On 3rd July 2010, we celebrated the official opening of Goldthorpe Pentecostal Community Church on Market Street. That day marked the end of one era and the beginning of another. The journey to buy the former Methodist church St Mark’s started well before then, but as we were given the keys to the building in February 2010, we began to glimpse something of God’s plans for us as a church.
There was a lot of hard work between February and July 2010, with volunteers spending hours restoring the building so that it could house God’s people again. As we prepare to celebrate the anniversary of our move next Saturday (9th July) with another community open day, our family service looked at the topic of God’s good plans for us as individuals and as a church.
Jer 29:11 reminds us that God has plans to prosper us and not to harm us, plans to give us hope and a future. Making plans is an essential part of life, from the mundane (‘what are we going to have for dinner?’) to the more exotic (holiday destinations beckon at this time of year!) There’s nothing wrong with making plans, but James 4:13-17 reminds us that it’s unwise to make plans without God. James reminds us that we don’t even know what will happen tomorrow, that life is God’s gift to us, and that we need to think about Him in all the plans we make. If we don’t, then we run the risk of making plans that are futile (Ps 94:11), because ‘a person may think their own ways are right, but the Lord weighs the heart.’ (Prov 21:2) Proverbs reminds us that ‘there is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.’ (Prov 14:12, 16:25)
God’s plans for us are good, even if life sometimes seems to shatter those plans (as both Job and Joseph experienced.) When life is dark and confusing, we have to trust that the God who thwarts the plans of the crafty (Job 5:12), the God who foils the plans of the nations (Ps 33:10), will not allow His purposes to be thwarted and will bring good out of every situation (see Ps 33:11, Rom 8:28).
Our plans are based on limited knowledge and ability, but God’s plans are based on His omniscience and omnipotence. Prov 19:21 reminds us that ‘many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.’ We can be secure at all times in the good plans God has for each one of us. (Eph 2:10)
