COD has a PLAN for YOUR LIFE
By Merrill F. Unger, Th.D ., Ph.D.*
“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10).
W HEREVER we look in the uni verse, we survey the glories of God’s handiwork and the unmis takable evidences of His plan and pur pose in all His mighty and manifold cre ation. The great Architect of the uni verse has plan and purpose in the sun and moon and each glittering orb in the starry vault of heaven. These heavenly bodies not only adorn the sky above but illuminate the earth beneath, and their courses are mapped out with minute and unerring accuracy. The Creator of the worlds has plan and purpose in the turbulent mountain stream splashing over precipitous rocks, in the thundering cataract roaring ma jestically in its mighty power, in the il limitable ocean to which He has said, “ Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed” (Job 38:11). He has plan and purpose in the tiny flower that is “ born to blush unseen and waste its fragrance on the desert air,” in the smallest insect that crawls upon the earth, in the lumbering beast that tramps the tropical jungle. He has plan and purpose in each grain of sand in the trackless wastes of the scorching Sahara, in each rainbow-tinted crystal of ice in the foreign fastness of the Northland. Everywhere we look in the physical sphere and in the lower creation we discover that God has plan and purpose for everything. Should we not find this fact abundantly more true in the life of * Professor of Old Testament Inter pretation, Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas, Texas.
man, who is the crown and goal of all creation and pre-eminently true in re deemed man restored in God’s image and retrieved for God’s service? Has God given heaven’s best to re deem us with no thought or end in view? Did Christ suffer and die with no pur pose for His redeemed children? Are we saved merely to continue to live a self- planned life? Surely not. Such a conclu sion would not only be contrary to rea son but to the clear revelation of the Scriptures themselves. God Has a Definite Plan for the Life of Every Child of His This encouraging truth shines like a gem on the pages of Holy Scripture and compelling reasons are indicated why God has such a plan or purpose for the life of every child of His. God Has a Definite Plan for the Life of Every Child of His Because We Are His Creation. He, the infinite Creator, “made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture” (Psa. 100:3). He, the almighty Potter, “formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Gen. 2:7). He possessed our reins; He covered us in our “mother’s womb.” We can say with the Psalmist: “ I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and won derfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my sub stance yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written,
which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. How precious are thy thoughts unto me, 0 God! how great is the sum of them. If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, 1 am still with thee” (Psa. 139:13-18). God Has a Definite Plan for the Life of Every Child of His Because We Are His New Creation in Christ Jesus. Al though the Creator took the dust of the ground and formed and shaped it into an exquisite product of His skill called “man,” the product of His creative wis dom was soon marred. Through Adam’s fall sin wrecked God’s handiwork. Through the first man, the representa tive of the race, sin passed upon the whole human family, so that the Apostle Paul declared, “ All have sinned” (Rom. 3:23). “ By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Rom. 5:12). The Psalmist, conscious of his depravity and that of the whole race, cried out lamentingly: “ Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psa. 51:5). But the Lord Jesus Christ, our Re deemer, by His atoning work on the cross, took the sin-scarred and broken vessel, man, and by His wisdom and redemptive grace made him over, as a skillful potter mends a shattered vase. “ Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are be come new” (2 Cor. 5:17). “ For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:10). God Has a Definite Plan for the Life Page Seven
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