God’s Thoughts For Us
[ Preached by Pastor Kenneth Chin at Acts Church Malaysia on 1 September 2019 ]
When we call on God, will He listen? When we seek Him, will we find Him? Today, we will address these doubts that we commonly have when we pray. What’s on the other side? What are God’s thoughts for us when we:
Call and pray to Him
Read | Jeremiah 29:12
Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.
This verse is so powerful and encouraging. It is a guarantee from God that He “will” listen to us. In fact, Jesus said very confidently that if we pray in His name, it shall be done (John 14:14).
Sometimes, we entertain doubts due to our past experiences and inadequacies. Unlike many of us, Jesus is a prayer warrior that never harboured any such doubts. We might think that we are undeserving of anything good from the Lord, but this does not matter to God.
He wants to answer us because He loves us and He is a good Father. We must not forget that God loves our prayers, He loves to hear our prayers and He loves to answer our prayers as well.
Search God with all our heart
Read | Jeremiah 29:13
And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.
Like a father who would appear when his child cries out for help, our God has promised us in the Bible that if we search Him with all our heart, we will be able to find Him. As long as we do that with “all” of our heart, He will definitely make Himself known to us.
Understand and remember God’s thoughts for us
We have read Jeremiah 29:12-13; in verse 12, we see that it starts with the word “then”. In order to understand what “then” means, it is important to read the preceding verse – verse 11.
Read | Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Many people attempt to apply verses 12-13 in their lives but regrettably forgot about verse 11, which can be a mistake. To fully experience verses 12-13 of Jeremiah 29, we need to first understand and be assured of verse 11 – which is what’s God’s thoughts for us.
Some of us waver in our prayers, it is because we forget what God’s thoughts are for us. It is worth remembering that His thoughts for us are only peace and not evil, to give us a future and a hope. And what does that mean?
Peace, not evil
God only wants peace for us, the evil thoughts which are prevalent in our fallen nature are absent in God.
Future
God wants to give us a future and a hope. Although hope is important, hope only comes when we can see a future through God’s help.
Hope
Hope is significant. Without hope, faith cannot be activated since faith is the substance of things hoped for.
Align our thoughts with God’s thoughts for us
Lastly, our minds are an extremely powerful tool; our lives can be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2). If the mind controls the body, what controls the mind? It all begins with our thoughts. It’s our thoughts and what we meditate on that controls our mind.
If we can align our thoughts to God’s thoughts for us, which are peace, future and hope, then nothing is impossible.
#decadeoflegacy2030
Written by Wilson Ho
Edited by Hailey Chung
