Bible Studies
In the midst of a war, the threat of war, global warming, a pandemic, crime, the economy, or as personal as a potentially-fatal diagnosis, an advancing disciple can still experience the peace that surpasses all human understanding (Phil. 4: 7).
This extraordinary type of peace is established and maintained by keeping in mind that God is in control.
His divine attributes of omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence is what places God in a position to control the corporate and individual events of human history without violating the freedom of choice that He has given to the members of the human race.
Omniscience means to have all knowledge. Omnipresence means to be everywhere and anywhere at the same time. Omnipotence means to have superior and unlimited power and resources.
All of the corporate and individual choices and events of what would become human history were recorded in the Book of The Divine Decree BEFORE the physical Earth was created (Eph. 1: 4), and before any one of us were born (Psalms 139: 16).
Nothing takes God by surprise. Many things can happen that can change or cancel the corporate or individual plans of Man, but nothing can happen that changes or cancels the Master's Plan that God has for the human race.
One might ask how is it that God holds Man accountable for the choices they make since all such choices were recorded before Adam (or any one of us) had taken our first breath (Gen. 2: 7).
The answer is that at the point in time in which every moral decision is made, each one is the result of each individual consciously exercising his or her own free will during his or her appointed life span during the course of human history.
There are some things recorded in the Book of the Divine Decree in which we had or will have no choice.
It was God’s choice of when, and under what circumstances, we, as individuals, were to be created, and what role each one of us would play in the course of history, here on Earth.
Our biological parents may or may not have had a baby in mind at the moment when what would become our humanity was conceived. But God had full-knowledge of all that His choice of placement would bring into earthly life of the individual, when He created his or her soul and placed it in the body of His choosing (Gen. 2: 7).
This choice of God set the stage for many things in life in which we would have little or no control over.
There are exceptions, but generally speaking most of us will live and die without going beyond the limitations imposed by the social, economic, and political environment into which we were placed at birth.
One Biblical exception was Joseph. He was sold by his Jewish brothers into slavery where he was falsely accused and jailed for sexual assault. He would later be released and would become a high-ranking Egyptian official, saving his family (and the Jews) from starvation.
Another was Moses. He was born into slavery at a time when the political environment in Egypt called for infanticide of all male members of the Hebrew race. He would be spared and raised in the environment of Egyptian royalty.
He would later flee Egypt, wanted for murder, only later to return and be used of God to lead his people out from under the bondage of Egyptian slavery.
But for the most part, the individual plan that God has decreed for the members of the human race will find them living and dying within the same social, economic, and political environment in which they came into this world.
Earthly prosperity and social progress, when it is within the plan of God, can be a wonderful blessing. Earthly prosperity and social progress that causes one to forfeit his spiritual well-being is not (Matt. 16: 26).
Many who try to improve their lot in life (Gen 3: 6) by going outside of the plan that God has in mind, have brought disaster on themselves and upon those around them.
It is God who is in charge and in control over human history on the universal (Gen. 1: 1/Rev. 21: 1), national (Acts 17: 26/Leviticus 26) and individual (Luke 12: 7/Job 2: 10) levels.
God places us, as a group and as individuals, where He chooses.
God, through what He sends or allows to take place, will make whatever major or minor changes (if there are to be any) in order to fulfill the master and individual plan that He has in mind.
God places, maintains, and or changes the location, environment, and circumstance of His disciples in order for them to be where they need to be in order to serve His purposes.
When we are spiritually mature enough to understand that we were created for His glory and purposes, and that we are not here on Earth to do our own thing, we will willingly accept (Job 2: 10) whatever changes (if there are to be any) that God has in store for us.
All an advancing disciple will want to know is that in whatever location or circumstances he or she is in, it is where God wants him or her to be, accomplishing what God has in mind.
This is how an advancing disciple comes to experience the peace that surpasses all understanding, regardless of what is taking place all around him or her. The advancing disciple equally accepts adversity and prosperity (Job 2: 10), acknowledging that both come from or through the hands (control) of God.
It is easy to rejoice and praise The Lord when things are going our way. The testing of our mettle comes into view when we face the difficulties called for in the plan that God has in mind.
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