As creatures constrained by the limitations of our nature, we are bound by time and space, we often struggle with understanding God’s perspective. It would be better to say we almost never understand God’s mind.
I am always leery of those who claim to be able to do so. Because of my caution in this area, I encourage an ever-growing confidence in God’s word. It is the the trusted record of God’s purpose to us.
When our trust in the Word of God is challenged, our faith can be shaken. Once that shaking begins we become every more unstable in our confidence of God has revealed.
God, speaking through the prophet, says as much. He tells us that
8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Isaiah 55:8-9 NKJV
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.
9 “For asthe heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.
This is more than just a declaration of a difference in degree. It is a proclamation of the difference in kind.
How God thinks is beyond our ability to guess or even approximate. When we really consider the issue, we realize that all our attempts at understanding how God operates will be miserably short.
Why does this matter?
The Gospel message, the message that communicate how God has determined to redeemed lost sinners, was not an invention after the fact. The fall of humanity was not a possibility from God’s perspective. It was a certainty. One he anticipated and prepared for.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
Ephesians 1:3-6 NKJV
When did God decide to put his plan of salvation into place? The apostle Paul tells us “from the foundation of the world.” This is a euphemism that points to eternity past.
The origin of the Gospel’s purpose and promise was considered and enacted before God spoke one word to create the universe in which we live.
It is with this starting point that we can better understand how precious the Gospel really is.
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