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The Ephesian Connection
In Him also we were made a heritage, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will.
(Ephesians 1:11 NASB and ASV)
We are God’s inheritance, not because of strategic planning and human effort on our part, but because He has purposed it. He works all things after the counsel of His will. When the Lord considers our needs, He does not experiment to find the best solution. He acts according to what He purposed to do before time began. Our God does not devise a plan of action for us as He goes along. Rather, He works out in time what He has known and determined from eternity. God never reacts.
It is fortunate for us that the Lord does not work in our lives in the same way that men operate governments and businesses. Since people do not know the future, they respond to events as they occur. If inflation begins to accelerate, businesses change their strategy accordingly. If a recession looms on the horizon, then another plan has to be implemented. When a foreign power is overthrown, our government has to suddenly adjust its foreign policy. Men must react when the unforeseen happens because no one can possibly know all details of the future.
But God does not operate this way. He does not react; He acts. In fact, He is the Divine Initiator. The universe did not decide to exist. Rather, God made a decision, and by speaking created that which reveals His glory. For example, He created Man, the highest order of this creation from the dust of the ground by breathing life into him. And when He created Adam, He saw all who would eventually come forth from him. Everyone has had Adam as his father – everyone except One, of course. Jesus Christ, who Paul refers to as the last Adam, was different than any other individual born on earth. Since He was not given life from one who had a fallen nature, He was born in holiness. And scripture says that He is the first-born among many brethren (Romans 8:29). When Adam fell, all of creation fell with him. But in contrast, when Jesus rose from the dead and ascended to His Father, all those who would come to believe in Him also arose, ascended, and today are seated with Him by faith in heavenly places.
God knew that Adam would fall even before He created him. Sin did not catch our Lord unaware. Calvary was not a reaction by Heaven to something that had taken Him by surprise. It was an action, the cost of which He had counted from eternity. Again, God does not “roll with the punches”; He foreknows them. If Calvary was an afterthought in response to Satan’s initiative, then redemption is a reaction by God rather than the key ingredient of His eternal plan. Such thinking is simply inappropriate and comes from an inadequate perspective of God and His purpose.
Sadly, Satan is bigger in many Christians’ thoughts than he is in reality. To their minds, God’s war with the evil one is between two spiritual beings who are somewhat comparable, and the outcome is not totally clear. But nothing could be further from the truth. Our God is so much greater than the enemy that it is like comparing a man to a flea. But even that is not an accurate picture because a man is finite and God is infinite. Perhaps a thousand men versus one flea would be more appropriate. Even then, a thousand men are still finite. How about a million men? The point is, you simply cannot compare the infinite God with a finite created being. Satan is just not in the same class as God. I am not trying to minimize the reality of the devil’s power but to exalt God’s power so that we can better understand the nature of His call on us. We are not called by God as an afterthought on His part. We are not saved and filled with the Holy Spirit because He had no other options left once Satan appeared to have messed up His original plan. No, we are God’s original plan. In fact, our destiny is a pre-destiny. It is eternal in its inception and everlasting in its consummation. We who know Him have tasted the future and have been brought into participation with the One who fills eternity. It is no wonder that Satan opposes us so much. He wants to keep us unaware both of who we are in Christ and of the significance of our calling.
As we come to grips with our place in God’s eternal purpose, we will rise above the devil’s deceptions. Satan may come masquerading as God with thoughts in our minds such as, “If I had known what you were really like, I never would have chosen you.” If we accept this as God’s voice, we will doubt His commitment to us. And we will conclude that His plan for our lives is not very important to Him, because we now believe that we are unimportant to Him. As a result, His plan will become unimportant to us and we will not give ourselves to His call. Many people do not pursue the will of God simply because they do not consider themselves important to Him. But if we realized how precious we are in His eyes, we would immediately realize how perfect His will is for our lives and we would pursue it with all our might. Amazingly, we have been loved from eternity. We have been chosen by One who foreknew our every character flaw and our every transgression. Yet He died gladly that we might be forgiven and be enabled to participate in His good, acceptable, and perfect purpose.
I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed (Greek, METAMORPHOO) by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
The Greek word METAMORPHOO above is where we get the English word “metamorphosis,” that amazing process by which a caterpillar becomes a beautiful butterfly. As we submit to God’s work in our lives, He changes our outlook about Him, about life, about others, and about ourselves. As a result, we soon realize that His will is good, acceptable, and perfect. Notice that we are to prove His will. To prove it means to try, to test, and to examine the consequences of obeying Him. God wants us to prove that His will is perfect. One of Heaven’s greatest testimonies is people who because of their obedience to Him, leave behind the “caterpillar” attributes of fear, self-centeredness, jealousy, etc. and emerge with a genuine love for God and others. Sometimes we seem to ourselves to be more like a caterpillar than a butterfly. But the butterfly life within (the life of God) keeps drawing us continually to Him. And the result is that He will keep renewing our minds until the metamorphic process is effectively worked out in us.
God’s work in us is according to the counsel of His own perfect will. He effects for us what is good, acceptable, and perfect from His own eternal perspective. And as we walk in harmony with Him, we prove to ourselves the goodness and the perfection of His will. As a result, we then become living proof of this truth to others.
May God continue to cause us to see with ever greater clarity the perfection of His plan for our lives. May we give ourselves with total abandon to the pursuit of Him and what He has purposed from eternity.
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