9. What does the worker gain from his toil? 10. I have seen the burden God has laid on men. 11. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 12. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. 13. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil-- this is the gift of God.
A plan has the goal that is set before you. The procedures are the activities needed to accomplish that plan. There are plans within the will of God and the procedure is the use of men and women to carry out those plans of God.
God has made everything beautiful in His time. How dumb to try to build the roof before you build the basement. If things are done in order, it is beautiful in its time and in its purpose.
We are different in just about every other way, but the president and the farmer, the business owner and the executive and the maintenance worker all have 24 hours a day. No one has more time than any other. God’s procedure is a desire that those hours be filled to carry out His plan.
Acts 17:26 “From one man he made every nation of men that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live."
We live in this generation. I see this as an extreme indication of God's grace. God has called you and me to be born in this country. We could have been born in the tribes of jungles, or lived as a Jew under the tyranny of Adolph Hitler or in Viet Nam under communistic philosophy. Instead, by God’s grace we have been born with the privilege of education, of material goods, food, and beauty in this land.
What are we going to do with these privileges that God has given to us? We are not the masters of our fate, God is. He directed us to make some choices, but relatively few. One important choice we must make as individuals is, “Are you willing to accept His plan for your life, or rebel and live unto your own selfishness?” That will make a difference in the procedures you follow.
God's procedure for this plan was redemption through the cross. God’s desire is that people may come to eternal salvation.
Luther was within God's procedures for proclaiming what redemption was, through spearheading the reformation. His cook was also in that procedure by providing services to accomplish the same purpose, but he had a different task. For all his intellectual genius, dynamic personality, and highly trained skills, Luther knew that the starting place for every true accomplishment was prayer - coming before the One who directed his steps.
Prayer: Lord, my life to You I bring. Help me to follow your ways with eternity and Christ's second coming is in mind. You make all things beautiful in Your time.
