God has a wonderful plan for your life!

This encouragement is often heard in Christian circles and I have noticed some of the effects it has caused in my own thoughts and when testing it with scripture and the lives of believers throughout history.

Here's what I think.

1) This plants the idea that I am going to do great things in my life.
2) God is going to see to it that I do great things in my life.. for His glory.
3) I need to figure out what God's plan is for my life!

Issues:

1) Most Christians live pretty ordinary lives, the farmer who never leaves the county of his birth might feel short changed.
2) My focus is on me here and not on God's glory although I make sure to throw His glory in there it is about my plan.
3) Unless I focus solely on the promises to believers than I chase my tail so to speak trying to figure out what God's big plan is.

I understand these might not be the intended outcomes of the teaching but this is the fruit I have noticed from this mantra in my Christian life.

Thanks

You mean The Lord Jesus Christ? He wants you out of Roman Catholicism, to be saved by trusting in Him ALONE for your salvation ( not evil sacraments and vain good works ) He wants you to stop going to the blasphemous catholic masses that spit in Jesus face every time they are performed. Your god will take you to hell, please leave Sodom/ Rome. GALATIONS 4 verse 16.

Dino, my good friend. Remember S/Paul. He had one set of plans, and he NEVER even suspected to be approached by God. Not even God's HOT APOSTLES like ANANIAS knew God would choose Paul to be the VESSEL that will SUFFER a lot for His Name sake.

I think people are pretty presumptious if they reckon God has plans for my life.... and then they live a life EXACTLY like me... 4.5 workdays and 2.5 play days... Who are they to say about God's plans if they do not live by the plan God had for His people in the Bible, and today. Should God's people not ALWAYS look and live the same?

My friend I agree with you, Christians today has it too easy. The ones that suffers for their faith, they are the ones I would give time to and lend my ears too! Ones that are persecuted and hated. Not loved and cared for. People that live a holy and Godly life. I know they are few, but the Word says there are few.

People that are outcasts from todays "Christian" churches... God said they will persecute you and hate you and chase you from their churches.... I warned you of this when we chatted in the chatroom. If you love Christ, you will be an outcast. You will be hated and persecuted, and you will be treated UNFAIR, and FALSE WITNESSES will arise against you. When these things start to happen you are starting the plan God has for you. There is no other option.

I love you enough to tell you the truth. Im trying in love to reach out to you since you look catholic. The catholic jesus is a false jesus. The statues in the roman churches are demons and devils, the pope is an extreme anti - christ, please leave and come to faith in The Lord Jesus Christ !!! As far as GODS will for a saved B.B.C ( Bible believing christian ) is simple ..... MARK chapter 16 verse 15. Go out and buy a King James Bible and start reading it, look for ( if available ) a fundementalist King James Bible preaching church in your area, or Listen to Pastor Mike Hoggard, or Pastor Sam Adams. GOD wants you humbled then saved, not living like the evil catholic priests or the feel good apostate preachers like J. Osteen. LUKE chapter 16 verse 15

When I was raised catholic, I heard the teaching that saints are mostly people who lived ordinary lives in extraordinary ways. The real problem is that we do not understand greatness. Jesus barely travelled 60 miles from His boyhood home, spent 30 years as a carpenter, and only three years in ministry. He died of capital punishment on a trumpted up charge. That's all pretty ordinary. It's what God was doing through Him that was extraordinary.

Maybe God's plan for your life (just pulling this out of the air) is to raise three really great kids, one of whom will go on to get saved a future world changer. Maybe it's to be a great administrative assistant to a sales executive who will get a new widget into the hands of a SWAT team member who will one day use it to save 100 lives in a school-attack. The Body of Christ works together. An apple tree makes tens of thousands of seeds in its lifetime, maybe only two become new trees. But if one of those trees saves the life of a starving refugee running from a natural disaster by having a few apples ready when he needs them, it was all worth it.

I think people are mistaken to think that "wonderful" means supernatural miracles or physical persecution.

I believe it would be good to look at the lives of the saints and prophets in the Bible. Moses spent forty years as a shepherd in the desert. He was an outcast, married to the daughter of a idol worshipper before encountering God in the burning bush. then he wondered in the desert for forty years never even making it to the promised land. Some people might think him a failure and disregard the miracles as flukes of nature.

Even Jesus spent a peaceful childhood and did not start ministering to massive crowds until He was 30. there was a small incident at the temple when He was 13.

Whenever i hear the phrase "God has a wonderful plan for your life" I think it would be wonderful to live a peaceful life of a farmer. It would be like tending the garden of Eden and sharing the fruits of your labors with those around you.

Also, I think that this life on earth is not the only one God has for us. We have eternal life with Him and what He has planned for that is beyond what we can imagine.

Ephesians 2:10
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Rest at ease, I am not catholic. Although I do use a NEW King James Version.

Worth reading...

Perhaps many live between the tension of...

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly."
(Joh 10:10)

vs.

And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."
(Mar 8:34)



...both words of our Lord.

Perhaps this is the abundant life...
2 Corinthians 11:23-28 Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft.
Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.
Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep;
In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;
In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.
Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches.

God has a wonderful plan for my life but keep in mind His ways are not my ways

Yup, and His 'wonderful' is not necessarily our 'wonderful'.

Yes as one would notice

The wonderful plan God has for our lives might begin when we are RESURRECTED. Ever think of that? Our lives here in these carnal minded bodies is only a blink in time, a dot at the beginning of a everlasting, never ending spiritual life with God. Maybe, just maybe, that's when God will have a real purpose for his chosen, his few, his elect. Just a little food for thought!!

Well I believe He has a real purpose for us even now..

Ephesians 2:10
For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.