For I know the thoughts and plans I have for you, says the Lord....
In this chapter of Jeremiah, God was speaking through the prophet to encourage the nation after 70 long years in captivity. He wanted to reassure them that he still had wonderful plans for their lives. He wanted to remind them as he does you today, of his goodness and that he would fulfill all the promises that he had spoken concerning their future.
I cannot imagine the despair that national captivity brings to a people group, so I can see how necessary it was to encourage them to not give up. Captivity changes us personally and most certainly it changes nations, cultures and people groups. God is no different now with us. As we go through times of captivity in our our own lives, he still has plans and promises that he desires to fulfill when our captivity is over. He has plans for families, cultures, nations and future generations, as well as personal destiny plans for each of us.
We cannot speak of destinies without thinking of such verses in Jeremiah. God constantly remind us that he is the eternal God who has always been and always will be. There is no beginning or end to God. He is the self existent one. He said to Moses- I am that I am sends you. God has always existed and so he is always planning. These plans as Jeremiah tells us are for our welfare as God is our Father loves us so very much. We cannot look at plans of destiny outside of his involvement, because he is the author and architect of life. He made us with specific plans in mind and those plans must include him. These are plans to bless us and give us great hope for our future. A hope that includes him most of all, as he is our creator.
FROM THE BEGINNING
In the beginning God had a plan for the world and it included all of us. Mankind started with Adam and Eve as they were the ones first mentioned but it certainly didn't end there. As God's dearly beloved children, we can always insert ourselves into the story of scripture and personalize it as all of his promises in scripture are YES AND AMEN in Christ Jesus.
For five days God was busy creating a place for man to dwell. Here we see the thoughtfulness, care and intentionality of God. He didn't just create mankind and drop us in an environment not suited for us. He very specifically made the space beautiful and conducive for life and pleasure; then created us perfectly after himself, his likeness and his image, placing us here to rule over all he had made.
Genesis 1:26-27 Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Father Son and Holy Spirit were involved in creation, each with specific roles.
Genesis 1:1-3 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
Here we see God in action as creator-the word God here in this passage of scripture is Elohiym. God has many names, and God creator is one of them. We also see the involvement of Jesus in creation as the Word of God speaking and calling forth light in Genesis 1. He as carrying out the Fathers plans of creation.
John 6:38 "For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me."
John 5:19 “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does."
John 1:1-5 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Do you now see Jesus in creation? Do you see that he did nothing without the Father or the Spirit's involvement?
They are indeed three in one, perfectly unified and from the very beginning have been so intimately involved in the creation and affairs of mankind. Who would make something as magnificent as our world and then not have future plans to be involved in it's continual progression? Not our God. He has plans for the world and for his children and it involves covenant and destiny.
Plans, defined: Written account of intended future course of action (scheme) aimed at achieving specific goal(s) or objective(s) within a specific time frame. a set of decisions about how to do something in the future; scheme or method of acting, doing, proceeding, making, etc., developed in advance
Covenant defined: Literally, a contract. In the bible; an agreement between God and his people, in which God makes promises to his people and, usually, requires certain conduct from them. In the Old Testament, God made agreements with Noah, Abraham, and Moses.
Covenants have to do with binding agreements between two parties-bilateral. Covenants involve vows, oaths and equal privileges and responsibilities within the agreement.
That means that when we enter into covenants with others, that we are to committed to the other person as they are to us, each with responsibilities in the relationship. All covenants have responsibilities and agreements that must be carried out for the covenant to work well.
GOD KNOWS US SO WELL
Psalm 139:14-18 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand—when I awake, I am still with you.
God knows your frame-how you were put together, your personality traits, temperaments, weaknesses, frailties, strengths, proclivities, generational issues etc...he knows it all.
So when you go to him and begin to inquire about his plans, you can trust the strategies he gives you to implement because he has all of who you are in mind when he makes those plans.
Proverbs 19:21 You can make many plans, but the LORD’s purpose will prevail.
