God's Master Plan

God has always had a Master Plan, and that plan is glorious, generous, and gracious. It covers far more than people and angels. It includes the many other things He’s created. Today, though, I want us to visualize the portion of His Master Plan for humanity. It will help us see more about why we're here.

Creator God is fully sovereign. He has purposes and plans for every season of this life. But does He always get His way? No, by His sovereign choice, at one level He doesn't always get His way. But, in the big picture, He is getting His way. That sounds contradictory, but it’s not. Let me explain.

He wants people to freely choose to love Him. Because of that, in His sovereignty He deliberately gave everyone freedom of choice: freedom to choose Him or reject Him, freedom to choose or reject His cleansing, freedom to choose or reject His Lordship, freedom to choose or reject His Son, Jesus. If He hadn't given us that freedom of choice, we'd be little more than preprogrammed robots.

Freedom to choose is sometimes referred to as Agency. Giving us freedom of choice...agency...plays a key role in His Master Plan. He sovereignly chose to give us freedom of choice in this earthly life, knowing that some would make the right choice and some would not. But once you get past this earthly life, it’s too late to change the choices you made.   

Without question, He wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth before it’s too late. That’s His strong preference. 1 Timothy 2:4.

He wants everyone to repent, turn to Jesus and be transformed, set free from the contamination of sin in thought, word, and action. Yes, that's what He wants, but the people who reject Jesus are not getting that. Agency allows them to make that choice.

So, it's clear God doesn't get His preference with everyone or in every situation. Blame it on agency.

Here’s the rub: He has given us freedom of choice in this life...but He hasn't given us freedom from the consequences of those choices. His ultimate judgement will be inescapable. Hebrews 9:27.

We're all born with a basic sin nature, dead to God in our spirits. We're all hopelessly contaminated, beyond self-repair. The propensity to sin that we're all born with presents an inescapable dilemma, one we can't correct on our own. But God still wants us, as many of us as He can get.

So He gives a way out to everyone who wants it. That way is Jesus!

Jesus did something you can’t do for yourself. He paid ALL of your sin debt, for your past sins, your present sins, and even any future sins. 1 John 2:1&2, Hebrews 10:14. But you must be born again to take advantage of His payment.

Being born again is the kickoff to your personal Super Bowl of life. That is the first big milestone. That happens when you choose to turn your life over to Jesus and trust Him to forgive, cleanse and transform all that's corrupted in you. Taking that step puts you in right relationship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The very moment you are born again, your human spirit instantly goes from being dead without God to being alive in Jesus through the Holy Spirit. After that moment comes the rest of your earthly life, however long or short it may be, growing as a follower of Jesus.

For now, evil is still very active in this world, but be sure that Jesus Christ will, without a doubt, act in His own time, power and glory to finish overthrowing evil. For the time being, He is allowing this present age to continue because He still wants more people to turn to Him.

Let me go over that again. Everyone is born as a three part person: body, soul, and spirit. You are a three part person...body, soul, and spirit. Think of your physical body as your earth suit. It's what your soul and spirit wear while you're on this earth.

If you've been born again, your spirit has been made alive by and with the Holy Spirit. When your born-again spirit leaves your earth suit…that is, your physical body…behind, your physical body will die but you won’t. Your spirit will take your soul with it into the heavenly realm. As incredible an adventure as that will be, the path God has for you is just getting started. There's still much more to come.

The Bible speaks of many future earthly events. Among them will be the rise of the antichrist, the Rapture of Believers, the Tribulation, Jesus' Second Coming, the battle of Armageddon, Jesus' millennial reign, and one final battle. You can read about this and more in the Bible. Revelation Chapter 20 says a lot of it.

Those events will be followed by the resurrection of everyone who ever lived, both the just and the unjust, then final Judgement. Acts 24:15, John 5:29. Those who don't belong to Jesus will go to what the Bible calls the Second Death in the Lake of Fire, the ultimate version of Hell. Revelation 20:14-15. 

Here's the good news: those who have been born again aren't subject to the Second Death. These born again justified ones will move into the next phase of glorious eternity. The Bible tells us that it will be beyond immeasurably wonderful, beyond incredible, far beyond any joy and peace we can imagine here. It will be abundant life flooded with God's love and joy, flooded with His eternal Presence and flooded with His happiness.

From here, that sounds like sheer fantasy. But that so-called fantasy will actually be the ultimate reality. There, whatever temporary difficulty you've endured here will be as nothing.

The Lord Himself won't just be IN the atmosphere. He will BE the atmosphere. There will be no more death, no more pain, no more tears or sorrow. It's going to be very very good, beyond imagination very good.

Luke 15:7 tells us that having more people in His Kingdom to love is so important to God that there is more rejoicing over one new addition than over 99 righteous who are already "there".

The human portion of His Master Plan is to have as many people in heaven as possible. He wants more people to love, more people who have chosen Jesus, more people who have chosen to be transformed so that we can love Him back. The more the merrier. That pretty much sums up God’s Master Plan for humanity.