Plugged In

I think that every single one of us has wondered, we have all asked the question... What am I here for?

We all want to know what God's purpose for our life is, where we fit in the grand scheme of things. People tell us verses like Jeremiah 29:11 which says, "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope."

We take this verse, and others like it and decide that it is future tense. We go through all of our lives waiting for "the plans I have for you" This might come as a surprise to you, it might not. But either way I pray that you consider this.

God's plan for your life is today.

God knows everything that will ever happen in your life, and He has set works ahead of you for you to walk in them. Ephesians 2:10 declares, "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."

That verse excites us. God has plans for me! God has good works for me to walk in! Wahoo! It's true, and it is exciting, but I think we're all guilty of wanting to be at the exciting parts today. We want to fast forward the boring dialogue and get to the action.

However, we can't do that. We need to start at the beginning. This calling on our lives, on my life, on your life, it's a lot like a building. We have to start on the first floor, then we can build off of that. We can't remove it, we can't ignore it. Every part of our calling must flow through that.

As Christians, the first floor we must tackle, where our calling begins, is in abiding in Christ.

John 15:4-5, "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing."

Abiding simply means to remain in, to continue in, or to dwell in. We need to take up residence in Jesus, because without Him we have nothing.

It's kind of like a cell phone. You can do a whole lot of things with phones these days, but if you don't charge them, they're useless. A cell phone with a dead battery doesn't accomplish anything. The more that you do with your phone, the more often you will need to charge it, and there is no other way to charge it than by connecting it to a power source.

A Christian who isn't plugged into God is useless. There's no way to get recharged other than getting with God, connecting to the Source. You have to charge the phone before it becomes effective, and we need to be charged in the same way. Without the constant refilling of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we get burnt out, we wear down, and we become inneffective.

We all want to know what God has planned ahead of our lives, but we need to start with being plugged into God, abiding in Him. As we remain consistent in that, God will bring us into what He has for us. When we remain faithful in the general calling He's put on our lives, He'll be faithful to lead us into the specific calling on our lives.