What is God's plan for my life?

Next is predestination to be conformed to the image of His Son. It is not, let us mark well, merely predestination to be saved, but for future glory as conformed to the image of Christ, who is Himself “the image of God.” Doubtless the moral side of the truth is the prominent one here — that is, that the purity, holiness, and every other blessed virtue of our Lord, will have its bright reflection in His saints. Marvelous purpose indeed, and worthy of such a God! Elsewhere, of course, we learn that even physically our bodies shall be fashioned like unto His body of glory (Phil. 3:21). How blessedly complete the gracious purpose of our God. To our own hearts today could anything compare with being like Him who has saved us both from our sins and from the power of sin? To contemplate such a Person is to long to be like Him.

His title here — “the Firstborn among many brethren” — is plainly one of priority in Person, not in point of time of birth. Colossians 1:15-16 confirms such a principle as to the “firstborn.” Christ is “the firstborn of every creature.” Why? “For by Him were all things created.” Psalm 89:27 bears clear testimony also. Speaking of David as typifying Christ, God declares, “I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth.” It is an official dignity far above any mere question of time. In Old Testament times the firstborn according to nature was accorded the priority over his brethren, but this rigid custom was yet oftentimes reversed by God, who gave the birthright to a younger. So now, God would make clear that Adam has been fully dispossessed of all the rights of the firstborn, and these are now eternally held by the Lord Jesus. Yet we may thank God that in grace He (Christ) has “many” whom He is not ashamed to call brethren (Heb. 2:11).

But there is not only the act of turning. There is the conduct that follows, and that conduct, so far as we have it expressed here, is summed up in a very beautiful phrase indeed — they turned to God from idols “to serve the living and true God.” We are told to serve the living and true God. I do not think that these Thessalonians acted in some special manner, and devoted their lives to God in some particular way. I do not think that they gave up their calling in life, and threw themselves exclusively into the service of the propagation of the gospel. I do not think the phrase implies this separation from ordinary pursuits. On the contrary, the Epistle implies that they went on with their work, that they continued in their customary vocation. In the midst of the place and circumstances in which they had been brought up they stayed, only now they worked for their God above. They had found a living and true God, and they had found out the way to serve Him in the midst of their ordinary duties.

Think of it, as life's aim! To serve the living and true God! Is it not, from one point of view, as simple as A B C, doing the will of God, doing daily what He would have us do? And yet, although it is so simple, it is an idea that has not occurred to a great many persons; even some who are piously inclined fail to grasp the fact that the living and true God has a service for each one of us to do. There is a pathway through this world for you and me (for I am now addressing those who are converted) — there is a pathway through this world marked out for every one of us. We have our something to do. We have our words to speak. We have our works to perform. They are such that no one else can do for us. They are such that, if they are not done, the world, our companions, those around us, will be the worse because we fail to do them. God works through His servants, and His servants are men and women who have been saved from the wrath to come. They are those into whom He puts a new nature and His Holy Spirit, and places them here in this world for His praise and glory.

The Apostle has shewn how blessedly the Holy Spirit works in us by the new life in Christ, and the indwelling Holy Spirit, producing spiritual experiences. Now we learn that not only is God the Holy Spirit in us, but that God is for us in "all things" that are taking place around us. In regard to all the circumstances of life, the trials, the sorrows, the conflicts and the difficulties, we may not know how to pray as we ought; but this we do know, "That all things work together for good to them that love God". We may not always see how this loss, or that trial, is working for our good, but faith knows that good will be the result in time and eternity. To understand the way in which all things work for good we may have to wait, even as the Lord said to Peter, "What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter". Another has said, "The sorrow may not be remedied, but the sorrow is blessed".

To assure our hearts that all is working for good, we are reminded that we are "the called" of God; and, if called, God has a purpose for us. God saves us because we need saving; God calls us because He wants us. All God's ways with us in the present have in view the fulfilment of His purpose for us in the future.

What a transcendent thought! God has a purpose for His people, settled before the foundation of the world, and in order to accomplish that purpose He has called us. He saved us because we needed saving. He has called us because He wanted us. Thus it is the privilege of each believer to say: "Though God is so great, and I am so small, yet God wants me, and wanting me, He has called me."

The second thing that lies in this scripture is, that even now God is working towards this end. In all His present dealings with us, in all our varied experiences, in all the trials, sorrows, dangers, and persecutions that attend our path, God is leading us, and using all these seeming adversities, as the sculptor employs his chisel, to produce conformity to the image of His Son. The full result, as will hereafter be seen, is never attained here, but this is the end God has always in view. Knowing this, for He reveals it in His own word, we can with confidence adopt this language, and say, "All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose." What an unspeakable consolation to our souls! All things — not one is excepted, but all things, the bitter and the sweet, adversity and prosperity, sickness and health, yea, tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril or sword — all are but instruments in the hands of our God to work out His purposed end. How calmly then we may repose in Him and in His love! Like Jacob, we may often be tempted to say, "All these things are against us;" but no, they are for us, working together for good. We may not see the need of this trial, or the reason of that sorrow; but God is watching, noting everything — what we require, and what the effect produced upon us. Our future condition is before Him, and He leads us by a right way to secure the blessing for us.

