The Plans God have for your Life
“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11
This passage is taken by so many people to mean that God wants to give us everything here on earth – for many it has to do only with this life.
Let me suggest something far more reaching – GOD IS MUCH MORE CONCERN ABOUT YOUR ETERNAL WELFARE THAN YOUR TEMPORARY COMFORT AND BENEFITS! Did you grasp that?! Please understand, God is much more concern with our eternity than with our present.
There is a parallel of this Scripture in the New Testament is 2 Peter 3:9, which states
“God does not want any to perish but that all should come to repentance.”
This reflects Jeremiah 29:11 to its true nature:
“God’s thoughts towards mankind is that of peace (not this global peace among men – for when they say peace and safety a sudden destruction shall fall on them – 1 Th 5!) – God’s desire towards EVERY SINGLE PERSON is that of peace WITH Himself!
Listen, EVERY MAN and woman born into humanity is not at peace with God, they are at WAR with God and are open enemies of God! You may be surprised at such a statement! YOU are also by nature an open enemy of God! By birth you are at war with God! Scripture affirms even from your mother’s womb! This shock so many people! EVERY MAN BORN INTO THE HUMAN RACE ARE AT WAR WITH GOD! MAN IS AGAINST GOD! Man is at enmity through his works with God!
So God’s thoughts and desire towards mankind is that of peace with God (this alone is possible through Christ Jesus) and not evil, that is = God does not want any to perish or be cast into Hell and to come under condemnation BUT TO GIVE EVERY MAN A FUTURE – that is = ETERNAL LIFE (that Life alone is also in Christ – 1 John 5:12) and A HOPE – that is = CHRIST WHO IS THE HOPE OF GLORY!
In all that has been stated in Jeremiah 29:11, it is evident that God’s desire or thoughts towards mankind is to bring Christ Jesus to man THROUGH WHICH man may enter the desire peace of the LORD and end the War by taking the enmity away.
PEACE WITH GOD is all about Christ, every thought of God towards man is that Christ should come into the battlefield and establish peace. Jesus Christ alone has become the MEDIATOR between God and man! There is no other name given among man by which man can find peace with God!
God has specific thoughts towards every single person that ever walked the face of the earth! His thoughts towards you are that of peace and not evil! God does not want to destroy your life but save it! Did you get that?
God is not out to make your life a living hell! He wants you to have peace, peace with Himself! Even more, He wants to GIVE you a FUTURE and HOPE! He wants you to look ahead to something glorious. He wants to give you Life without end and Hope which will make every single thing you face here unimportant and irrelevant!
SO, God states here in Jeremiah the greatest gospel Truth = “For I know the thoughts and desire I have towards you, thoughts and a deep desire that you will FIND peace with Me through the work of My Son (2 Cor 5:18-21) and BE AT PEACE WITH Me IN fellowship with My Son, I desire not your day of Wrath, I want you to be saved and changed, I want to give you My Son, even though this world will hate, despise, persecute you! Even though you must pass through much tribulation, My thoughts is through ALL this to give you JESUS CHRIST as your PRESENT LIFE AND FUTURE INHERITANCE AND ENJOYMENT!”
It is not about this life (1 Cor 15) , LET ME SAY THAT AGAIN – It is not about this life…. but ALL ABOUT CHRIST and finding PEACE WITH GOD! Oh that Christ Jesus might be FORMED in you and lives in you for HE ALONE is the Hope of GLORY!
You can have peace with God today! It is only possible through one manner. That Way is Christ! The Door to peace with God is Jesus Christ! Nothing else! The only key that will unlocks this Door is Faith! You must put your faith INTO Christ to open the Door to Peace with God! It is that simple! It is through faith in the FINISHED WORK OF JESUS CHRIST than you can find Peace with God! This is what the Bible calls justification! He gave His Life as a SUBSTITUTE! It was by substituting His Life with yours (by taking yours to the cross and put it away) that God now can declare you ON THE MERIT AND GROUNDS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST JUSTIFIED! Through faith in Christ, the Spirit of Christ put to death the enmity that exist in your heart and END THE WAR!
