This morning we continue our series entitled, “Power of Fellowship.” For the last few messages I taught on divine impulses. My point was that the Holy Spirit will give you spiritual “nudges” that are designed to help usher you down the road to your destiny. The underlying point being that God already mapped out your life and He is looking for you to become what He already planned. While I believe this is very clear in scripture, not every believer seems to be at peace with the fact that God preplanned their life before the world began. So this morning we will take a look at a few scriptures that drive this point home.
So what does this mean to you today? A few things.
1. God sanctified you and set you apart before you were formed in your mother’s womb. Jeremiah 1:5 says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. Before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you and ordained you to be a prophet to the nations.” God knew you before you were born, He set you apart for your purpose, and He had an ordination service, in heaven, to ordain you for your specific assignment before you ever took one breath. So you can never be a success, in God’s eyes, until you become what He planned.
2. Your life was mapped out by God before you were born. Psalm 139:16 says, “Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days of my life were ordained for me; written in your book before one of them came to be.” God wrote your biography before you were born. Not an autobiography, because you did not write it. This was a biography, written by God Himself, before you ever lived one day. Your life, now, is actually a journey of attempting to become what He wrote.
3. God chose you and blessed you before the world was made. Everything you need to become the man/woman you are destined to be is already stored up for you. This is what the Bible says in Ephesians 1:3-5 says, “In Christ, God has given us every spiritual blessing in heaven. In Christ, he chose us before the world was made… And before the world was made, God decided to make us his own children through Jesus Christ. This was what God wanted, and it pleased him to do it.”
4. God established your purpose and also gave you the grace to complete it before the world began. 2 Timothy 1:9 says, “For God saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus before the world began.” You did not earn your calling. It had nothing to do with your performance. You were saved and called by grace. This was all for God’s purpose. A purpose and grace He established in Christ Jesus before the world began.
5. You were saved by God’s grace, not your works. And you were saved by God’s grace so you could spend the rest of your life doing the works God already planned for you to do. This is what the Bible says in Ephesians 2:8-10, “I mean that you have been saved by grace because you believed. You did not save yourselves; it was a gift from God. You are not saved by the things you have done, so there is nothing to boast about. God has made us what we are. In Christ Jesus, God made us new people so that we would spend our lives doing the good things he had already planned for us to do.” If you are saved right now, it is because you received the goodness of God. You were not saved by works. You were saved by Grace. But now that you are saved, there are specific works God has ordained for you to perform while you are in the earth. The purpose of fellowshipping with God is to find out what those works are. The more you walk with God and talk to Him, the more He will reveal to you what He already planned for your life. Your life, then, becomes a journey of discovery. You are discovering what God already planned and you are becoming the man/woman you are already ordained to be!
6. You are not saved BY works. But you are saved FOR works (Eph 2:10). So it is time to GET TO WORK by the GRACE of God!
7. God already planned your life. You will never be truly happy or satisfied until you become the man/woman God planned from the foundations of the world! This is why you must spend time with God in fellowship. This is how your discover what God already decided.
Declaration of Faith:
Father, You planned for my arrival. All the days of my life were mapped out before I ever took one breath. I am not a mistake. I am called and destined to a specific purpose. I declare, by faith, that I FIND, FOLLOW and FINISH my purpose before I die. I will arrive at Your overall expected end for my life. I will accomplish all I was born to accomplish while I am in the land of the living. I will become the man/woman You destined me to be. I will leave a mark in this world that will not easily be erased. I will do this by Your amazing grace. I declare this by faith. In Jesus’ name, Amen!
This is Today’s Word. Apply it and prosper!
