07 April 2020
‘The Divine Plot’
Read Romans 8:28-39
Key verse v 29 ‘For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, in order that we might be the firstborn within a large family’
In the last set of notes we said that a good story has elements characters, a plot, movement and an end. We looked at the first characters, now I want to look at the second element: plot. How pleasant it is when you read the writing of a good, clean minded novelist. One who takes the raw data of existence and makes out of it a story, you are taken through the plot or the blue prints. We can see the plan.
God is the great novelist and very much in the business of story-telling. What is His plot? John Stott Church of England Minister and Christian author expressed it in this way ‘God is making human beings more human by making them more like Christ’. In the beginning God Created us in His own image, which we spoiled by our sin and disobedience and God’s story since that point has been our restoration to be created in His image.
The Living Bible paraphrases v29 beautifully:
‘For from the very beginning God decided that those who came to Him – and all along He knew who would – should become like His Son’
God is so excited about His Son Jesus Christ that He wants to make everyone like him, not in appearance but in character. This the divine plot, and God uses everything that happens to us – good, bad even the indifferent – to achieve this plot to make us more like Him. Wow what a difference it would make if we really get hold of the truth the God allows into our lives only what He can use.