NOW GOD CALLS YOU TO LAY DOWN YOUR WEAPENS of destruction in repentance and submission to His Kingdom and Will! Will you do that? God wants to be reconciled to you through the Work of His Son Jesus Christ!
“Therefore being justified by faith, WE HAVE PEACE WITH GOD THROUGH OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST: by whom also WE HAVE ACCESS BY FAITH INTO THIS GRACE wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. “ (Rom. 5:1, 2)
‘Being justified freely by his grace THROUGH THE REDEMPTION THAT IS IN CHRIST JESUS, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, THROUGH THE FORBEARANCE OF GOD; TO DECLARE, I say, at this time his righteousness, that he might be just, and THE JUSTIFIER OF HIM THAT BELIEVETH IN JESUS.” Romans 3:24-26
That is the meaning of this statement that because we have been justified by faith we have peace with God. This is such a vital statement that we must examine ourselves in the light of it.
The test of our profession of Christ is WHETHER THIS IS TRUE OF US.
Has our natural state of fearfulness with respect to God, our enmity with respect to God, been removed? Please understand, The Apostle lays it down here that it is an inevitable consequence of justification. Notice that he does not say that the Christian is a man who is ‘hoping’ that this may be the case.
‘Being justified – having been justified – BY FAITH, WE HAVE PEACE.’
We are not looking for it, we are not hoping to get it; we have it, we have got it, we are rejoicing in it!
“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11
BUT H O W do you KNOW that you actually HAVE Peace WITH GOD?
How do you in this world come to such a place that you know beyond all doubts that you POSSESS Peace with God which alone is possible through the Work of the Lord Jesus Christ WROUGHT in you (YES, it is something that must be wrought out IN you!)?
Let me suggest a simple truth about peace with God through Jesus Christ:
A MAN WHO HAS PEACE WITH GOD IS A MAN WHOSE MIND IS AT REST ABOUT HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD!
He is not constantly trying to win God’s favor! He is at rest because of the FINISHED WORK of Jesus Christ! He knows there is nothing in himself that can ever please God, that can ever recommends him to God BUT ONLY by standing on the finished work of Jesus Christ!
There is no true peace with God until the mind has seen and grasped and taken hold of this blessed work, and so finds itself at rest.
But alas, there is such a thing AS A FALSE PEACE; there are people who think they are at peace with God AND WHO ARE NOT.
What are the characteristics of false peace?
~ It generally results from thinking that faith SIMPLY MEANS BELIEVING, and giving an intellectual assent to certain propositions and truths.
You can subscribe to the truth, and give an intellectual assent to it, and yet not really be saved by it. There are men who have ‘a form of godliness but denies the power thereof’. Faith is not only a matter of intellect; it is deeper than the intellect!
~ False peace is generally found to be resting on his or her faith rather than on Christ and his work. They really look at their own believing rather than at Jesus Christ and what he has done. They say, ‘I now believe, therefore I must be all right’.
~ Another characteristic of false peace is that it is only interested in forgiveness and not in righteousness. The man who has the false peace is only interested in forgiveness. He does not want to go to Hell, and he wants to be forgiven. He has not stopped to think about being positively righteous; he is not concerned about being holy and walking in holiness before God, so he is negligent about his life, and does not pursue holiness. He does not heed that exhortation in the Epistle to the Hebrews, ‘Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord’ (Heb. 12:14). He is only interested in forgiveness, and negligent with regard to living the Christian life and really following Jesus Christ!
~ Another invariable characteristic of the man with the false peace is that when this man falls again into sin he takes it much too lightly. This man says almost as soon as he has fallen, ‘It is all right, the blood of Christ covers me’. And up he gets and on he goes as if nothing had happened. You cannot do that if you have any true conception of what sin means, and what the holiness of God really is. This man with a false peace heals himself much too quickly, much too easily, much too lightly. It is because he takes sin as a whole too lightly.
Let me ask you, do you have peace with God! Are you sure it is not a counterfeit or substitute peace that are not real which will give you a great shock one day before a Holy God when you may be still found enemies of God!
Please be sure!
“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11
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