In Matthew 6:9-15, Jesus gave the disciples a pattern to follow in prayer; thus, the disciples (and people today), utter the words but seldom understand how this prayer pattern relates to the church, the body of Christ, and how it places us in a frame of mind for total surrender to the Lord Christ’s (Colossians 3:23-24) plan, purpose, and timing, for it is He who now reigns, and will continue to reign unto all His enemies are placed under His feet (Ephesians 1:15-23, 1 Corinthians 15:20-28).
Every created human being will, at the designated time, become totally submissive to Lord Christ, and bow before Him for either His “Well done” or “Depart from Me” (Matthew 25:31-46).
We know and can quote Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, yet we fail to grasp the fullness of verse one that says, 1 To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven: 2 A time to be born, and a time to die.
If we understood every tiny detail of life was preplanned, with a specific purpose, and a predetermined time to start and stop, we would continuously relax in our total trust in God, knowing everything we go through was predesignated for our good, and is a teaching process to bring us to Christ or strengthen our relationship with Him (Galatians 3:19-25, 1 Corinthians 6:17).
Everything in this life is predesigned to either bring us closer to an active, loving, and dependent relationship with Christ, through faith in Him, or to despise Christ, His body, the church that includes both Jews and Gentiles—everything in life has a predetermined purpose; and thus, part of His divine plan and timing.
Some call the things that happen in our daily living, “setbacks, distractions, problems, tests, poor or good choices, the results of aging, or birth defects”, yet in God’s plan devised before time began (Ephesians 1:3-14), they each have a divine purpose, so thank Him for them when they come.
In this life, I have faced paralyses and had to relearn how to walk; faced death while in ICU and under hospice care, but death was on vacation and never came, but I had to relearn how to eat, drink, and enunciate words; thus, since doctors finally saw I might live, they gave me drugs to forget what I had gone through; therefore, I had to relearn all I knew about God from the Scriptures, but through faith, prayer, and Bible study, most of my scriptural memorization has returned (2 Timothy 1:7), as my faithful God reveals scriptural facts to me, to pass along to others, and might someday allow me to return to a pastoral position, since I now have this second heart valve.
Even God, in His plan, purpose, and timing, came to earth as a Baby called Jesus, and thus, experienced every predetermined purpose for everything all humanity encounter, and He did it without sinning or criticizing His preplanned, purpose, and timing for everything about Him while here on earth, even the cruel death of being nailed to a cross. Yes, He preplanned everything He went through, for there was a preplanned purpose and timing for everything about His earthly life, for Hebrews 5:8-11 reveals, Lord Jesus learned obedience by the preplanned things He suffered.
In our mind, we preplan our life, yet what we preplan never seems to happen the way Christ Jesus’ preplanned life did; therefore, we should obey His command in Matthew 11:25-30, where in verse 29 He says, “Learn from Me”, and Ephesians 5:1 commands us to live the way God lives.
Jim Nabors
