WHY OUR PLANS FAIL

By on Mar 12, 2014 in AM Missives, Current Issues, Definitions, Features

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A quick aside before the devotional teaching below from Martin Luther. While we’re still in need of contining prayer and financial support, I was able to get an appointment with an eye doctor who is a Christian.

It was helpful to be able to speak with him on that level as well. Long story short; he explained that a partial vitreous detachment (PVD), such as I have, will usually continue to develop for as much as a few months.

So, that’s why I have continued to see new floaters and cloudy gel-like spots which blur my vision for seconds at a time as if I’m logging through a window thatbecome fogged up and then clears. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that, in his opinion, there’s a ninety-five per cent chance this PVD will finish within a few months and that the floaters impairing my vision should eventually move below my sightline.

However, we still have the other lingering health issue, which is the “heavy” feeling I’m still experiencing physically of fatigue. It feels like I’m being pressed down and we’re still unclear as to what that is.

Turning to Martin Luther now, the teaching to follow from the great Church Reformer is specifically addressing how even as individual Christians we can sometimes get caught up in following our own plans.

And when we do, they’re doomed to fail. You’re likely aware that here at Apprising Ministries I’ve been covering developing trends within the greater Christian community as they relate to apostasy within evangelicalism.

Much of this rebellion  is traced back to the man-centered Church Growth Movement, ((http://cicministry.org/commentary/issue89.htm.)) which began to derail the witness of the visible church by turning the mission of Christianity away from preaching the genuine Gospel.

Instead, we were told, Christendom needed to engage culture and contextualize God’s Gospel in order to “help” Him get His message across to them. In the end, it was a pitiful plan based upon human wisdom.

Tragically, even though such as these have found our culture willing to work with them to make the world a better place, in the end what we’re being sold now from evangelical megachurches is the old social gospel.

It’s true that Evangelical Ecumenical Magisterium ((e.g. see Evangelical Ecumenical Magisterium Member Steven Furtick With An Ode To Self)) megachurch pastors like Rick Warren. James MacDonald and Steven Furtick appear to be succeeding with their own plans, ultimately God will bring those to nothing:

The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing;  he frustrates the plans of the peoples. (Psalm 33:10)

We must do what God wants and stop thinking and worrying about what God hasn’t told us to do. Nothing is safer for us or more pleasing to God than when we trust in God’s Word instead of our own ideas.

In His Word, we will find enough guidance about what we are to do. God requires us to have faith, to love, and to to endure suffering.

These should be enough to keep us delightfully busy. We should deal with everything else as it comes along and let God worry about how it all turns out.

If we don’t want to listen to what God says in His Word, he punishes us by simply letting us torment ourselves for no good reason.

When wise men and princes ignore God’s Word, God doesn’t let any of their intentions happen, whether good or bad. The Psalm says, “The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing.”

God will always thwart the plans of those who work the hardest by using their own wisdom. But even this doesn’t convince us to subject our plans to what God wants.

So our plans and ideas inly distress and torment us, even though these are not bad in themselves. As Jesus said:

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”
(Matthew 6:34)

God doesn’t send this trouble to destroy us. Rather, he sends it to us to persuade us to give up our foolish ideas and plans.

He wants to show us that our wisdom is worthless. Ultimately, our wisdom isn’t what makes things happen, only the will of God does this.

So we must learn to pray, “Let your will be done.” ((Martin Luther, Faith Alone [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005], March 12.))

Martin Luther

Further reading