Today we will continue our series entitled “God’s Grace & Our Faith.” We are looking at The Law given under Moses vs. the Grace provided by Jesus. Our primary scriptures are John 1:14 & 17.
(John 1:14 New International Version)
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
(John 1:17 New International Version)
For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
Yesterday I shared several things about our need to pray and act, even though God has already made plans. Today I will focus on how balancing God’s sovereignty with our responsibility keeps Jesus relevant in our lives.
So what does this mean to you today? A few things.
1. God has a picture of the future He wants for you.
Here are some basics things I have covered many times:
— God already made plans for you.
— God mapped out your life before you were born.
— It’s like God saw your entire life play out before Him, and He then rewound the tape and pressed “play” the day you were born.
The Bible says, “That which is has already been, and that which will be has already been, for God seeks what has passed by [so that history repeats itself]” (Ecc 3:15 AMP).
Solomon teaches us that everything that “is” today (everything you can see around you, everything going on in your life) has ALREADY BEEN. That’s already a lot to wrap your mind around, but if that were not enough, Solomon then tells us that everything that “will be” in our future (those things that have not happened yet) have also ALREADY BEEN!
— The text says that God is seeking that which has passed by (in eternity, in His realm, in His plans, in His mind) so that history (or HIS-story) can repeat itself in your life.
— The plans God made for you have already played themselves out in God’s mind, in eternity, and when He looks at your life today, He is looking for history (what He saw in His mind) to repeat itself on the earth.
2. When God looks at you today, He is looking for what He planned.
When God asked Adam, “Where are you?” It was not like God did not know where he was. What God was questioning was Adam’s decisions. God was saying, “Son, when I look at you, I want to see what I planned for you. That’s what I used to see. You and your wive were naked and unafriad. You were walking around in the Kingdom authority I gave you. You were ruling and dominating this planet, just like I planned. But now, look at you! You are naked, afraid, hiding, and cowering. WHERE ARE YOU SON? How did you allow yourself to get outside of my best?“
— Walking with God requires a continual state of dying to sin, self, and selfish desires, so you can remain in the center of God’s will.
— Walking with God requires a dedication to the plans God made for you before the world began, even when those plans require you to provide faith, grit, determination, perseverance, and a tireless desire to grow and develop.
— If you ever get outside of God’s will, be quick to repent, receive forgiveness, forgive yourself, and keep going. If you are still alive, God has not given up on you!
3. Living by faith effectivity requires the ability to receive revelation from the Holy Spirit because you need to know what God planned.
Faith is not about coming up with a laundry list of things you want and laying them out before God like He is Santa Claus. Faith is about discovering what God already planned for your life, what He already prepared for you by His unearned grace, and then making decisions that align with God’s plans. Spiritual perception is required to walk and live by faith.
— If you can’t SEE it, you don’t know what to ask for.
— If you can’t SEE it, you don’t know how to pray.
— If you can’t SEE it, you run the risk of pursuing something that is not yours.
— And frustration sets in when you repeatedly make a demand on God for something that is not yours to have.
— You cannot make God do what He did not already plan to do in your life.
4. When you live by faith and you continually seek God’s will over your own, you keep Jesus relevant.
— Faith peers into God’s realm (eternity), from our realm (time), and then comes back and makes decisions based on what was seen. That’s how we keep Jesus relevant in our lives.
— Faith is not about you pursuing whatever you come up with in your own mind. Faith is not about you telling God what to do. Now, you CAN do whatever you want. You CAN make whatever decisions you want and live with the consequences of them. But don’t call that faith. God has no part in things He was never part of.
— When you live life as the captain of your own ship, charting your own course and pursuing your own plans, God is not part of the picture. Unfortunately, many Christians live this way without acknowledging the fact that they have made God irrelevant in their lives.
— If you came up with the idea without God and then pursued it by your own power, and worked hard (by the sweat of your brow) to make it happen, then you are living a completely human life. You have made Jesus irrelevant to you. He is not part of your life at all.
— One of the reasons why God wants you to acknowledge the fact that He already made plans, and He wants you to do all you can to live by spiritual discernment, instinct, and the revelation of the plans, is because He wants to be relevant in your life. When people read your life’s story, God wants to be the STAR on every page. You were created to bring Him glory! But if you never involve Him in your life, people will have a hard time finding him in your biography because you basically made Him irrelevant.
— If you can “do life” without God, then you have made God irrelevant. God wants you to “do life” with Him. If you do, if you pursue the plans He made for you from the foundations of the world, God will be very relevant because His plans are so big that they require His involvement. God will call you to start projects you can’t fund, to lead projects you don’t have the experience for, to stand in rooms that terrify you, to walk into opportunities that are bigger than your wildest dreams, and to do things (to have great exploits in this world) that bring glory to His name! When you choose to “do life” with God, your life will be greater than anything you ever imagined.
— Everything I just said sounds great. But remember, this does not mean you will not face opposition. The devil will do all he can to get you to quit. The devil knows he cannot stop you. When God is ON you, IN you, WITH you, and FOR you, the devil can’t do a thing to you. But YOU CAN STOP YOU! What the devil does is attempt to get you frustrated. If you get frustrated to the point that you quit, then satan did not stop you; you stopped yourself. The only way you can lose is if you quit!
That’s enough for today.
Declaration of Faith:
Father, I thank You for teaching me about Your unearned and empowering grace and my requirement to live by faith.
To live by faith effectivity, You have given me the ability to SEE in the Spirit. You made plans for me before the world began, and Your Spirit reveals those plans to me.
I am born from above! Your Spirit lives IN me. I am no longer limited to operating as a mere man. I am a God-man.
You gave me Your Spirit so I could know the plans You made for me. Your Spirit speaks to me daily. I am able to peer into heaven, from the earth, so Your will can be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
You lead me to do things I cannot do without You. As a result, You are relevant in everything I do. Without You, I am nothing. But with You, I can do all things. This is how I know GREATER IS COMING FOR ME! I declare this by faith. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
This is Today’s Word! Apply it and Prosper.
