God meant if for good!

(Genesis 50:20) “... but God meant if for good.”

I think a crucial truth we all must comes to grips with is that God is building His church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. God has many plans and all and every plan He has ever instituted has panned out exactly according to arrangement. Yet if we do not examine the Word of God with accuracy we will find ourselves dazed and confused. The greatest enemies of the cross will often make reference to the bible, yet without any personal attention to it. There are so many examples we could use to prove this point, but it is essential we make this truth our own. We must believe that God is in control of all things, which He is! But we must believe without exception that He is in control of our lives, wherever we find ourselves. You may think that the trial of life is pressing down so hard on your life that God has abandoned you. Remember who is in control, if we begin to believe that God has lost control, which will never happen in this life or all the ages to come, in fact He is in total control, even though we my look at a situation and think, how-why-where! But God will finally only hear music in His ears as every "t" will be crossed and every "i" will be dotted with regard to his eternal plan.

With God’s sovereignty in mind; I am fascinated about God’s ability to love on the one hand and also to be extremely angry on the other. He has so much love in Him that He was not only willing and able to send His only Son to die in the place of sinners; But He chose to do exactly that! "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

Could there be any greater way for God to put His love on display. God dying for mankind, so that they can go free! Each and every person without exception guilty of transgressing His law and therefore doomed for eternity to spend the rest of their existence in a Lake of Fire, until God in His love stepped in and made a way of escape. This is almost unbelievable! Yet it is exactly what God did some two thousand years ago. How complete is the love of this great God of ours, not only did He talk a game of love but has proved His love by sending His Son to pay the price for sinners. The so-called scholar and intellectual thinks they have the answers for life, they ignore this truth. There will be consequences to their folly; the Lake of Fire will be their eternal destiny! Nevertheless God’s love on display for all to witness! “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.” (John 6:47):- and yet the flip side of this is this; “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” (John 3:18)

All those who reject God’s love will pay the ultimate price; they will spend eternity in hell! He has shown us all that He means business; back in the days of Noah He was so angry with the lifestyle of mankind that He had this to say; “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the LORD said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them." (Genesis 6:5-7)

But even in His anger we find evidence of love tugging at His heart and “Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.” (Genesis 6:8)

How intricate is the makeup of this awesome God? Before time began He had names written down in the book of life; “everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.” (Revelation 13:8):- He has a plan and even the absolute wickedness of mankind will not interrupt that plan, He has willed it and it will unfold exactly as He has intended. That does not mean that He is not affected emotionally by the unfolding of His plan, it is clear to see that He has an emotional involvement with mankind. He has so much love and yet He has righteous anger that is also on show for all to witness.

Having said that let us consider our original thought: Stretch your imagination with me this morning, and try and view everything in your life from God’s eyes and not your own. Step out of the picture and examine your life from a spectator’s point of view. Life with all its challenges and how we cope with them will determine how much we value the sovereignty of God in our lives. As they unfold and often not according to our own plans, we find ourselves discouraged and our hope seems to dwindle. This is not the purpose of the trial of life; these tests are meant to ignite our hope and make us long for our ultimate goal, heaven! Regardless of our opinions and advice we so often try to give God with regard to how our lives should unfurl. He has a particular plan for all of His children; in fact even His enemy’s sinful actions are working according to plan. When Adam was instructed by God not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, when he ignored the voice of God and took of the fruit to eat that is exactly what happened, he became aware of the knowledge of good and evil. Think of it like this, how will you know what is good is you do not know what is evil? Or how will you understand light if you have not seen darkness? Adam walked in the garden but was oblivious to all that was evil until he ate from that tree. In fact, there was a tree of life that he could have eaten from but because he did not understand death he never ate from it. After his awakening, when he was aware of dead and sin, only then did God place the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

Let us prove the point of God’s control in our lives! Let us consider the account of Joseph: His brothers, all ten of them plotted to destroy Him and even lied to their father about his existence, they said that he had been killed by a wild animal. They sold him into the slavery where he had to endure much hardship and eventually was thrown into jail on a false accusation. He spent many years in jail and in a foreign country away from the comforts of home. But after many years through God’s intervention he was reunited with his father and this is what he had to say to his brothers about that period of his life; “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” (Genesis 50:20)

This is such a beautiful account of God’s control, even when so much seems to be going against him and us, we must remember this truth; “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

Will you dare to believe this and use this truth to ignite your hope?

Signing off

Tyrone