GOD'S GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM: GOD'S GPS PLAN FOR OUR LIVES

GPS and GGPS

These are truly amazing days in which we are living! New inventions are constantly being presented to us, and one of the newest is GPS or Global Positioning System You can buy this device for your car, take it with you if you go hiking, biking, flying, shopping or wherever you go. GPS even tells you where you are so you can't get lost!

Even more amazing than this new invention is a very old, but very valuable book called the BIBLE. The Bible contains GGPS, which is God's Global Positioning System that is able to guide and direct those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior so they can grow up spiritually. God's global plan does not have to be carried in our hand or our pocket in order to guide us, but it must be in the right lobe of our brain ... where we do our thinking! How does Biblical information get into our brain? Only by a daily intake of Bible Doctrine. Then the doctrine we learn and metabolize can be applied to every situation we encounter in life.

In eternity past, God the Holy Spirit programmed His GGPS plan for our lives. We have all the necessary instructions the believer needs in order to function properly during the time period in which we live, and those instructions are found in a book we call the Bible. For example we now live in what theologians call "the Church Age", which is unique from all other ages, because in this dispensation, God the Holy Spirit indwells every person the moment he believes in Christ as his substitute for sin. The Holy Spirit brings to remembrance the things he has learned and produces the character of Christ in him, i.e., "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness faithfulness, meekness, and self-control". (Galatians 5:22-23)

God has provided prepared men to be pastor-teachers who are able to equip believers to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, and because the scriptures were originally written in the Hebrew, Aramaic and Koine (common) Greek languages, a pastor-teacher must learn those languages, or be mentored by another man who has learned them in order to present a correct interpretation of the Bible to their hearers. If you, as a believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, have positive volition toward God's Word, the Lord will provide a right pastor-teacher for you.

The night before Jesus was arrested and taken before the Jew's Council, He and the 12 disciples who had been with Him for three years celebrated the Last Supper (the Passover supper) together. Near the end of the meal, Jesus dismissed Judas Iscariot who would betray Him that very night and then began to teach the others what would be taking place after His departure. Even though He had taught them many times how He would be crucified, buried and then after three days be raised from the dead, they were very sad. Jesus told them He would be going to heaven to prepare a place for them, but meanwhile He would ask the Father to send the Holy Spirit to comfort them and would permanently indwell them during the next dispensation called the Church Age. In this present age, believers are baptized into Christ ... that is, they are permanently sealed and identified with Him, because the word 'baptize means identification. Paul said in Ephesians 4:10, "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God whereby you are sealed until the day of redemption."

After His death, burial and resurrection, Jesus spent 40 days on the earth teaching His disciples about things to come, and then He ascended into heaven. The Day of Pentecost occurred ten days later, and the Holy Spirit came to indwell the 11 apostles and gave them the ability to present the good news of the Gospel to thousands of pilgrim Jews who had come to Jerusalem from other lands to celebrate the feast days. They were amazed to hear the Gospel in their own language from unlearned men, but that ability was a gift from the Holy Spirit, and that very day about 3,000 men believed in the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior.

The cannon of scripture was not completed until 96 A.D., so during the interim between 33A.D. and 96A.D. we have the transitional book of Acts during which the apostles were given miracle gifts of healing the sick and the lame, casting out demons, and raising the dead. Those gifts were given temporarily so that people would listen to the Word of God as presented to them by the apostles. Once the Bible was completed, those gifts ceased to be legitimate, because now God speaks to mankind only through His Word.

In the ninth chapter of Acts, we find the record of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus to Christianity. His name was changed to Paul, and he spent several days in the house of a man called Ananias. After that the Lord took Paul to Arabia and instructed him for the next three years about the mysteries of the Church Age. (Galatians 1:17-18)

The mystery doctrines that were unknown to Old Testament writers and Prophets were given to Paul, and they are for us who live in this present dispensation. With God's Global Positioning System to guide us, we will not try to live according to what was expected of believers in past ages. For example, we are not required to offer animals sacrifices to the Lord, but we are instructed by Paul to "present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."Romans 12:1-2) Information about the mysteries of the Church Age are found listed on page 769 of Unger's Bible Dictionary as follows:

The mystery of the Church as the "body of Christ composed of saved Jews and Gentiles in this age" are explained by Paul in Ephesians 3:1-11; 6:19; and in Colossians 4:3.
The mystery of the Church as the "bride of Christ" is revealed in Ephesians 5:28-32.
The mystery of "Christ in us, the hope of glory" is explained in Galatians 2:20 and in Colossians 1:26, 27.
The mystery of "Christ being the fullness of the Godhead in bodily form" is stated in Colossians 2:2 & in 1 Corinthians 2:7.
The mystery of the "operation by which man is restored to godliness" is found in 1 Timothy 3:16.
The mystery of "Israel's blindness during the Gospel age" is revealed in Romans 11:25.
The mystery of the resurrection of all believers in the Church Age when it comes to a close is our "blessed hope". Paul takes a look at this exciting event in 1 Corinthians 15:51-52.
"Behold, Is show you a mystery ... we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed".

Again, and in more detail, 1 Thessalonian's 4:13-18 states the following:
"I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren,concerning those who are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so those also who sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. For this we say unto you by the Word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord shall not precede those who are asleep; for the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first.
Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort one another with these words!"

You cannot take advantage of God's Global Programming System until you believe that Jesus Christ paid the penalty for your sins when He died on a cross over 2,000 years ago.

"NEITHER IS THERE SALVATION IN ANY OTHER; FOR THERE IS NO OTHER NAME UNDER HEAVEN GIVEN AMONG MEN WHEREBY WE MUST BE SAVED (Acts 4:12)."

Written by Lois Delnay
Fallbrook Ranch Productions
03/2008
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Lois Delnay's writings on Helium