Bibles for America (BfA)

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Does God Have a Plan?

July 08 2019

Does God Have a Plan?

When we’re little children, many times we play with our toys in a random way, exploring as we learn. But we have no grand scheme or purpose to our play. We simply make it up as we go.

But can you imagine God doing something like that? Would the God who is wise, loving, and eternal create the universe without a purpose? Could He create human beings without a purpose?

God is a God of purpose

The eternally wise God surely has a purpose for His creation. The orderliness of God’s creation—from the expanse of the universe down to the microscopic structure of an atom—suggests to us that God is a deliberate and purposeful God.

Look at the earth’s precise yearly orbit around the sun and the moon’s monthly orbit around the earth. Both speak not only of order but also of purpose. Their placement and the regularity of their orbits provide the best conditions for life to grow and be sustained on earth with days and nights, new seasons, and new years. Such order shows us that God doesn’t do things randomly or without purpose. God has a plan for everything.

So what is the purposeful God’s plan for us, His highest creation?

God’s plan for man

After six days of preparing the best physical environment, God reached the peak of His creating work—mankind. In all His preceding work, God simply spoke, and the land, the seas, the plants, and the animals appeared. But when it came to creating man, God didn’t just speak. The Bible states in Genesis 1:26, “And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.” As a purposeful being, God made man in a very particular way—in His image. Why? Because God had a plan. An illustration here will help us understand what mankind being made in God’s image means and how it’s connected to God’s plan.

A hand and a glove

Let’s say a knitter sets out to make a glove. Since her plan is to put her hand inside the glove, she knits it in a particular way—with four longer fingers, a shorter thumb, and a hole at the wrist. In other words, she makes the glove in the shape, or image, of her hand, with an opening for her hand to get into it.

The knitter then puts her hand into the glove. If the glove could talk, it might say, “This is why I was made—to contain this hand! Now when this hand moves, I move too. What the hand does, I do too. We were meant for each other!”

Similarly, we (the glove) were made in God’s image so that God (the hand) could live in us. By living in us, His life becomes our life. Like the hand and the glove, whatever God does, we do in oneness with Him. We express the God who lives His life in us, and we make Him manifest to everyone around us.

God has a purpose for your life

God’s greater plan for all our lives is that we would have Him as our life and live Him out to express Him. Certainly, God does care about what we study in school, what kind of job we have, who we marry, and where we live. But He doesn’t care about these things aimlessly. God’s purpose and concern for the details of our lives fits within the bigger picture of His eternal purpose—that we express the God who lives in us and who has become our life.

If we’re empty and without God, or if we don’t live a life to gain God and express God, then our having the “right” spouse, career, or house might be nice, but we still fall short of the goal. God’s greater purpose for us remains unfulfilled, and we also feel unfulfilled, since His purpose is why we were created.

Although the details of our individual lives are all so different, God’s plan is actually the same for every one of us. Regardless of our different circumstances, in our day-to-day living while we drive our cars, talk to our family members, or work at our jobs, God wants to live in us so He can be expressed through us in our lives.

Here’s a short prayer we can pray to thank God for creating us with such a wonderful purpose:

“Dear Lord, thank You for showing me that Your plan for my life is greater than what I study, who I marry, or where I live. Lord, thank You for making me part of Your eternal plan. Thank You for making me in Your image so I can be filled with You and express You. Cleanse me, Lord, and fill me with Yourself. Lord Jesus, I love You.”

For more on this subject, you can read chapter 1 of Basic Elements of the Christian Life, vol. 1 for free here.

All verses are quoted from the Holy Bible Recovery Version. You can order a free copy of the New Testament Recovery Version here.

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Learning to Deal with the Accusations of Satan

June 24 2019

Learning to Deal with the Accusations of Satan

We hope you enjoy reading this testimony from a Bibles for America staff member about realizing the effectiveness of the blood of Christ and its power in dealing with accusations from Satan, God’s enemy.

I’d like to share my experience of realizing how amazingly effective the blood of Christ is. I knew His blood cleansed me from my sins, but I didn’t always have such a deep and rich appreciation of its power against Satan, God’s enemy. An excerpt from The Glorious Church by Watchman Nee truly encapsulates my experience. (You can download the entire book for free here.)

The excerpt is from chapter 4, on pages 88-89. It begins:

“Romans 5:9 says, ‘…having now been justified in His blood.’ When many people come into the Lord’s presence, they have no peace in their heart. They also have a feeling of worthlessness and of being wrong within. This is because they have a false hope. They expect that they will have something positive in themselves to offer to God.”

