Articles
God’s Eternal Plan…For My Week
“even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him”(Eph 1:4).
We are very familiar with planning. We sketch out our weeks (and months and years) with appointments and commitments. As we do so, we visualize the net impact of that week (busy or light?) and what preliminary steps are required to be prepared to fulfill our plans. So, when Paul teaches us that God chose us “before the foundation of the world,” the time is a bit too much for us, but the idea resonates.
What is startling is that God had specific plans for me long before I was born. He “chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him” (Eph 1:4, emphasis mine). He has a character in mind that he wants me to develop, and he is busy at work molding me into the man he wants me to be—holy and blameless.
“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them”(Eph 2:10). There are good works that God has been hoping for all eternity to see from me. God’s eternal plan is not simply a matter of sending Jesus and revealing the New Testament. It stretches out into every day of my life.
So God’s eternal plan for my week will involve unique opportunities to help and show love to others—this week. He has forever longed for me to make wise decisions when I am tempted—maintaining purity and growing in integrity—so that I may be “holy and blameless before him.” That will occur—or not occur—this week. As I plan my days, there is a bigger and more important plan unfolding. Am I living in his character? Am I preparing to please him and fulfill his will?
May God bless us in the coming week to live in the way he has been looking forward to for so long!
Mankind, in general, knows what is honorable in human behavior, but it should be the Christian who goes beyond this knowledge to conscientiously practice it, to the glory of God.