KEEP COVENANT IN MIND WHILE MAKING PLANS
Covenants involves the plans and purposes of God, so keeping covenant alive is vital to the life of your vision and destiny. Whether you are single and your covenant with the Lord is requiring you to take certain steps and plot certain courses, or you are married and the Lord has specific purposes for the marriage, it will all require a purposeful seeking on your part to obtain the counsel of the Lord - and prayer is the first step. Honest and simple prayers, are what God desires from us. Broken and contrite hearts before him in prayer with humble attitudes and spirits before him is what clears or hearts and consciences with the Lord.
CLARITY ON THE PLANS
Habakkuk 2:2 And the LORD answered me: “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it.
What is this? This is our blueprint for knowing what God desires. The prophet took the position of asking and waiting with the Lord. Are you asking God questions and looking to the horizon for his response? Are you eagerly expecting him to speak to you telling you the specific details and plans he has for your life and how you can partner with him?
This heightened position Habakkuk took required him being in prayer and closed in with the Lord. He made God's voice and response a priority in his life in other words. Just how bad do you want to know God's plans for your life? Intentionality on your part will be key to you experiencing real breakthrough in casting vision. This may mean you close out a lot of other voices that you are use to tuning into. It may require you spending more time in prayer each day or in the Word of God. Maybe you need to spend more time in silence or in worship. However you usually discern God's voice is the place to start and then you can journey with him from this point forward. The cares of this life will crowd out the voice of God and we must guard against that. It may require you shifting into a period of consecration so you can hear, see and receive the vision God has for you more clearly. The vision may not come all at once but as God desires, but you can implement what he does give you and then wait and position yourself to hear more.
DESTINY WITH GOD IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER
Destiny is about our journey and relationship with God, not just about a final destination or outcome. We learn a lot about God and ourselves as we journey in destiny with him. Destiny is about our life processes and is always progressive. Your destiny in Christ is about you learning to govern with dominion. Jesus gave us our dominion back at the cross, so we are all on a journey of understanding how we use that spiritual and natural dominion. This is a process for each of us, as our blueprints and callings in the earth re all different. This is why we must know what we are called to do while here in the earth. Our callings will have each of us using that governance in different ways, but we all have governance as we submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Destiny is to be a daily lifestyle with God, where we experience him in the big and little things of this life. Destiny is about being vulnerable with God and honest in prayer. It's us trusting him in all the details of our lives. Destiny means we have daily communications with God and being open to his voice in response to our conversations with him. Destiny is about allowing God to develop the virtue of patience in us as we progress in character development, gifts and callings. Destiny requires us to be in partnership not only with God, but with those he desires us to be connected to. The right destiny relationships are vital to seeing his plans implemented in our lives, because we were never meant to do this life alone. This requires us to involve others in our destiny lifestyle with the Lord.
DON'T WASTE ANOTHER DAY
Don't waste another day, month or year following a plan that has nothing to do with why God created you. Make spending time with God a priority so you can find out all the incredible thoughts, plans and purposes he has for you not only in the life to come but in life right now.
In closing here are some wisdom keys from the book-Sustaining the Vision - Make it Plain, Workbook by Dr. Taquetta Baker.
WISDOM KEYS
journal the plan-write it down and keep it where you can see it
have a calendar for your plan
schedule time with the Lord concerning your goals for the plan
plans should be consistently re-visited and re-evaluated with the Lord, and only changed or discarded at his leading
plans should be consistently worked and invested into before totally revamping a plan.
get rid of plans that God asks you to scrap and do it immediately as he may be giving you a more efficient plan for where you are at the moment or for where you are going and what he is doing.
consider having an accountability partner to help you carry out the plans of the vision- 2 are better than 1 (Ecclesiastes 4:9)
consistently pray into the plan and possibly add fasting as you may receive greater revelation about the purposes of God for the vision.
repent when you drop the ball in implementing the plan and spend time building yourself back up in faith
Journeying in destiny,