God Has a Plan For You

If you’re listening closely enough you”ll hear it said from time to time that God has a plan for you. What is meant is that God has a plan for your life. Specifically, the person saying this means that whether you should or should not go to college, what job you should pursue, the person you should marry, and other issues have already been decided for you by God. He has a plan for your life.

God definitely has been all about plans since before the world began. Paul points out in Ephesians 1:4 that God had a plan for those that would follow Him before the foundations of the world. In Ephesians 3 :4–5 Paul elaborates that God’s plan was kept from mankind in years past. Paul calls it a mystery, but says that now that mystery, God’s plan, has been revealed.

In the Trying to Walk article, “What Do Mt. Sinai and the Cross Have In Common?,” and in the article, “1+1+1=1,” this eternal purpose, or eternal plan, of God’s is dealt with in more detail than you’ll find here. But in brief, God’s “mysterious” plan is as follows. Man was given the ability to make his own choices of what to believe, how to think, and how to act, with it being God’s intention that man would choose to love God and act out of that love. Of course, God knew that with the ability to make his own choices, man would sometimes make bad, even evil, choices.

Since sinful mankind cannot exist in God’s presence, Jesus Christ, the perfect, sinless, son of God would give His life on the cross as a blood sacrifice for sin, and by “obeying,” not simply accepting, that pattern, Romans 6:3-4,17-18, mankind can be redeemed and made pure and righteous and therefore acceptable to live with God eternally.

But mankind was not ready to receive Christ’s sacrifice immediately. In the wisdom of God there were different periods of interaction that He would have with man before that time would come. That is why, as Paul tells us in Ephesians (above), that God kept the fullness of His plan a mystery until such a time as He was ready to reveal it, Galatians 4:4.

Until that time came, God led his people through two other time periods, or dispensations. The first is called the Patriarchal Dispensation because it was a period of time in which God spoke to the heads of families, or clans, and revealed His will for them in this manner. This period was the one guiding the events of Genesis and lasted until Mt. Sinai. Nations were not part of the landscape during this time period.

At Mt. Sinai, God introduced His people, the descendants of Israel, or Jacob, to a formal religion, often called the law of Moses, later known as the Old Law, hence the Old Testament. He gave His people the land of Canaan, the “promised land,” and they became a nation in a world of nations. This period is known as the Mosaical dispensation and was in existence when Jesus was born into the world and throughout his entire earthly ministry.

Galatians 4:4 was mentioned above. I hope you read it, and that you read all the scriptures that are mentioned here. But before Paul got to chapter 4, he had to work his way through chapter 3. The epistle to the Galatians was written to a church that was having a problem with wanting to hold on to the “Old Law” instead of giving it up to follow Christ according to the “New Will,” or those teachings which would become codified in the New Testament.

In most of the first three chapters of Galatians, but especially in Gal. 3:22-29, Paul points out how the Old Law (of Moses) was part of God’s plan to bring us to the point at which God was ready to reveal the new will of Christ. He continues making this argument into chapter 4 and then in Gal. 4:4, Paul specifically states that in the fullness of time God sent Jesus into the world to redeem it and to bring the followers of the old law, referred to as bond servants (slaves,) into followers of His new law, referred to as adopted children. This is known as the Christian Dispensation and is the final age, the “fullness of time.”

Since we are living in the “fullness of time,” God’s plan for your life is found in the New Testament and is more specific. However, it is not as specific as some would have you believe. God’s plan for your life is all about your eternal and spiritual salvation, not your temporary and physical life.

God wants you to be in the church that Jesus built, Matt. 16:18. This is where those God is saving are found, Acts 2:41,47. God’s plan requires that you believe in Him, Hebrews 11:6, “without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” You will be unacceptable to God if you don’t believe in Him. See also John 8:24 and Acts 8:37. Belief is not the only requirement that God has for you as part of His plan.

God also requires that you repent, or turn from a life without God, a life of sin, to a life that is dedicated to Him. Luke 13:3,5, “I tell you nay; but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” When the assembled crowd on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2:37-38 believed Peter’s words and interrupted him asking what they needed to do [to be saved since they had crucified God’s only son] the first thing he told them was to repent.

God’s plan also requires that you confess Jesus as God’s son. Rom. 10:9-10 , “If thou shalt confess with the mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved . . . With the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

Jesus said as much in Matt. 10:32, “Every one therefore who shall confess me before men, him will I also confess before my Father who is in Heaven.”

Baptism, immersion in water, is also a part of God’s plan for your life. The second thing Peter told the crowd to do in Acts 2:38 was to “be baptized, calling upon the name of the Lord.” He pointed out the connection between baptism and the remission of sins. It’s important to know how we can get rid of the burden of sin, because that is what is keeping us out of Heaven and away from God’s presence. In Act 22:16, Ananias also told Paul that he should be baptized and get his sins washed away. In a section of the Bible we mentioned earlier, Galatians 3:27, Paul says that it is when a person is baptized that they get into Christ and they put on Christ.

Peter talks about baptism in 1 Peter 3:21. There he points out that being baptized is similar to Noah and his family being in the ark. Notice that he does not say Noah’s family was saved from the water of the flood by the ark. He says that they were saved by the water from the sin of the world. We are saved from our sins by participating in baptism. It’s true there is nothing magical about the water and the baptism in a physical sense. As Peter says, it is a saving mechanism through God’s plan because out of a good conscience we have done what God asked us to do.

The most all encompassing thing that God requires as His plan for your life is steadfast commitment to following His will above all else. Back in Acts 2 again, this time in verses 41-47. The ones that were baptized were added to the apostles number and they continued steadfast in the apostles’ teaching. Read on through the end of the chapter to see their behavior.

There are many areas throughout the New Testament where God’s will for our righteous behavior and avoidance of evil are explicitly taught. This is a never ending quest for the follower of God. We also must remain true to God’s will for our conduct as a group of believers. Jesus says that many who thought (and seemed) to be living exemplary lives will not be accepted into Heaven because they did not do what God in Heaven expressly made clear was His will (His plan) for His followers to do.

Matthew 7:21-23, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in Heaven. Many will say to me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in thy name, . . . and by thy name do many mighty works?’ And then I will profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me ye that work iniquity.”

There you have God’s plan for your life. Do the things that are necessary to become a member of His family, and remain faithful to Him in that family throughout your life. That’s His whole plan for your life.

What about who you should marry? What about what job you should have? What about many other specific choices you have to make? Those are things that God has left up to you. He does care about who you marry to the extent that He wants you to choose someone whose presence in your life pulls you closer to the Godly life God wants for you and not further away from Him. The same thing is true of your college, or whether you go to college. The same thing is true of your job selection.

Make choices that help you grow closer to God. Beyond that, there is nothing in the Bible that indicates that God is working your life out for you behind the scenes. Yes, He did do some specific things in regard to some specific people, but it was for a specific reason related to the situation at the time.

There is no indication that God has an individual plan for every individual. What we have seen is that God has a specific plan that is the same for all people because He wants all people to have eternal life, John 3:16. He wants all people to be saved, John 3:17. And we have seen that even though He wants eternal life and salvation for all, He won’t save the people who don’t do His will, Matt. 7:21-23.

Does that sound harsh to human ears? It’s all that a just and loving God can do. If we end up in eternal perdition, it will be over Jesus’ dead body. God has done what He can do for us. The question we must seriously and honestly ask of ourselves is, “are we doing the will (following the plan) of the Father in Heaven? Or, are we doing things that we feel good about and thinking we are good with God without studying the Bible to find out what His will actually is?” How does your answer to that question stand up against the scrutiny of Biblical teaching?