God’s Future Plan for You

PRAY OVER THIS

“Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.” Romans 8:30

 

PONDER THIS

If you have truly put your faith in Jesus, you can be sure of your eternal glorification. Following the progression of today’s verse, you might expect it to say, “those he will glorify” in the future. But it doesn’t say that. It says He already glorified—it’s a done deal. How is that? How can you be sure of your eternal glorification? Because God sees it as already done. God saw you from eternity. He saw you when you were lost. He saw you hearing the Gospel. He saw you getting saved, growing in Christ, and even already in Heaven. God sees it all. God is in eternity, and God sees you already there, seated at the blessed feet of Jesus, praising Him and giving Him glory. You can be confident in Jesus today because God has already seen you there.

How would your life change if you really believed God has already seen you in Heaven with Jesus?

What would you do differently on a day-to-day basis?

PRACTICE THIS

Today, envision the future of yourself with God, seeking to live each moment in accordance with that promised reality.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

The Seminary of Suffering

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

This is God’s universal purpose for all Christian suffering: more contentment in God and less reliance on self and the world. I have never heard anyone say, “The really deep lessons of life have come through times of ease and comfort.”

But I have heard strong saints say, “Every significant advance I have ever made in grasping the depths of God’s love and growing deep with him has come through suffering.”

The pearl of greatest price is the glory of Christ.

Thus, Paul stresses that in our sufferings the glory of Christ’s all-sufficient grace is magnified. If we rely on him in our calamity, and he sustains our “rejoicing in hope,” then he is shown to be the all-satisfying God of grace and strength that he is.

If we hold fast to him, “when all around our soul gives way,” then we show that he is more to be desired than all we have lost.

Christ said to the suffering apostle, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul responded to this: “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9–10).

So suffering clearly is designed by God not only as a way to wean Christians off of self and onto grace, but also as a way to spotlight that grace and make it shine. That is precisely what faith does: it magnifies Christ’s future grace.

The deep things of life in God are discovered and magnified in suffering.

John Piper 

Bible Study

Romans 8:37-39

[37] No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. [38] For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, [39] nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 4:23-25

[23] But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, [24] but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, [25] who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

John 3:16

[16] “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Romans 8:31-32

[31] What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? [32] He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

God Doesn’t Want Anyone to Go to Hell

PRAY OVER THIS

“For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.”

Romans 8:29

 

PONDER THIS

Some believe certain people are predestined to Hell and others are predestined to Heaven. But God doesn't predestine anybody to Hell, and He doesn’t want anybody to go to Hell. God wants everybody saved. First Timothy 2:3-4 says, “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth,” and 2 Peter 3:9 says, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is long suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”

Think of Matthew 21:1-11. Jesus was coming down off the Mount of Olives on the way to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and the crowd was saying, “Hail Him, hail Him, hosanna!” But He knew in just a few days He would face bloody Calvary and the same group that was saying, “Hail Him,” would be saying, “Nail Him.” At this moment, Jesus said with sorrow, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37). In His sorrow, Jesus expressed the reality that God does not wish for any to perish but for all to be saved.

What do you learn about God’s heart through the reminder that He doesn’t want anyone to perish?

How should God’s heart for people to be saved motivate us to share the Gospel with them?

PRACTICE THIS

Take time today to share the Good News with someone who God doesn’t want to see perish but desires to be saved.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

The Danger of Drifting

Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. (Hebrews 2:1)

We all know people that this has happened to. There is no urgency. No vigilance. No focused listening or considering or fixing of their eyes on Jesus. And the result has not been a standing still, but a drifting away.

That is the point here: there is no standing still. The life of this world is not a lake. It is a river. And it is flowing downward to destruction. If you do not listen earnestly to Jesus and consider him daily and fix your eyes on him hourly, then you will not stand still; you will go backward. You will float away from Christ.

Drifting is a deadly thing in the Christian life. And the remedy for it, according to Hebrews 2:1, is: Pay close attention to what you have heard. That is, consider what God is saying in his Son Jesus. Fix your eyes on what God is saying and doing in the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

This is not a hard swimming stroke to learn. The only thing that keeps us from swimming against sinful culture is not the difficulty of the stroke, but our sinful desire to go with the flow.

Let’s not complain that God has given us a hard job. Listen, consider, fix the eyes — this is not what you would call a hard job description. In fact, it is not a job description. It is a solemn invitation to be satisfied in Jesus so that we do not get lured downstream by deceitful desires.

If you are drifting today, one of the signs of hope that you are born again is that you feel pricked for this, and you feel a rising desire to turn your eyes on Jesus and consider him and listen to him in the days and months and years to come.

John Piper 

Bible Study

Hebrews 10:28-29

[28] Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. [29] How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?

Hebrews 12:25

[25] See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven.

Acts 5:32

[32] And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”

Hebrews 2:2-10

[2] For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, [3] how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, [4] while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

[5] For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. [6] It has been testified somewhere, 

    “What is man, that you are mindful of him,

        or the son of man, that you care for him? 

    [7] You made him for a little while lower than the angels;

        you have crowned him with glory and honor, 

    [8]     putting everything in subjection under his feet.”

    Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him.  [9] But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

[10] For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.

Was Anyone Created for Hell?

PRAY OVER THIS

For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.” Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.

Romans 9:17-18

 

PONDER THIS

God does not create people in order to damn them. God does not create people in order to destroy them. God is a God of love. Now, if you think that God wants some to go to Hell, consider this Scripture, 1 Timothy 2:4. It speaks of God, “who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

But you can harden your heart. The Bible warns against people being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Quoting Psalm 95:7-8, Hebrews 3:15 says, “Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” If you harden your heart against God, you will crystallize in your sin, and God’s judgment upon you will harden your heart even more. God hardened Pharaoh’s heart after Pharaoh first hardened his own heart against the Lord, and God destroyed Pharaoh. In the long suffering of God and the warnings God sent to Pharaoh, Pharaoh would not accept those warnings. And he was made an example of God’s wrath. Remember this: God is going to get glory with those in Heaven, and God is going to get glory by judgment in those who go to Hell.

How might you discern if you have hardened your heart against God?

Is this hardening always total or can it happen in various aspects of our lives?

PRACTICE THIS

Read through Romans 9 today, asking God to open your eyes to see anywhere you might have hardened your heart against Him. Ask Him to help you repent and draw near to Him.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers