God’s Plan

God’s Plan with Humanity

- His Kingdom -

The world seems to be quite chaotic in many ways. War, terrorism, political unrest, famine, disease, personal physical and emotional suffering, environmental pollution, global warming, natural disasters and the list goes on.

Does God not care or is He simply not there?

It makes no sense that this could be the original plan for humankind – born into a world with so much suffering. Has something gone wrong? Or just a mean and senseless fluke of evolution?

As humans, within set boundaries, we are free to make choices, to make decisions and they all have consequences, not only for our individual lives but also for the lives of the people around us. Does this perhaps have something to do with the chaos -  wrong choices, by individuals or collective decisions, complicating our own lives and the lives of others?

There is really only one thing in this world that alienates man from a better plan for this world. One thing that alienates man from the Creator of heaven and earth and makes the Creator a far off, unseen, distant or even a totally unknown God that seems not to care. And that one thing is wrong choices.

A simple but very important choice is to be obedient or to be disobedient.  And perhaps it is disobedience that drove man away from God and His original plan - driving a wedge between man and his Creator every day.

When wrong choices entered man’s heart at the beginning of time, he lost the reality of God in his life and became ‘a restless wanderer on earth, hidden from God’s presence’. Genesis 4: 12 & 14

‘The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness (wrong choices/disobedience) on earth had become … The LORD was grieved that He made man on the earth, and His heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth … - for I am grieved that I made them” Genesis 6: 5 - 7

But God is love and had compassion on man. He would save those who would come to Him.

‘The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love’.  ‘The LORD is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth’  ‘ … but all the wicked He will destroy’  Psalm 145: 8, 18, 20

‘Though He brings grief, He will show compassion, so great is His unfailing love. For He does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men’ Lamentations 3:32-3

In God’s plan with humanity, He called a man, Abraham, with one purpose only and that was to establish a way for man to come back to Him, to re-establish the broken relationship between man and God, man and his Creator. To establish a nation devoted to Him, a nation, a people that He would care for.

This is the central message of the Bible; God’s plan for humanity to reconcile with Him, the line from Abraham in the first book of the Bible to Christ in the New Testament and from Christ to us today - the golden line throughout history. In this story, we see the unbelievable faithfulness and love of the Living God. We see how God created a way for man to have a personal relationship with Him - For man to find purpose and peace, to live a life as God originally meant it to be.

After the flood, when God wanted to destroy everybody on the face of the earth because of their wickedness, saving only Noah and his family, Genesis 5-9, God came to Abraham and sent Him to a new land to establish a nation for Himself, a nation that would obey Him - God's Kingdom on earth – and Abraham obeyed. Genesis 12

'Abraham then had a vision and heard the LORD said to him…. “I will give you a great reward …. What good will a reward do me since I have no children (he asked)…Your son will be your heir.”  “Look at the sky and try to count the stars, you will have as many descendants as that….” Abram put his trust in the LORD ….  The LORD was pleased with him and accepted him. Genesis 15:1-6

“I will keep my promise to you and to your descendants in future as an everlasting covenant.” “I will be your God and the God of your descendants.” Genesis 17:7

In Genesis 17:1 we read ‘I am God Almighty: walk before Me and be blameless’ In other words, follow Me with all your heart. To receive God’s covenanted benefits, we must live out ‘the obedience that comes from faith'. Romans 1:5 Faith= completely trusting and believing God.

Through the centuries, Old and New Testament of the Bible, God would reiterate His covenant plan with Abraham’s descendants and we read in II Samuel 7:16 the Prophet Nathan’s message to David “You will always have descendants and I will make your kingdom last forever, your dynasty will never end” Through Christ, (through His atonement, our sin of disobedience/wrong choices are removed completely), we are descendants and heirs of this Kingdom of God.

“And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are heirs and all the promises God gave to him belong to you. “The Spirit testifies that we are children of God …. Heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ” Galatians 3:29.

So did God keep His original promise to Abraham? That He would bless him and his descendants and that they will be as many as the stars?

See God’s faithfulness;

• He has established an everlasting Kingdom. The Kingdom of God includes everyone from Abraham to every Christian today who believes God and is in a living relationship with Him. God has established a nation for Himself, people who love and serve Him.
•   Descendants as many as the stars in this nation called the Kingdom of God – a spiritual Kingdom of believers, ‘Jesus said" My Kingdom is not of this world”’ John 18:36

We must know that this Christian Kingdom is:

• The largest Kingdom in the history of the world with the most followers of any kingdom/country ever - currently approximately 2.5 billion Christian believers, (though part of His Kingdom only in name, only followers of the Christian religion) but a core of true children of God following Him with all their hearts in a deep personal relationship.
• And the Kingdom is growing – recent statistics quoted in Dutch Sheets’s book 'The River of God' p 72 – 73 ‘Christianity is the fastest growing movement in the world with a 6.9 percent growth rate, with people coming to Christ daily: China 28 000 per day, Africa 20 000 per day, Latin America 35 000 per day and in Iran more people have come to Christ in the last 10 years than in the previous 1000 years and in Saudi Arabia more than a 100 churches were planted during the Persian Gulf war.

Recent studies estimate that there are 114 people coming to Christ every minute throughout the world. And 44 000 new Christian churches are established every year.

Sadly the first world, the western world, is not in these statistics and the church is declining in the West. When all is going well and people’s immediate needs are met, the intense need for God wanes as it is filled with temporary gratification. God warned man many, many centuries ago in Deuteronomy 8:11 ‘Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God …. 12 … when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down …. 14 then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God… 17 You may say to yourself “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me” 18 But remember the LORD your God for it is He Who gives you the ability to produce wealth …. 19 If you forget the LORD your God, …. I (the LORD) testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed’

It is every individual’s decision to follow God or not. It is written in Deuteronomy 11: 26 ‘See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse 27 the blessing: if you obey the commands of the LORD your God, that I am giving you today.  28 the curse if you disobey the commandments of the LORD your God, and turn from the way that I command you today’

It is our choice to obey and live under God’s blessing or to choose to disobey and live under His curse. If the latter is our choice, we should not ask where God is in this chaos but except the self-created chaos in this world.

His heart is that everyone would turn to Him and live under His blessing, the blessing of purpose and peace in this life.

Faith (trusting God) Brings Joy

1 ‘Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith (by trusting Him), we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. 2 Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.  3 We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. 4 And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. 5 And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because He has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love.  6 When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. 7 Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. 8 But God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. 9 And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, He will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. 10 For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still His enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. 11 So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God’. Romans 5:1-11

If every individual would act in complete obedience to God all the time, this world will certainly be very different from what we see today.

MCMLV