Your Life...is not Your Own

Your Life is Not Your Own 

For whom He foreknew, He also predestined, to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Romans 8:29 

Your life is a part of God's grand design. God has known about you and had a plan for your life since before time began. He knew everything about you before you were even born (Jer. 1:5). God predetermined that you would become like His Son. Your life, therefore, has a destiny. Christ is the model upon which the Father is developing your life. You are meant to have a relationship with the Father that is as intimate as the relationship between Jesus and the Father (John 17:21). Every event He allows into your life is designed to make you more like Christ. God's call came when He invited you to join Him in the process! His call was extremely personal, designed specifically for your response. How wonderful to realize that at a particular moment in history, Almighty God spoke personally to you and invited you to become His child! Because of your sin, you could never live blamelessly. But God forgave your sin and justified you, declaring you righteous. All the spiritual debt you carried with Him was forgiven, and you were freed to enjoy God and to serve Him for the rest of eternity. In biblical times, the glory of God's people was His presence. You, too, are glorified because the fullness of God now dwells within you, and you will one day be with Him (Col. 1:27; 2:9). He invites you to join Him in working out His will in your life—conforming you to His image (Phil. 2:12). -  Blackaby Experiencing God Day by Day 

A few days ago my last Uncle on my Dad's side of the family passed away from this life and indeed entered into Heaven.  That day that my Uncle Gary had passed away, God gave me the impression that something special would be written that included him. I read that opening sentence of this devotional and realized this was it. 

Do you realize your life is a part of God’s grand design?  My Uncle was born with downs syndrome.  In most cases many do not get to live very long or have very productive lives. 

In talks with my Mom yesterday he often liked going to Church in his youth.  He, we believe easily, was indeed saved.  We know that Jesus brought him into His Heaven to a family reunion that's been anticipated for a very long time. 

Most don't think that people born as he was can contribute to society. 

God, if you are a child of God, has a plan and purpose for the time in which you were born. 

Why is abortion really such a hot topic?  Because Satan knows that God loves humanity in each life brought into this world.  He knows that there's potentially someone to be born that will cause him trouble.  

My Uncle had a very gentle heart.  He was always great to be around.  He really did love Jesus.  In his own way and life I saw more of a right relationship with Jesus in him than in most professing Christians that didn't have downs syndrome. 

Jesus has a purpose for all who are born, however they are born, in the plan of God for mankind.  

I was born with birth defects. Not that much is noticeable unless I tell you, but God still has plans to use my uniqueness to reach people who don't know Christ as their Savior. 

My Uncle Gary probably did reach people for Christ without even knowing it. 

Our purpose in life isn't to live for ourselves.  2 Corinthians 5:6-10 "Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord— for we walk by faith, not by sight— but we are of good courage and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive compensation for his deeds done through the body, in accordance with what he has done, whether good or bad."

My personal belief is Jesus Christ Himself brings every single life exiting this world to either Heaven or Hell.  He is God and can be and is everywhere at once. In the final judgment all mankind will be judged individually at the same time. All believers will give an account all at the same time.  Time doesn't exist in Heaven. 

I believe that when Jesus brought my Uncle to Heaven there indeed was great celebration.  That the rest of my family that is there got to greet him not as they knew him but as Christ has always known him to be. He entered speaking normally and with a body not burdened by what he lived with. 

I look forward to my day before Jesus because Jesus will be the first person I will see with two perfect eyes.  God's limitations on me in this life, His limitations on my Uncle in his, were and are part of the plan and purpose of God. 

I can be honest with you, I know my propensity's. I know what I am capable of being like should Jesus not have saved me long ago.  But even in that knowledge I don't know the evil that I could have done had I been born any other way and outside of Christ saving me. 

In the body of Christ we have a purpose.  Every believer has a purpose. It isn't to just live life as we see fit. Jesus gave the Great Commission to all who believe. Not just to church leaders. 

We aren't to live for self but to live for the one who saved us. 

1 Corinthians 4:7-18 "But we have this treasure in earthen containers, so that the extraordinary greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying around in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who live are constantly being handed over to death because of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our mortal flesh. So death works in us, but life in you.

But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written: “I believed, therefore I spoke,” we also believe, therefore we also speak, knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus, and will present us with you. For all things are for your sakes, so that grace, having spread to more and more people, will cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.

Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer person is decaying, yet our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal."

We who are in Christ, including those who have earthly physical limitations, are to live lives that show the world that Jesus lives within.  It isn't for us to live lives that are all about us.

Look at your life. Take a walk and look at your clothes, your shoes, your possessions. Look at you, look at what excites you. What is of great importance to you. What gets your adrenaline going? What percentage of all that reflects your life with Christ? Does ANYTHING bring more honest joy in your life than those moments with your Savior?  Do you grieve as the world does with whom they have no hope? Does a sports team or movie franchise bring more of a thrill to you than learning or obeying God does?

You will learn just where you are in your walk with Jesus if you are really honest. If you indeed cannot trust you to be honest with you, ask Jesus to show you. Ask Him to bring someone into your life to be that brutally honest with you about you. 

If you are a living, breathing, human being you have a part in the plans of God to reach people for Christ Jesus. Regardless of apparent limitations. In the book "90 Minutes in Heaven" a Pastor had his life go through the wringer by God in order to create a unique vessel that would be able to reach unique people for Christ. 

Let today be the day your eyes are opened. 

I know in my heart that my Uncle walked into Heaven and approached my family there and clearly said "I told you so!".  They are getting to know him in a whole new way. Unhindered. 

My hearts desire is to have this blog be instrumental in people turning to Jesus Christ to be saved. In my Elementary school years I was never really understood by my teachers, save one or two. I don't think like most people do. I wasn't understood by my peers in most of my 13 years in school (K-12). God's plan for me came out of my uniqueness in how He created me. He created you to be unique as well. Every life is unique to God and He loves them all. 

Let you be honest with you today.