God Has a Plan For You - Part 2

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Tuesday, February 20th. God has given every believer a definite role in His kingdom. Today, you'll learn more about the plan He has for you in the series on the will of God. Now, I realize it's hard for some people to realize that God has a plan for their life. And oftentimes people will say, well, I believe He could have had a plan for my life years and years ago, but now I'm at this age or that age or wherever it might be. And surely God certainly could not have any plan for my life.

But yes, He does. And I want us to see in this particular passage and throughout the Scriptures what He says about the fact that He has a personal will for your life and mine. And I want you to turn, if you will, to Hebrews chapter 10. I want us to read just a couple of verses of this 10th chapter. And the writer of Hebrews is writing to a group of people who are undergoing all kinds of difficulty and hardship and pain and suffering and probably being a little discouraged.

And so this is what he says. He says in verse thirty five, therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward, for you have need of endurance so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised. Now, when we think about God's plan and His perfect and His will, I want us to think about the categories in which we discuss now the will of God.

I want you to listen carefully because I want to ask you to give me these back. There are two general categories of the will of God. First of all, there is the category of God's moral will. The moral will of God relates to every single person. The moral will of God are those do's and don'ts that are so clearly given in Scripture.

If you took a concordance and looked up all the verses that have to do with the will of God or God's will, what you're going to come up with is you're going to come up with two primary categories. And that first category is God's moral will. Secondly, there is His personal will. Under His personal will, there are three categories I want you to jot down. Three categories under His personal will. The first of all is His intentional will. What do we mean by His intentional will? Simply this, what did He have in mind when He created you? What did He have in mind as far as your vocation, how your life would impact other people's lives and the kind of vocation you would have and where you would be schooled and who you would marry and your family and all of these things. You say, well, is God interested in that?

He's interested in every single aspect of it because, you see, He says, I will never leave you nor forsake you. He sent the Holy Spirit to live on the inside of us so that you and I will always have His presence to do what? To enable us to become and to achieve and to listen and to do whatever He calls us to do.

We said that two major categories, what are they? His moral will and His what? His personal will. Under His personal will, category number one is what? His intentional will. What did He have in mind when He created you?

Somebody says, well, but look, I'm 60 years of age, just trusted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior last week. How in the world has God got a will for my life? That brings me to the second category, which is God's circumstantial will. What do I mean by God's circumstantial will?

Simply this. That, listen, all of us at times in our life make mistakes. All of us sin against God. All of us blow it. All of us mess it up.

All of us lose opportunities. All of us disobey God at some point. All of us rebel against God in some fashion to some degree or the other.

So when we're talking about God's circumstantial will, here's what we're talking about. We're talking about, let's say, for example, I used to teach in a Bible institute up in the mountains of North Carolina and most of the pastors who were there in that school, many of them, God had called them very early in life. Some of them when they were teenagers, early 20s, they refused to obey God, rebelled against God. Now they were in their 40s and 50s and they finally yielded to God and said, Okay, God, the pressure is so much I can't handle it.

I'm going to go and do what God wants me to do so they start the school. Well, what was God's intentional will? If He called them at 17, at 17 years of age, get busy getting prepared to serve God. Now they're 55 and 60 years of age, what does God do? Here's what God does. He puts the pieces of their life back together. He forgives them of their sin. Has He revoked His call? No, He does not.

What does He do? He just chooses to work in their life in the light of the circumstances as they are now. Listen, God does not reject anyone who comes to Him.

There are people who mess up their life deadly. I mean, years and years go by in rebellion toward God, get on drugs or whatever it might be, and then they come to Jesus and you say, Well, you mean to tell me that God has a will for my life? Yes, He does. What is His will?

Well, His intentional will, you blew that one. Well, you say, Well, does that mean I'm lost? No, it does not. Does it mean that God doesn't care?

No, it does not. What does it mean? It means that God picks you up all the pieces. He has this amazing glue He calls grace, and you know what He does? He puts you back together. He forgives you of your sin.

He begins to work in your life, and He will begin to use you, make an impact through your life, accomplish His circumstantial will in your life, but at no point does God say, Well, you blew it. Put you on the shelf. That's the end of that. You waited too long. Therefore, I can't use you. God can use anybody who surrenders their will to Him and obeys Him, no matter what your age is, no matter what you've done, no matter what your past may be. Almighty God loves you, and whoever you are, listen, you are worthy. Listen, you are worthy to be saved by the grace of God, or He wouldn't have come. He came not because you are worthy of it in yourself, but because He sees you as a valuable vessel that can bring Him glory.

Listen, you can bring glory to God whether you're 16 or 106. You surrender your life to God. He's got a will for your life. He has a will for our life, whether we're surrendered to it or not.

He has a will for our life, no matter what our age is, what our past has been. The circumstantial will of God, this is His grace saying, I'm going to take you where you are. You're forgiven of your sin. I'm going to remold and remake your life, and I'm going to use you because my grace knows no end. He says, We're a sinner bound. And listen, grace did what?

