God’s Plan

We talked about Happy Giver last week, so this is a follow on.

As a military person, I was taught about duty and service to my country and society.  There are many things to govern the military life, but duty and service are foremost.  General of the Army, MacArthur said it best:  Duty, honor, country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying point to build courage when courage seems to fail, to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith, to create hope when hope becomes forlorn. 

As a young cadet, I also had to memorize Scholfield’s “Definition of Discipline”.  Most West Point graduates can still recite the definition verbatim even to this day.  It begins with: “The discipline which makes the soldiers of a free country reliable in battle is not to be gained by harsh or tyrannical treatment.  On the contrary, such treatment is far more likely to destroy than to make an army.”  General Scholfield was a deeply religious man and this idea can translate into all aspects of life.  Can you truly be reliable yourself when you are only doing your duty because you have been forced into doing something that wars with your private feelings?  The first step is to accept your duty with an open and willing heart.  You cannot force someone into anything – human beings can be worse than horses when being led to the water.

What does accepting your duty mean?  You have duty to your family, to your job, to your friends, and most importantly, to your Spiritual Guide.  As a Christian, your Spiritual Guide is simple.  We have the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.  That is your Holy Trinity.  We, as Christians, have Jesus Christ.  He is our path to God and the Holy Spirit.  To accept Jesus Christ, you must first know him.  There is an entire book about him called the New Testament of the Holy Bible.  Obviously most people reading this have read part of that book, but do you know that book?  Do you understand Jesus’ duty?  Do you recognize that our God, the Almighty Father, offered up his Son because he thought it was His duty to bring his other lambs into the fold?  He sent the Great Shepherd, Jesus Christ, to perform that duty.  He accepted it even though it meant the death of his mortal body.

So who is Jesus Christ?  He was human – he had a human Mother.  His holiness is demonstrated by the miracles that he did – to include his resurrection.  Most importantly, he died for our sins.  Like Peter said in Acts 4.12:  Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.  Your duty, that you much accept with an open and willing heart, is to accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, and try to emulate him in your actions.  To live the life of someone who practices his dictates:  To love one another and to follow the “be-attitudes”.The Sermon on the Mount

 ¹ Jesus saw the crowds and went up a hill, where he sat down. His disciples gathered around him,² and he began to teach them:

The Sermon on the Mount begins with the famous Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12), a list of eight character traits that please God and bring great satisfaction and reward to the disciple who demonstrates them. It has been said that Jesus opens up with an unmatched salvo of godly standards of character—the righteous attitudes of those who will enter the Kingdom of God.  These are called the beatitudes.

True Happiness()

         Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor;
      the Kingdom of heaven belongs to them!
 ⁴ Happy are those who mourn;
      God will comfort them!
 ⁵ Happy are those who are humble;
      they will receive what God has promised!
 ⁶ Happy are those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires;
      God will satisfy them fully!
 ⁷ Happy are those who are merciful to others;
      God will be merciful to them!
 ⁸ Happy are the pure in heart;
      they will see God!
 ⁹ Happy are those who work for peace;
      God will call them his children!
 ¹⁰ Happy are those who are persecuted because they do what God requires;
      the Kingdom of heaven belongs to them!

Also:   ¹¹ Happy are you when people insult you and persecute you and tell all kinds of evil lies against you because you are my followers.¹² Be happy and glad, for a great reward is kept for you in heaven. This is how the prophets who lived before you were persecuted.

Just like there is a plan for everything, there is a plan for you in this life.  It can be 12 steps, 10 steps, or a single step.  Everything is part of God’s plan.  Our life goals are our plan for our life.  How do they fit into God’s plan for us?  There are many steps – every journey begins with taking the first step.

 During Lent, we have 40 steps… each day is another day of asking for repentance.  On the first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday it is observed by fasting, abstinence from meat, and repentance—a day of contemplating one’s transgressions.  Ash Wednesday is a day of repentance and it marks the beginning of Lent.  According to the Matthew 4:1–11, Mark 1:12–13, and Luke 4:1–13 Jesus spent 40 days fasting in the desert before the beginning of his public ministry, during which he endured temptation by Satan.  Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of this 40-day liturgical period of prayer and fasting when Jesus went into the desert to fast and pray.  While not specifically instituted in the Bible text, the 40-day period of repentance is like the 40 days during which Moses repented and fasted in response to the making of the Golden calf and coincides with Jews today who follow a 40-day period of repenting during the High Holy Days from Rosh Chodesh Elul to Yom Kippur.

So what is your repentance?  Spend time in meditation and thinking.  Try to be a child of our most high God?