God's Master Plan

Acts 1:12-14

This passage in Acts is a portion of the larger narrative in Acts 1:12-26 where the Scriptures inform us that the Apostles chose someone to replace Judas.  And I plan to discuss that in later posts, but the first few verses of this narrative caught my attention in a rather providential way.  I had been thinking of what I wanted to blog about in this passage and nothing really struck me, until, that is, I listened to the Sunday evening message at LMBC.  We had a guest speaker named Joyce Olver, who gave her testimony of how God had providentially protected her on the events of September 11, 2001.  She was a stewardess who was scheduled to be on Flight 11, the very one that crashed into the Twin Towers.  Her riveting testimony explained how God had a plan for her life and how He went to great lengths to show her this.  If she had not listened to God’s plan and went with her original plan, she would have died. 

As I thought about her testimony, I couldn’t help but reflect back to the book of Acts, particularly to the day after Jesus ascended up into the heaven.  The day of the ascension must have been an awesome and glorious day for the disciple to watch, a day that they would never forget!  But what about the day after?  The text says that went a Sabbath’s day journey (roughly a ½ a mile) back to Jerusalem per the instructions of Christ.  They were told by Christ to wait for the Holy Spirit to come and then they were to go out and be his witnesses to all the world (Acts 1:8).  But what if they chose to go out and be his witnesses before the Holy Spirit came upon them?  In other words, what if they chose to fulfill their commission without the power of the Holy Spirit?  Do you think it would have been successful?  I rather doubt it would have been; it probably would have been an utter failure.  Yet, why does this seem to be a growing phenomenon within the life of a Christian?

You see the simple fact of the matter is that it’s easier to do things our own way, and then enlist the power of God when we need it most.  Our western mindset of individualism often influences our thinking more than we would like to admit.  We think that our methods are better, and we will let God take a break from helping us on this matter.  God is the first place we need to go; He is not a last resort!    We all know that this is not a new concept; the roots of this deception goes back to the Garden of Eden when Satan tempted Adam and Eve by saying, “there is a better way...”  Man has always wanted to control his own destiny, and if we were to survey history we would soon realize that it has caused immense and irreversible problems when man takes that destiny into his own hands.  God’s plan is far greater and better; his providence is leading us in the right direction, but are we listening to him?  It’s the simple truth of being “in Christ” that really puts us in our place.  When we become a believer, we are literally placed into the family of Christ.  Our identity is now wrapped up in who He is, not who we want to become.  Our last name is changed, we get new brothers and sisters, we now have a father who meets every need; and best of all, we will be moving someday!

God’s plan for our life needs to be our plan; rather that trying to change God’s plans into our plans.  Sometimes I wish that God would pull back the curtain and give me glimpse of my life and all I would do for him, but in the same breathe I think I would be terrified because I would not want to see how He gets me there.  God’s ways are far above our ways, but thank God He has a master plan He wants to work out in the life of every believer.  Your life is valuable to God and He has a plan for it!