Much more abound. That is His circumstantial will. All right? Under the category of His personal will, what's the first category? God's intentional will.

What's the second category? God's circumstantial will. And the third category is God's immediate will.

Now, what do we mean by His immediate will? Simply this, that every single day of our life, you and I make decisions. In fact, life is one continuous series of decisions after the other. For example, you and I wake up tomorrow morning, most of us have some kind of a schedule that we believe that God has given us some direction for.

Oftentimes that schedule changes. You make a decision here, you make a decision there. What are you doing? You are making those immediate decisions. And so He says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him. He'll direct your path.

Which path? Every single aspect of our life. Whether you brush your teeth with one toothpaste or not is not necessarily a big issue with God. I'm talking about every single, listen, every single issue that affects our life in any way. Is God interested in our health?

Yes, He is. If God tells you, listen, you need to lose a little weight or you need to gain some weight. Or whatever you need to do. If God lays it on your heart, He's certainly interested in your health. So God is interested. In fact, name me something God's not interested in.

Every single, listen, critical, major decision in those things that seem to be insignificant decisions that oftentimes the very turning point of our life may be something that we think was insignificant. We didn't pray about it. We didn't ask God about it.

We wonder why we got ourselves in that mess. And the reason we did is because we never stop to ask the question, God, what is your plan, your purpose, your will? How does this fit into your will for my life? We're talking about His immediate will, for example, in James chapter four.

Look at that. This is what he's referring to from Hebrews. Move over to one book to James. Look, if you will, in James chapter four.

Notice what he says. Verse fourteen. You do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.

You're just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we shall live also and do this or that. So that what we have to ask is, what's the will of the Father?

Somebody gives you an invitation and what you say, well, yes, without thinking. And so what we have to ask is, what's the will of God? What is the will of the Father in these issues of our life? So we have three categories, two major categories, His moral will, His personal will. Under His personal will, we have three categories.

Those three categories are number one, what? God's intentional will, God's circumstantial will, and what? God's immediate will. Those decisions we have to make daily, moment by moment, as we function as a believer. Now, two major divisions of His will, moral will, personal will. His personal will, intentional will, circumstantial will, His immediate will. Does He have a right?

Yes, He does. Now, the big question is this, somebody says, well, I do understand what you're saying, but I have a question. And that question is simply this, if God has a plan for my life, can I resist that plan? How can you resist the plan of this omnipotent God who has all power and who has designed our life? Well, what does omnipotence mean? The omnipotence of God doesn't mean that God, listen, by His brute force, forces His way into our life. By God's omnipotence, it means that God has the ability, listen, He has the ability to accomplish His purpose, listen, without defeat. God ultimately will not be defeated. He will ultimately accomplish His purpose. So somebody says, well, can a person genuinely, can a person really and truly resist God?

And the answer, I want to ask three questions here, and the answer is, first of all, yes, a person can resist God. For example, when God chose the nation of Israel, He gave them birth by bringing them out of Egyptian bondage across the Red Sea down the Sinai to be de-Egyptianized, to be given the law. And so they come to the desert and they come up to the Promised Land, which He had prepared for them. They get to the Promised Land, they send twelve spies over.

Ten came back of the twelve and said, there's no way, walls, cities and big giants. Joshua and Caleb said, God has given us this land, let's go. They said, no, we're not going.

Moses said, God says He's provided this land. No, we're going back to Egypt. We're going to stone you, Moses and Aaron. We're going back to Egypt. When they found out what the result would be, the next day they decide, no, we're going.

He says, no, you're not, it's too late, the decision's already made. Did they resist the will of God? They resisted the will of God. Jonah, for example, the Bible says that God called Jonah to go to Nineveh and to preach the gospel to a pagan nation. He was so prejudiced toward them that he wouldn't do it and so he decided he was going to buy him a ticket and he was heading the opposite direction from Nineveh. Did he resist the will of God?

Yes, he did. And so you just take just a few examples and there are many others in the Bible who resisted his will. Now, so the issue is, can a person resist the will of God?

Yes, we can. You say, well, how much free will do we have? God has given all of us enough free will. You say, well, are we people of a free will, a limited free will? God has not given anybody absolute free will. Only God has absolute free will.

And so we do have some sense of a free will. And so God will allow us, listen, he will allow us to make mistakes. He will allow us to sin. He will allow us to be disobedient to him. He will allow us to rebel against him. He will allow us to resist his will if that's what we choose. Yes, you can resist the will of God.

Well, the second question is this. If we resist the will of God, will God put pressure on us to bring us back into his will or will he just let us go? Will he bring pressure upon us to do his will? Yes, he will. Well, how much pressure will he put on us?

As much as is necessary to bring about what he desires. There are times when no matter what we say, he's going to put pressure on us. For example, would you consider a whale ride in the bottom of the sea a little pressure?

I think you would. If you read those chapters, second chapter of Jonah, and you'll find he's talking about the seaweed all wrapped around his head and he's struggling for life and crying up to God and repenting of sin. The real revival took place and it bettered that whale. Was that pressure? You better believe it was pressure. Now here's the problem. Sometimes God says, here's where I want you to go. God says, this is the direction.