This was my experience over and over. Growing up in a Christian home, I internalized a high moral code. I should be kind; I should be generous; I should never lie; I should live a holy life that expresses Christ—the list went on and on. And my expectation was that eventually, if I tried hard enough, I’d be able to reach that standard. But as time went on, the harder I tried to be good and holy, the more I failed. And the more I failed, the more difficult it was for me to come to God. I was crushed by my failures, and I also thought God expected me to do better, to be better. 

The next part of the excerpt says: 

“When they discover that they do not have anything positive to offer in themselves, the accusations come. An accusation is like this: ‘A person like you will never have anything good to offer to God.’” 

 Satan would accuse me like this so often! I felt worthless in my own eyes and in the eyes of God, and I was deeply ashamed of my failures.

Nee continues:

“But we must remember that we originally possessed no positive goodness before God. There was nothing good in ourselves that we could offer to God. We could only present one thing to Him—the blood. We could only be justified by the blood. We do not have any positive righteousness in ourselves. We become righteous only because of the righteousness which we receive through redemption.”

When I finally realized the fact that only the blood of Jesus is worthy, not me, I felt like I’d been saved all over again! I was released from my constant struggle to improve my behavior, and from the ever-present feeling that I hadn’t achieved an acceptable level of goodness to be able to come to God.

First Corinthians 1:30 in the New Testament Recovery Version says, 

“But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became wisdom to us from God: both righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” 

This verse really helped me see that our righteousness is Christ Himself. We have no righteousness in and of ourselves. Isaiah 64:6 even tells us that our righteousnesses are like a soiled garment. But when I was redeemed and believed in Christ Jesus, He became my righteousness. What an amazing fact!

The excerpt from The Glorious Church continues:

“Every time we come to the throne of grace, we can look to Him for grace. It is a throne of grace, not a throne of righteousness. Every time we come before God, our only qualification is that we have been redeemed, not that we have advanced in our Christian life. No Christian can ever reach the stage where he can say, ‘I have been doing pretty well recently; now I have the boldness to pray.’ No. Every time we come before God, our only ground, our only position, is based upon the blood.” 

Of course, we should continue to grow in our Christian life. We shouldn’t remain the same, just like a baby doesn’t remain the same day after day. However, it was critical for me to realize that advancing in my Christian life isn’t what qualifies me to come into the presence of God; it’s only being redeemed by Christ. My eternal standing before God is the redeeming blood of Jesus.

Nee goes on:

“We must realize that no amount of spiritual growth can substitute for the effectiveness of the blood. Not one spiritual experience can ever replace the work of the blood. Even if someone should become as spiritual as the apostle Paul, the apostle John, or the apostle Peter, he would still need the blood to stand before God.”

No matter where I am in my Christian walk, no matter how my day goes—whether I feel like I did pretty well, or I failed spectacularly—my basic need before God is always the blood of Jesus. 

Nee goes on to discuss how to deal with the accusations of Satan:

“Sometimes when we have sinned, Satan comes to accuse us, and sometimes when we have not sinned, Satan still comes to accuse us. Sometimes it is not a problem of whether or not we have sinned, but a problem of not having a positive righteousness to offer to God; so Satan accuses us. However, we must be clear: We can come into God’s presence only because of the blood, not because of anything else. Since we have been cleansed by the blood and justified by the blood, we are under no obligation whatsoever to accept the accusations of Satan.”

The source of the condemnation I was under for so long was Satan himself. In Revelation 12, he’s called “the accuser of our brothers.” His primary occupation is to accuse God’s children day and night to prevent them from coming to God. I’m learning that when he comes to accuse me, I shouldn’t respond with anything I’ve done, or anything I am. Instead, when Satan tells me, “You’re no good. You can offer nothing to God,” I can point him to the precious blood of Jesus. I can tell him—even “preach” to him—how Christ shed His blood for me, and that He is my righteousness before God. 

I really love Revelation 12:11, which says:

“And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they loved not their soul-life even unto death.” 

Note 2 on blood in the New Testament Recovery Version is really helpful:

“The blood of the Lamb, which is for our redemption, answers before God all the accusations of the devil against us and gives us the victory over him. We need to apply this blood whenever we sense the accusation of the devil.”

Praise God for the precious blood of the Lamb! It’s by His blood alone that any of us are qualified to come to Him. And by His blood, we can overcome the accusations of Satan that hinder us from coming to God.

This chapter of The Glorious Church says much more about dealing with the accusations of Satan by the blood of Christ. I really encourage you to read it for yourself. The passage that I quoted from is on pages 88-89, and you can download a copy of the whole book for free here.

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The Bible’s Source—God or Man?

June 10 2019

The Bible’s Source—God or Man?

Where did the Bible come from? Are its words simply religious lore, written down by people over the centuries? Are they the product of the thoughts and imaginations of men? Or is the Bible the inspired Word of God? Did God write the Bible? Or did men?

