obedience Jesus displayed that should not be ignored.
There is a temptation for people to downplay Jesus as their BFF or as a good moral teacher who gave successful principles to live by. Or they see Jesus as too controversial with a message that has a cost too difficult to follow.
The apostle Paul was determined to know nothing except Christ and him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2).
If you minimize Jesus to anything less, it’s easy to miss him, ignore him, or walk away from him (watch the latest message to learn more about the importance of Christ crucified).
3) “Everything is worthless,” the apostle Paul said. “compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8).
Paul considered his list of accomplishments as garbage compared to knowing Christ. And his list was impressive:
– He was highly educated in theology and philosophy.
– He understood Jewish law as well as Roman law. Most likely, he had the entire Old Testament memorized.
– He learned the skill of communication and the art of persuasion to debate the greatest thinkers of the first century in the public square.
– He established relationships with the political leaders to share the message of Jesus with them.
– In addition to all that, he owned a thriving tent-making business. He used it to cover his expenses and the expenses of those who traveled with him so that he wouldn’t be a financial burden to anyone, and so no one could question his motives.
And yet, he recognized his greatest accomplishments paled in comparison to knowing Jesus. This challenges me to follow his example.
4) Most humans have a starting assumption about the importance of their opinions.
Human instinct tells us that our opinions are the most important and accurate and should be shared.
Transformation occurs when you can say, “Here’s what I think about a topic, but my opinion doesn’t matter. What does God’s Word say about it?”
Transformation occurs when you can respond to another person’s opinion with the thought, “That’s an interesting perspective, but I wonder what God’s Word says about it?”
I resonate with Francis Chan, who said, “I will believe what God’s Word says over what someone thought of last week.”
Here’s how to use God’s Word to fight off common lies and replace them with truth.
5) You can’t have the message of resurrection without the message of the cross.
The message of the cross reveals God’s plan for us to know him. He chooses the things that look foolish and weak to humble those who think they are wise and strong.
On the other side of the sacrifice of Jesus is an invitation for salvation.
“God has united you with Christ Jesus,” Paul said. “For our benefit, God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; he made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin” (1 Corinthians 1:30).
Through Christ, God made a way for you to know him, his wisdom and power, and how much he loves you.
My prayer is that you are determined to know Christ and him crucified because he will transform your life.