We say, Lord, I'm not going to do that. Here's where I'm going. All of a sudden, what happened? All of a sudden, you can't. In other words, you want to, but you can't.

What is it? God says, no, I'm not putting up with that and you are not going to be disobedient to me. My will may be disobedient. My plan may be disobedient. But there are times when God says, no, I'm not putting up with that.

I'm not going to allow that. And I can think about times in my life when I'm sure I would have chosen something other than the will and purpose and plan of God. And the pressure would get so intense that I'm telling you, no, there's no way in the world I could have disobeyed God. Somebody says, well, was the will of God resistible to you at that time? For me personally, I could not have resisted the will of God under the awesome pressure of God. I believe there are times when God's put such pressure upon us of whether it is to show us the consequence of disobedience or just simply the awesome awareness of what He is saying, what He is requiring, and that He's not going to let up, that we have to yield and say, yes, God, your will be done, not mine. Now, so the question is, can we resist the will of God? Yes, we can. Will He put pressure on us at times?

Yes, He will. But here's the third question. Can we resist the will of God without suffering the consequences of that resistance to His will? And the answer is no. You cannot resist the will of God without paying the price. Now, well, you say, what is that price?

Depends upon what the resistance is. When you and I rebel or when we resist the will of God, the best thing we can do is to repent immediately. Ask God to forgive us for being prideful and arrogant, thinking that we know better than He does. Ask Him to forgive us at that moment.

Now, listen, little pressure or no pressure. But when we choose and we resist the will of God and we say, I know that's what may be what the Bible says, but I'm going to do it in a way. I know that's what the Scripture teaches, but I'm going to disobey God.

I know that's what you may think and what you may believe, what you may teach, but here's what I'm going to do. And I had a man say to me one time when I was sharing with him something that I said, listen, here's what you feel, but here's what God says. And I said, now listen, is that what He says the word?

That's what He says. But he turned to me and he said, I know that's what you say and I know that's what it says, but I'm going to do it in a way. And what did he do? He suffered an awful, awesome calamity in his life. He deliberately, willfully disobeyed God, knowing the truth. Were there consequences?

Yes, there were. Can you resist Him? Yes, you can. Can you live outside the will of God?

Yes, you can. But not without paying the price and the consequence of being outside the will of God. Now, friend, let me tell you something. You can't play around with the will of God. God created you for one purpose ultimately. He created you to bring Him glory and honor and praise. He has equipped you. He has saved you or He will save you. He either lives within you or He will live within you. He has given you talents and He will give you spiritual gifts once you trust Him as your personal Savior. God has, listen, God has invested Himself in us. God has invested Himself in every single one of us. And to think that we can ignore the purpose and plan and specific personal design of God in our life and think that it makes no difference, that there are no consequences.

Listen, that is insane thinking. God created you for a specific purpose and all of us will stand before Him one of these days. We'll give an account for the life that we've lived. We either discovered the will of God, got in it and walked in it according to His will or we stepped out of it, chose to rebel against Him and live outside the will of God. It is a dangerous thing to hear the truth, to know the truth, to believe the truth and to resist the truth of Almighty God because you have some other agenda for your life other than His. What you say when you resist His will and His agenda for your life is, I want to have it my way. I'm going to ignore God and have it my way.

My friend, listen, believe me, hear me. He says, whatever a man or woman sows, that they're going to reap. What they sow, more than they sow, later than they sow. It is impossible to live outside the will of God without suffering the consequences. Listen, the consequences, not because God hates you, not because God ceases to love you. That's the very nature of disobedience and rebellion. The very nature of disobedience and rebellion are the awesome consequences of the very nature of sin itself.

It is a foolish thing. It is an insane thing to know that God loves you, that God's sin is only begotten Son. That He will save you, cleanse you, make you somebody, equip you, live on the inside of you, has a personal agenda for your life and ignore all of that. Live your life as you please and die without Christ.

You better should never have been born. And the second question is this, what are you going to do about the truth? Right now, every single one of us has probably thought about something. It may be a little something or something that God brought to our mind and we've had to ask ourselves the question, Lord, am I in your will about that matter? Or He may have said to you, you know, you know you have resisted, rebelled against My will in this issue in your life.

The question is, what are we going to do about it? And that's between you and God. Listen, life at its best, listen, life at its very, very, very best is discovering His will and walking in it. Father, we love you and praise you. When we think about your grace and goodness and love and kindness toward us, we just want to fall on our face and stick our face in the mud because of our unworthiness compared to the great, great grace poured out upon us, showered upon us so abundantly at Calvary. And how about we pray the Holy Spirit will move in the heart of every person who hears this message.

Face it squarely, honestly, openly, and make whatever wise adjustments are necessary to step into the center of your will. And we ask this in Jesus' name and for His sake. Amen. Thank you for listening to part two of God Has a Plan for You. For more inspirational messages like this, visit our online 24-7 station. And if you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.