Since our faith is based on this book, it’s crucial for us as Christians to know the source of the Bible.

Knowing the source is critical

When we want to find out how reliable something is, we check its source. For example, we definitely want to know where our drinking water comes from. If we know it comes from a pure source, we’re confident we can drink it without harm. In the same way, we trust certain news reports if we believe the reporters are reliable and their facts are checked.

For us to gauge the trustworthiness of something, it helps if we know its source. When we do, we can then determine whether we should disregard it or deem it valuable and reliable. So much depends on its source. The same is true with the Bible.

Where did the Bible come from?

Throughout the ages, many people from different cultures at different times have written down their thoughts, observations, and philosophies on life. But what about the Bible? Is it merely a collection of the thoughts, observations, and philosophies of pious men about God?

In 2 Peter 1:21, the apostle Peter says:

“For no prophecy was ever borne by the will of man, but men spoke from God while being borne by the Holy Spirit.”

Peter explains that although the Scriptures were written through men, these men spoke from God. The source of the Bible is God, not men.

We can see this when we consider the true and profound words in the Scriptures. Could any person write such words? At times, they defy our expectations by providing indescribable comfort or piercing light concerning our inner condition. Even if a person wanted to write something for or about God, all mankind is fallen, and the mind of man is darkened and limited, incapable of writing such words as those found in the Bible.

How did the words of the Bible get to us from God?

Men didn’t speak from themselves, but were used by God to record the words in the Bible. To understand how this could occur, we need to look more closely at this phrase: “men spoke from God while being borne by the Holy Spirit.”

Note 2 on 2 Peter 1:21 in the New Testament Recovery Version explains:

“No prophecy was ever borne by the will of man. Man’s will, desire, and wish, with his thought and exposition, were not the source from which any prophecy came; the source was God, by whose Holy Spirit men were borne, as a ship is borne by the wind, to speak out the will, desire, and wish of God.”

If you’ve ever watched a boat sailing on the water, you’ve seen its sails catch the wind. It moves not by its own power, but by the power of that wind. This picture demonstrates how the Bible came from God. Just as a boat is moved by the wind, certain men were borne, or carried along, by the Holy Spirit. By this Spirit these men could speak or write down the will, desire, and wish of God. This is what we mean when we say that the Bible is inspired by God.

So the words of the Bible didn’t originate from man’s own mind. But how did this “being borne by the Holy Spirit” happen?

The Holy Spirit and the human spirit

It’s important to see that God created human beings not only with a mind, but also with an inward part that’s deeper than the mind. The Bible tells us in Zechariah 12:1 that God “formed the spirit of man within him.” This “spirit of man” is our deepest part, and just like the other parts of our being, it has a particular function. Our eyes are for seeing, our ears are for hearing, and our human spirit is for contacting, receiving, and containing God.

John 4:24 says,

“God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit.”

The first Spirit in this verse refers to the divine Spirit, and the second spirit refers to the human spirit. With our human spirit, we can worship, fellowship with, and know God, who is Spirit.

So how does this relate to where the Bible came from? As certain men had fellowship with God in their spirit, they were borne, or carried along, by the Holy Spirit to write down not their own words, but the words of God. The Scriptures are God’s words, and they are holy because their source is God. They came to us from men who were borne by the Holy Spirit to speak and write words from God.

Why it’s important for us to know the source of the Bible

If we don’t see that God Himself is the source of the Bible, that all Scripture is God-breathed, then the foundation of our Christian life will be unsteady and vulnerable. Our faith rests solidly on the Bible. For us to have confidence in this book, we need to see clearly that God is the source of the Bible.

In our daily environment, we interact with people who don’t believe in God or value the Bible’s words as being from God. At work, at school, on television, in movies—nearly everywhere we look—we encounter things and people that may make us question the Bible, causing us to ask ourselves, “Is the Bible reliable?” “Is everything in the Bible true?” “How do I know the Bible is true?” And if we’re unsure about the Bible, our faith can be shaken.

However, if we’re clear that God is the source of the Bible, we’ll know its words are trustworthy, true, and pure because God is trustworthy, true, and pure. We’ll have confidence in the reliability of the Bible, and our faith will be strengthened by its words. God’s Word can sustain us in all situations, guide us to know God today, and be depended on for all eternity.

Because we know God Himself is the source of the Scriptures, we can trust the Bible wholeheartedly, without reservation or doubt. By trusting in and relying on the Bible, we’ll come to know God more and more deeply both in this book and in our lives.

All verses are quoted from the Holy Bible Recovery Version. You can order a free copy of the New Testament Recovery Version here.

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