God designed each moment of time and every particle of matter. He sees with perfect clarity that which is created and as yet uncreated, the visible and the unseen, what is and what will be. God understands all truth with perfect wisdom and in His perfect knowledge has determined the end from the beginning, has purposefully designed all of history, time and eternity.
God not only knows how history will unfold, it was God who determined the end and it is God who works all of history toward that end which He purposed from before the beginning. He is the God who works all things after the counsel of His will (Eph. 1:11). As the Psalmist said, The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart from generation to generation (Ps. 33:11).
God has purposed a kingdom coming, a world restored to Him, at peace with Him, a world where wickedness and violence are put away and the power of evil is broken; a world where children sleep securely and waken to a new day overflowing with the abundance of a merciful God; a world where Jesus, the righteous King, establishes His justice among the nations and the love of God rules in every heart; a world where the glory of God is exalted on earth as in heaven and the holy name of a holy God is worshipped as every knee bows and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord.
God’s kingdom purpose is ever before Him, it is the unseen force moving all of history. But much of what God does in history, He does through the lives of people who say yes to His kingdom grace and purpose established in their lives, who then surrender their lives as instruments of kingdom grace and purpose.
What God is looking for in Moscow, Beijing, New York, in your city or town is men and women in whose lives He can establish His purpose and through whose lives He can release His vision into history.
This inspires an awesome question.
If it is true that God has purposed a kingdom coming, if it is true that He releases His vision into history through people, then do we dare suppose that God has a vision for each of us, that each of us can fulfill some special part in the universal purpose of Almighty God?
Yes!
God purposed a child named Isaac.
Abraham and Sarah shared His purpose.
God purposed Israel’s exodus from Egyptian slavery.
Moses entered into God’s purpose.
God purposed Good News preached in Europe.
The Apostle Paul lived God’s purpose.
God has designed each of us to share in the unfolding of His vision of a kingdom coming. Each of us has a unique, God-ordained place in this. Reconciled to God through our Lord Jesus Christ, life becomes a journey into vision. As we commit ourselves to journey with our Lord, He glorifies Himself in recreating, restoring, renewing and transforming us into pilgrims who can enter in and fulfill His vision.
You may think you don’t qualify. You may think you have committed too many sins for God to ever use you, failed too many times. You may think you are not strong enough or smart enough for God to use you. But allow me to ask this question: Why is the Bible so filled with stories of people who failed?
Because those are the only people God can use.
The Bible is a travelogue, an amazingly honest journal of the journeys of pilgrims and sojourners who ran from God and followed God, who wrestled with Him and worshipped Him, who grieved Him and pleased Him, who were lost but then redeemed. The fact that they often lacked the resources to fulfill God’s purpose was not a problem for God. God can deal with insufficiency. The fact that they were immature, sinful and prone to failure was not a problem for God. God can deal with immaturity, sin and failure.
What mattered was their surrender. As they surrendered their lives to His Lordship, they embarked on a journey with God wherein He transformed them into men and women who were able to fulfill His glorious, eternal purpose in their generation.
Jacob stole the blessing God had purposed for him, fled his home and spent twenty years in a far country serving his unscrupulous Uncle Laban. Those were not wasted years. God used the time to change Jacob into a man who could enter the vision and live the blessing God had designed for him. The story of Jacob reveals the mercy of a God who transforms deceivers into princes.
Early on, Moses sensed the call of God to set his people free but took the matter into his own hands and committed murder. He fled for his life and after forty years of wilderness, heard the call of God. He replied, “I cannot.” He was correct. But then, transformed into a man who knew that he was not adequate and trusting in the adequacy of God, the Lord used him for the glorious purpose of releasing Israel from slavery.
If we are living and ministering while trusting in our own strength and resources, all our effort will avail nothing. The transforming journey begins when we come to the end of self and call on God with true humility and brokenness. Only when we realize our absolute dependence on God are we able to enter God’s highest purpose.
The transforming journey begins in the ruins of our mistakes and failures, a place of true repentance and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. It begins at the cross, where we trust in His atoning sacrifice on our behalf; where we learn to confess our sin and accept His forgiveness; where we learn to confess our lack and trust the fulness of His blessings and resources; where we learn to never look back as He leads us into the truest expression of His eternal design for our lives.
The transforming journey takes us to the place where we discover that there is no sin greater than God’s willingness to forgive, no poverty greater than His resource, no failure greater than His ability to redeem, no obstacle greater than His Almighty power. It is where we realize that nothing can prevent Jesus Christ from releasing us into His vision and purpose, if we will continually lean upon Him in repentance and faith.
The transforming journey strips us of everything in which we put our trust, other than God Himself. It strips us of our need for acceptance, approval, success, recognition. It brings us to the place where we have no rights to defend, nothing to stand on or hold onto of our own ambition; the place where we are totally dependent on God and seeking His glory alone.
The God of the journey waited until Abraham and Sarah lost their natural ability to produce children. When there was nothing left of the man or woman who could possibly have fulfilled God’s purpose, only then did God bring about the conception and birth of Isaac.
Their journey was not wasted time. Rather, it was a season of transformation toward the fulfilling of God’s gracious promise.
The God of the journey waited while Gideon’s army melted away to 300 men facing 135,000 enemy warriors. When nothing remained but a transformed Gideon and a small band of hopelessly outnumbered farmers who could not possibly fight and win in their own strength, then God gave victory.
Joseph’s years of servitude and imprisonment did not destroy or even delay God’s purpose in his life. His trials emptied him, matured him and prepared him for the fulfilling of God’s promise.
Our wise, merciful Lord has designed our lives to fit His vision of a kingdom coming. He allows the trials of our journey to empty us so He can fill and bless us. As we become absolutely convinced of our inability to fulfill His purpose, and as we more and more deeply surrender to His Lordship, we find our Lord graciously transforming us into men and women who can enter and live His glorious design.
Years ago, an anonymous poet wrote these words:
I sought the Lord and afterward I knew
He moved my soul to seek Him seeking me
It was not I that found, O Savior true
No, I was found of thee
You did reach forth Your hand and mine enfold
I walked and sank not on the storm-swept sea
It was not so much that I on Thee took hold
as Thou, dear Lord, on me
I find, I walk, I love but oh the whole
of love is but my answer Lord, to Thee
For you were long before hand with my soul
Always, you did love me
Have you entered the transforming journey?