Here, then, we have the believer the workmanship of God in Christ, and this "unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them." This is a very remarkable expression, and one that we cannot too much weigh. It is not the good works of the law — not those which might seem so in human judgment, but an offering of a new character, heavenly and of grace, which was in God's mind and all determined about us before the scene existed into which we are now brought. The same God who had a purpose of saving us and blessing us with Christ before the world was made, had a certain line of walk, a special course of action, in which He expected the recipients of such favour to walk. It is not the thought of the good we ought to do as men, as a means of showing that we are willing to obey God under the law. It is not loving God, and one's neighbour as oneself simply, but another type and display of love altogether. It flows from our new relationships, and if it be exercised in loving God and loving those around us, it is according to the rich love which God Himself has shown us in Christ. It is not merely duty, let it be the very highest form of obligation. If a man were to walk merely in this, though ever so well, he would fall short of what a Christian ought to be, and they are not the "good works which God has before ordained that we should walk in them." The law was brought in by Israel's presumption and self-conceit; it was not something that God had before ordained for His people to walk in. Therefore it is said in Romans, that law came in by the way (περεισῆλθεν). It was a thing that entered incidentally, as a sort of parenthesis brought in for a special but very momentous purpose. And it has done its work, and the believer, even if he had been under it, is brought clear out of it and made alive to God. He has a new husband, and is dead to the old one. But here the truth is put in a very beautiful form, in harmony with the character of the whole epistle. As the calling and the purpose and all that God thought about us were before the world was, so even the character of the believer's walk was ordained before ever we came into the world and is in its own nature entirely above it. It is a question of our manifesting God aright, as He is now displaying Himself. "Be ye followers of God as dear children."

After Paul had made clear in Ephesians 2:9 that salvation is the work of God without any works done by men, he continues: "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." This shows on the one hand that it is God's purpose that His people should perform good works and on the other that we need not look out restlessly for the good works we are to do, because God has ordained them for us. We simply have to abound in them. "And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work" (2 Cor. 9:8).

"This is the will of God, even your sanctification," is what Paul wrote to the Thessalonians (1 Thess. 4:3), showing that it is not something that is optional for the Christian, something to be pursued or avoided as fancy dictates. Moreover God Himself works it out for His saints, and it is all-embracing in its scope, for Paul went on to pray for them, "The very God of peace sanctify you wholly" (1 Thess. 5:23). Everything about us is to come under the sanctifying touch of the God of peace.

20 It is then the will of God, and a precious will, that we should be able to discern it only according to our own spiritual state. In general, when we think that we are judging circumstances, it is God who is judging us - who is judging our state. Our business is to keep close to Him. God would not be good to us, if He permitted us to discover His will without that. It might be convenient just to have a director of consciences; and we should thus be spared the discovery and the chastisement of our moral condition. Thus, if you seek how you may discover the will of God without that, you are seeking evil; and it is what we see every day. One Christian is in doubt, in perplexity; another, more spiritual, sees as clear as the day, and he is surprised, sees no difficulty, and ends by understanding that it lies only in the other's state of soul. "He that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off."

To be happy, and to be peacefully pursuing what was good, was God’s mind for them then: it is no less His mind for us now. This does not mean that either they or ourselves are to become Babylonish. We see in Daniel, who was one of those who were at Babylon, the sort of behaviour which was pleasing to God. He said “No” to the king’s meat, yet he sought the good of those about him, according to the Word of the Lord. We do well to grasp this principle and have grace to put it into practice.

Verses 10 to 14, however, show the limitations of this abnormal state of things. After seventy years it would be God’s mind that they should return to Jerusalem. This shows the importance of making sure of the mind of God for us at this moment. It was evidently from these very verses that Daniel gathered God’s mind concerning this return, and it set him praying with his whole heart (see Daniel 9:1-4). The wonderful fulfilment of this restoration, “after seventy years,” is so well known that we need not dwell upon it here (see 2 Chr. 36:21-23 and Ezra 1:1). It should, however, be remarked that Daniel himself did not return though his face was constantly turned towards Jerusalem. He was used in regard to it in prayer, as Cyrus was in providence, and as our prophet Jeremiah was in prophecy, whilst God Himself was behind all working in purpose and in power. We are to know what it is to stay ourselves upon God at all times, having grace and peace multiplied to us in the knowledge of Himself, for He keeps in perfect peace the one whose mind is stayed upon Him, because he trusteth in Him. He can raise up servants, kings and prophets as He wills: we are to know Himself, His love, His grace, His purpose, and His power. He works all things after the counsel of His own will. Cyrus did not know Him though He raised him up and even surnamed him before he was born (Isa. 44:28; 45:1-4). Those who are called in grace today are called to “know Him,” and to know Him too as Father, and to know His present mind and will. This leads the heart to confide implicitly in Himself.