Have you ever heard it said, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life”? There is an abundance of truth in this statement. God certainly does love you and his plan for your life is indeed wonderful. It may have been this very statement that God used to first draw your attention to him and his wonderful plan.

What concerns me is that this statement tends to give the impression that God’s love for you is ultimately focused on the events of your particular life. It’s as if he has a collection of cards in heaven, one of which has your name on it. His priority is to get you to connect with what’s on that card. Once you come into right relationship with him through Yeshua, your next task is to get his wonderful plan for your life figured out. At the same time, as you begin to enjoy the comradery of other believers, you get to meet other similar individuals who are also yearning to discover God’s perfect will for them. This kind of individuality is foreign to the Scriptures. While you as an individual have value, the me-and-God mentality that these kinds of statements fuel, actually will distract you from God’s wonderful plan.

Paul makes a statement, familiar to many, that wonderfully encapsulates the connection between God’s love for us and his plans: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). I am always wonderfully overwhelmed when I ponder these words. To think that for those of us who genuinely love God, every single aspect and circumstance of our lives work together to produce good. God is so positively disposed to his children that there is nothing that can happen to us that will undermine his ultimate good intentions for us. In fact, it’s not just that negative things have no impact, they become ingredients of goodness. Accepting this truth should give us a most positive perspective on our lives.

But notice who qualifies for this wonderful perspective. “Those who love God” are also described as “those who are called according to his purpose.” This is not exactly the same as having a wonderful plan for our lives; it’s way bigger than that! God has a purpose and he has called us to be part of it. That’s why we can count on him to work everything in our lives for good. God will accomplish his purposes in the world. Once we know we are part of his purpose, then we can also be confident that the result of our lives will be good.

I remember being told years ago that I could personalize John 3:16 by putting my name in it, so it would read “For God so loved Alan, that he gave his only Son, that if Alan believes in him Alan should not perish but have eternal life.” I appreciate that this is an attempt to help us to personally and actively engage God and his offer of salvation. There have been times when people have wrongly thought that it was sufficient to be a member or adherent of a congregational community without an intentional personal faith. This kind of correction is important, but it also creates a self-focused approach to God, something that Scripture never intended.

John 3:16 actually reads, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” The “whoever” is the invitation to the individual. But “the world”, “cosmos” in Greek, is a reference to the entire creation, not just the people in it. From the very beginning, God purposed to rescue the creation from its sinful, cursed state. If individuals trust in God’s Son, Yeshua the Messiah, they too will be part of his wonderful rescue operation. So it is not so much that God has a wonderful plan for our lives, but rather that he has a wonderful plan and invites us to be part of it.

This is not to say that God has no concern for the parts we play within his overall purpose. I would encourage you to seek God as to what he wants you to do with your life. At the same time, I believe that the more you get a vision of his grand purpose, you will be better equipped to discern what your part really is.

I was so happy to learn the other day that a movie version of C.S. Lewis’s “The Silver Chair” is in the works. It’s not that I have been that impressed, however, with Hollywood’s treatment of the other Narnia movies thus far (“The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” “Prince Caspian,” and “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”). Far from it! I’ve actually been quite disappointed, especially with the latter two. While the first lacked the impact of the book, it more or less conveyed its basic details. On the other hand, “Prince Caspian” was so very different from the original, it should be deemed a different story altogether. Instead of portraying a time when the reality of Narnia had become regarded as myth, it is about the supposed extinction of the old Narnians due to oppression by the ruling class. “Dawn Treader” seemed to return to a more faithful rendering of the book, but in fact the movie contradicts it. Instead of our desperate need for God to transform our lives, the movie stresses the importance of accepting who we are. In both cases, the changes to the story appeal to contemporary audiences’ way of looking at the world rather than challenging it. So I am not setting my hopes on the next film to adequately represent Lewis’s original. Still, I am happy about it because it will surely encourage children and adults to read the original and its timely message for today.

The Silver Chair – the book – vividly demonstrates how we can be cut off from reality and truth either by distraction or deception. Distraction leads to forgetting the more important things of life. Deception acts like a spell, whereby we perceive the world through a completely false lens. Distraction and deception work hand in hand to lead us down destructive paths. The antidote to both, according to Lewis, is audacious faith whereby the truth and reality we know is clung to in spite of all appearances to the contrary.

The Spell Explained

The world we live in is under a such a spell. Over and over again we are told that reality is so very different from what the Scriptures teach. You can think of God as Creator in a mythic sense, but don’t take it literally. Believing in Yeshua as the exclusive Lord and Savior is arrogant and out of step with today’s progressive worldview. Marriage has been redefined, sexuality can be whatever we want it to be, we can even choose our gender. Science and faith don’t mix. Neither do politics and religion. You can believe what you want as long as you keep it to yourself.

This spell is so powerful that even many who claim faith in Yeshua have been overcome by it. While theoretically rejecting many of the tenets of the prevailing culture, there is a great tendency to relegate biblical spirituality to the personal, private sphere. The spell is so strong that even those who appear to be passionate about their relationship to God and the Bible are themselves perpetuating this deception. We do this by narrowly defining evangelism as “telling people about Jesus,” and confirming an expectation of eternal bliss upon simple mental assent of a set of propositions. To convince people (including ourselves) that the height of biblical truth is wrapped up in a personal, private exchange with God with no implications for the rest of our lives whatsoever, except maybe to promote the same experience to others and maybe to try to stay out of trouble as much as possible, is fueling the power of the spell.

The enemies of God have no issue with your so-called faith, as long as you keep it to yourself. Keep your creedal formula as long as you don’t rock society’s boat, but don’t be surprised when the Lord returns and you discover that your ticket to heaven isn’t valid after all. You probably won’t care by then, since you have spent your whole life under the spell.

How do you know if you are under the spell? If you have grown cynical, thinking that the prevailing culture is all powerful; that there was a day when the things of God might have been more relevant to the society, but not now; that there is no point in standing for godliness within your circle of influence; if you have lost hope in your own sanctification, your marriage, your children; If you are satisfied with keeping the truth of God to yourself; that you will one day get to go to that “better place,” because you said a prayer once; thinking that there’s nothing you can do to be effectively salt and light in the world today, then you are under the spell.

You are under the spell if you no longer believe that Yeshua is building a community that is confronting the gates of hell; that you are called to disciple the nations (the propagation everywhere of everything he taught his followers); that the power of the resurrection lives in you; that God himself lives in you; that Yeshua currently possesses all authority in heaven and earth.

You are under the spell if the circumstances of life, the condition of society, or your own condition are determining for you God’s place and power in the world; that the effectiveness of the early followers or Yeshua had in their day is not possible today.

Breaking the Spell

In order to be free from the deception that is driving so many to hide away into a cloisters of personal, private spirituality, we need to do three things. First, acknowledge that Yeshua is Lord, not merely your Lord. His lordship over you is an extension of the objective truth that he is the universe’s supreme ruler, which by God’s grace you (hopefully) have submitted to. Second, his lordship is over all of life, not just the personal, spiritual realm. It includes that, but not exclusively so. Third, to disciple the nations means more than urging people to acknowledge some key things that Yeshua did. It is to call everyone everywhere to his Lordship and all that it entails, whether they submit to it or not.

The ineffectiveness of God’s people within today’s cultural climate is not due to the increase of evil, but rather to the decrease of our engagement with the society. God’s version of life is the only true reality. To think otherwise is to be under the spell of deception. The Gospel mandate calls us to confront that deception, but we need to first be free of it ourselves.