GOD HAS A PLAN FOR YOU
You were born to be a part of God’s eternal plan. You have a choice to live by your own design or to fulfill God’s plan for your life. God’s plan for you is perfect. It is full of blessings, great relationships and amazing significance. Scripture tells us how to do this. You put your full trust in God, talk to Him about every detail in your life, be humble, turn away from evil, and honor God with your money. When you do these things you discover God’s plan for your life, and it is great. We read, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones. Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing and your vats will brim over with new wine.” Prov. 3:5-10.
THE CALLING
One morning Jesus was teaching by the Sea of Galilee. Soon a crowd gathered around Him and He asked a fisherman who was cleaning his net if He could use his boat. He got into the boat and asked for it to be put out a little bit from shore so He could have a better position to teach. It was Simon Peter’s boat, and after teaching He asked Simon to put out into deep water and put down his net for a catch. “Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets” Lk. 5:5.
As he did this, suddenly the nets were so full of fish that they began to break. They had to call for their partners, Zebedee and his sons James and John, to come and help. “Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will catch men.” So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him” Lk. 5:10-11
Jesus had planned the whole thing. He was teaching the crowd, but He had a more important mission than just teaching. He was about to connect Peter, James and John with the eternal plans of God for their lives. It was no accident that He got into Peter’s boat, that Peter had caught nothing all night, and that suddenly they caught so many fish that their nets began to break. It was a setup; Jesus had orchestrated the entire morning in order to call forth His new disciples.
If you have a passion to press into God and become His disciple, then the Lord will set things up for you as well. In a unique way He will call you to salvation and to His great plan for your life. This can come suddenly or unfold over a longer period of time, but the Lord has a calling and a plan for your life and it is great.
Peter stands out with a special calling on his life. Besides being one of the twelve famous disciples, he preached the first revival message and saw 3,000 souls won for Christ on the day of Pentecost. Then God used him to bring the gospel to the gentiles, starting with the salvation of Cornelius the Italian soldier and His family.
Not everyone will be as famous as Peter, but everyone who follows Jesus with their whole heart will have a life of great significance. It was Luke who wrote the story about Jesus calling Peter to be his disciple. Luke, however, never met Jesus face to face; in fact, he wrote the story of the amazing catch of fish about 45 years after Jesus died. Colossians 4:14 tells us that he was a medical doctor who became a disciple of Jesus. Luke also became an investigative reporter and, as such, he interviewed hundreds of people who were eye witnesses of Christ, and he became a good friend to Peter, and he also travelled as a disciple of Paul the Apostle and recorded the stories of the apostles and the growth of the early church. I wonder what God has planned for you.
Although Luke never met Jesus, he wrote the book of Luke and also the Acts of the Apostles. Word for word, Luke wrote more than one quarter of the entire New Testament. He had such a passion for details and for storytelling that he wrote many of the stories that no one else recorded. Without Luke we would be missing so much of the Bible. Imagine if we did not have the book of Acts as part of our Bible. Even this story of Peter and the great catch of fish is not recorded in any other place in Scripture. Luke had a great call on his life, but it was very different from the amazing call on Peter’s life. The Bible does not say that Luke was a preacher, a pastor or an evangelist, but what an amazing impact he had on the world and what a significant role he played in the Church. What is the call of God on your life? Have you discovered it? Maybe you will start off being a doctor, then you could become a journalist, and later you might be an apostle to the nations.
GoD’s FINGErPRINTS
None of us are copies of another person; we are all originals. One of the greatest things we can do in life is to answer the questions of who we are, why we are here and what we are called to do. You can never know unless you surrender all to Christ. You put your full trust in God, talk to Him about every detail in your life, live a humble life, turn away from evil, and honor God with your money. When you do these things you discover God’s plan for your life, and it is great. Have you discovered the fingerprints of God in your life? Has He led you, saved you and called you to be part of his great plan?
If you press in, He will get your attention. Then, symbolically speaking, you need to let Jesus get into your boat. Let Him be the focus and the center of your life. Then you have to obey Him fully, which will involve some inconvenience and some risk-taking. You have to cast out into the deep. As He proves Himself to you He will call you to lay down your plan and follow His plan for your life. This is what you were born for.
We pray our monthly teaching
devotional empowers & inspires you
to live a supernatural Christian life.
DR. PETER WYNS
Founder & President
Christian for Messiah Ministries
Pastor at Antioch International Church
Instructions in Righteousness is produced by “Christians for Messiah Ministries” (CFM). Dr. Peter Wyns is the President of CFM and the Head Pastor of Antioch International Church. He has served as a pastor for 54 years and ministered in more than 45 nations.
Leave a Reply