“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11).

The word “promise” is used 225 times in the Bible. Another word for promise is “covenant” which is used 332 times in the Bible. These promises or covenants imply a relationship between God and His Creation; however, before we take this up in subsequent Chaplain’s Corners, we should realize that our Creator God–God the Father–first covenanted with the other Persons of the Trinity (His Son and the Holy Spirit) about His Creation. God has always had an eternal plan for humanity that involves saving sinners. For example, even when the people of Israel were so idolatrous that God allowed the Assyrians to defeat them and the Babylonians to take them into exile, God promised them through the Prophet Jeremiah that he would rescue them and that He still had plans for them for a future filled with hope.

According to the terms of God’s redemptive covenant within the persons of the Trinity, God the Father chose a people to save. God the Son agreed to redeem this people through His life, death, and resurrection. God the Holy Spirit consented to apply the redeeming work of the Son to those whom the Father had chosen.

The Apostle John recorded Jesus’ words: “All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away” (John 6:37). “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you” (John 14:16-17).

And as Paul tells us in his letter to the Ephesians: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.…In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” (Ephesians 1:3-4, 7-10).

When I ponder this act of God, I wonder why. Why did God create us? What was His plan? The Bible answers this question for us.

First, He created us to be image bearers. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27).

Secondly, he created us for His glory. “Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” (Isaiah 43:6b-7).

I can hardly get my head around this. God created me to bear His image, for His glory! I do not feel very competent or successful in this endeavor. “But God saw all that he had made, and it was very good “(Genesis 1:31). God, in his infinite wisdom, declares his creation, including you and me, as very good!! And He has plans for us, good plans. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11). Our Creator God, our Eternal Father, is a Loving God who not only desires the best for each of us, but our Creator God has the power to bring it all about. “Our help is in the name of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth” (Psalm 124:8).

In subsequent Chaplain’s Corners, we will study the promises of God, and with them, the nature of our awesome God.

“Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires” (2 Peter 1:4).

In Christ,

Judy