A Preview of God’s Plan

Pastor Leon Aguilera

 ¹¹ For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.  ¹² Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you.  ¹³ And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. - Jeremiah 29:11-13

God has a plan for your life. He has some objectives for you. Even knowing those truths, it’s still easy to get stuck in the bottomless vortex of questions: Who am I supposed to marry? Where am I going to live? What am I going to do for work? It’s time to set aside the questions and get back to what God has said.

His plans for you are not so much about those specifics as they are about developing your character. Everything else will sort itself out.

God always has plans for the welfare and future of those who are His. He always has plans to give His children hope. Even in the middle of sad and sobering words of judgment, God poured out His heart for His people. He pointed them (and us) toward relationship. The circumstances He allows are designed to cause us to call upon Him. We’re always able to call, seek, and find Him because He wants us to call, seek, and find Him!

When God says, “I know the thoughts that I think toward you,” His words are a great comfort. But wouldn’t you love to get a look at those plans? The tension isn’t, “Does God know?” The tension is, “I want to know!” Although God understands our questions, He doesn’t owe us any answers. It’s as if He says, “I know, but I’m not going to fill you in . . . yet.”

He does give us hints, however. God provides us with some general categories that describe His purposes. First, they are thoughts of peace. The Hebrew word is shalom, meaning “the complete state of well-being; fulfillment; prosperity; peace.” As God looks down the telescope of time, His plans are for your total well-being.

Second, His designs for you are not of evil. People who are determined to prove they can live contrary to God’s program will pay a price for their experiment. God’s plans take us away from evil; ours tend to take us smack into the middle of it.

Third, God’s plans are designed, to give you an expected end, that is a future and a hope, both immediately and eternally. The biblical definition of hope is a confident expectation of something better tomorrow. When your hope is in God, He’ll always deliver. It doesn’t matter what has happened, better things are coming. That's hope! You can be confident He has good plans for you.

Living Life On Purpose

^{Leon Aguilera}

¹⁰ Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. ¹¹ And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. ¹² The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. ¹³ Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. ¹⁴ But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.

Is life really that meaningless? Are we here simply to pass time and take up space? No way! God has much more in mind for each of His children. In Romans 13:10-14, the apostle Paul gives three admonitions that move us in the right direction.

First, we must WAKE UP. Look at verse 11. Have you ever slept through your alarm in the morning and awakened too late for work or school? Well, in a spiritual sense, this is the exact situation that Paul is calling us to avoid. Our ultimate salvation—that moment when we meet Christ, either at His return or in our death—is drawing closer, moment by moment. And yet, many believers are “sleeping in,” so to speak. Are you in this group?  Are you taking a long nap when you should be taking hold of the Lord?  If so, I exhort you to WAKE UP.

Second, Paul tells us to CLEAN UP. Look at verses 12-13. Christ is returning soon to forever rid this world of sin, but we should live as though that day were already here. How? By stripping off the “works of darkness”—improper pursuit of fulfillment, sexual sin, and relational sin are mentioned here—and instead, suiting up for battle in the armor of God’s light (see Ephesians 6:10-17). Are you taking off your dirty, smelly clothes each day and replacing them with a fresh, new battle uniform? Or are you still soiled and impure before the Lord? God is instructing you to CLEAN UP.

Third, in verse 14 we are called to GROW UP. I don’t know about you, but I was a fairly mischievous kid. Sadly, many of us need this reminder spiritually. We must not even consider how we can satisfy our sinful cravings—in other words, we must make no allowances for failure. He must be in charge of every aspect of our lives. Does this describe you? Are you deliberately and consciously avoiding every opportunity for your flesh to fail? Are you growing in submission to Christ’s authority over your life? God wants you to GROW UP.

Let’s get serious about spiritual maturity! Don’t settle for less than God’s very best in your life. Don’t just pass time and take up space. It’s time to WAKE UP, CLEAN UP, and GROW UP for the glory of God.

The Way Seems Right

Pastor Leon Aguilera

Wisdom from Proverbs:

“There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” 16:25

 Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil. 3:7

Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established. 4:26

When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him. 16:7

A man's heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps.16:9

Not a day goes by that you and we don’t make decisions that turn the direction of our lives. We base some of our choices on what we know for sure; others are judgment calls. Proverbs 16:25 has a built-in alarm system that warns us, “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” When you base your decisions on what seems right to you, flags should fly up all around when you read this verse. Its caution is so specific and so current that we need to take every word seriously.

Notice, “There is a way . . .” not there was a way. This warning is not leftover from when you were in high school. Nor is it talking about your future. This flag is for your life today, wherever you are. If you’re 25 or 45 or 65, there is a way that seems like the way to go and you’re looking right at it.
“There is a way that seemeth right unto a man . . . ” Are you pondering a decision, maybe even taken several steps in a certain direction, that just feels like the right decision because it’s smooth and sunny and fun and fast? Make no mistake about it, most likely it is the wrong way.

Remember when Jonah ran from God? He went down to Joppa and found a boat waiting in the harbor that took him in the opposite direction from where God told him to go. It must be right; the boat was just waiting there for me. Listen, Satan can put a lot of wrong ways right in front of the person who is willing to consider it. You’ve got to go find the right way. The wrong way will usually come after you.

The problem is that all of this only “seemeth right unto a man …” because our minds are darkened by sin, our hearts are impatient for pleasure, and our wills are weighed down with the old nature and the inclination to sin. Don’t trust what seems right to you—that’s leaning on your own understanding. Proverbs 3:6 says, “In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths..” Trust God with everything you’ve got, ask Him for wisdom, and He will make the path of your life plain and straight. He’ll make it so you don’t have to waste a lot of time going down roads that just seem right but paths that you know are right in God’s eyes.