(The following is the introduction to an essay I am writing on patiently letting God reveal his plans in our lives. The coming weeks will feature each section of the body of that essay.)
I tell you the truth, we speak of
what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not
accept our testimony. I have spoken to you
of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak
of heavenly things? No one has ever gone
into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the
desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him
may have eternal life.
For God so loved the world that he
gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but
have eternal life. For God did not send
his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through
him. Whoever believes in him is not
condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has
not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
John
3:11-18
This is God’s plan of
salvation. This is also sinful man’s
great difficulty: It does not make sense.
No human being would ever devise a
plan for saving the world from sin by punishing someone who never sinned, for the
sins of everyone who ever lived. God’s
plan of salvation is a plan no human being would have ever devised or even
imagined. It just does not make sense to
our sinful, limited thinking and understanding.
That is why God’s plan of salvation is the perfect place to begin the
conversation about how God’s ways are above our ways.
“For my thoughts are not your
thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As
the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and
my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)
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