“God has a plan for you.” When you read that, where does your mind go first? We might think of God’s personalized plan for our lives. We receive the prophet Jeremiah’s letter to the Jewish exiles as an individualized word from God applicable to our own education, careers, relationships, and health: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jer. 29:11). Alternatively, we might think of “God’s plan of salvation”. We recognize that we have all sinned, that our sin separates us from God, and that it will ultimately lead to death – but God has a plan (Rom. 3:21-26, 6:23). If we follow His plan, we will receive that blessed assurance of our soul’s rescue from eternal damnation.
Neither of these thoughts are wrong, but they do not fully encompass “God’s plan”, either. When the Apostle Paul explains God’s plan in Ephesians 1, it does include blessing us “in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” and hearing “the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation” (Eph. 1:3, 13). Yet God’s plan – made in love and started before the foundation of the world – is about much more than our personal happiness or individual salvation. The “redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses” which He lavished on us was for a purpose, “set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph. 1:7-10).
This is so different than the world’s way: it divides, labels, and individualizes. Not God’s plan. His purpose is not for me to be successful in my “work life”, happy in my “home life”, and then active in my “spiritual life.” It is to unite everything into an abundant life, where believing in Jesus and sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, my whole life is lived “to the praise of His glory” (Eph. 1:13-14). Then the love, joy, and peace we experience now is “the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it” when Jesus comes.
And not just you or me individually. God is adopting sons. His plan is to unite all things. While this means we allow Jesus to end our separation from Him caused by sin and to break down the barriers it causes within ourselves, it also means bridging the gap between each other. This is a major undertaking; but, as Paul shows through the rest of Ephesians, God has a plan.
Ready to learn from Jesus and His apostles how to be truly united? Check out our sermon series “That They May Be One”.