Here’s one of my many thoughts in these first days of January. I think it’s cool enough to share (feel free to let me know what you think). You know how, in 1 Peter, he exhorts his readers to be “well balanced and always alert, because your enemy, the devil, roams around incessantly, like a roaring lion looking for its prey to devour.” 1 Peter 5:8, TPT. Well, that verse always gave me the creeps, like an unnerving scene from some B movie. But here’s the corollary to that: be well balanced and always paying attention, because the Holy Spirit is always moving around, looking for souls in need of rescue, to bring those dear ones out of death to wholeness and eternal life. That’s God’s Plan ‘A’ as Isaiah prophesied in 55:11: “As the snow and rain that fall from heaven do not return until they have accomplished their purpose, soaking the earth and causing it to sprout with new life, providing seed to sow and bread to eat. So also will be the word that I speak; it does not return to me unfulfilled. My word performs my purpose and fulfills the mission that I sent it out to accomplish.”
Just think! Each of us who has been brought into a relationship with Jesus, our Messiah, is a part of that fulfilled mission. We have each, somewhere along the line, collided with the influence of the Holy Spirit, been separated from ‘death,’ and been brought to wholeness and eternal life! What God the Father spoke through the Prophet Isaiah 700 years before Jesus came, was then and still is, His ‘A’ plan.
What really intrigues me is how each Holy Spirit ‘collision’ is unique (try matching Paul’s Damascus Road collision!). The aim of each encounter is the same, but processing the transformation is as unique as each redeemed soul. Our stories are anything but ‘cookie cutter.’ The arc of our growth may sometimes look a bit like an irregular EKG readout, rough in places, but flatlining, while in God’s hands, doesn’t exist. We are His beloved! “. . . he gave his one and only, unique Son as a gift. So now everyone who believes in him will never perish but experience everlasting life.” John 3:16, TPT.
So, not only have we been chosen, but we’ve also been given a purpose and a mission, which, God says, will be fulfilled! This is the glorious mystery of our redemption. We may not see or understand what God is doing, but we can be sure He’s at work in us (Jesus said his Father was always at work). What a fascinating 12 months ahead! What will He have accomplished in us by December 31, 2025? I don’t know either, but whatever it is, it will be good! PD
