Celebrating Gifts Given: Showing the Frame

God has a plan – that much is certain. He has a very specific picture of what the world will look like once his plan is complete. “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jeremiah 31:33-34).

That’s the plan. God’s plan certainly involves Jesus, and it involves you, too. But knowing the end game doesn’t necessarily give us guidance for the here and now. What should you be doing at this moment?

Psalm 119:9 asks a similar question. “How can a young man keep his way pure?” The Psalmist gives many suggestions in the next 7 verses. Seeking God, his Word, and his commandments are included; so is meditation on his precepts and testimonies. But I believe verse 12 is the most telling. “Blessed are you, O Lord; teach me your statutes!”

It is, of course, a good thing to read God’s Word and follow his commandments. But I would venture to say that it’s hard to do that if you haven’t been taught. If you pick up a Bible in a hotel room and think to yourself, “Hmm, this Jesus guy sounds pretty cool, I think I’ll become his disciple,” you might last a few days. However, if a person you know and trust hands you a Bible and helps you go through it and learn about Jesus, you might last for eternity. What’s the difference? The method of learning. In the first, you are on your own. In the second, someone is with you.

You are at a point where you understand some of what the Bible says, and you have died and been reborn in Christ. You are a new creation. The first question to ask yourself is, how did I get here? What did someone do for me to help me get to where I am? The second question is, how can I do that for someone else? Thank God for the person who has guided you spiritually, and ask God to guide you to guide someone else.