The Blueprint of Life!
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”
Joshua 1:9.
As far as possible, I must live the blueprint of life. Jesus Christ lives that kind of life. The Son of Man can do nothing by Himself; He can only do what he sees His Father doing, because whatever His Father does, the Son also does. John 15:19. I must not misunderstand the blueprint. Life is not rigid command, but expected obedience. Jesus Christ was free to live his own life, otherwise He would not have been fully human. But He chose to live a blueprint life because He loved the Father absolutely, and because only by blueprinting could He ever achieve all the Father wanted for Him and for others through him.
The blueprint is God’s absolute guidance of what I am to do under His guidance and by His power. So, it is not a limiting instrument, but rather, a liberating one. The illusion of freedom is “I can do it better, but the misery of freedom is “I wish I had another chance.”. The blueprint means the Almighty, all wise. God is my lover, not my dictator. Why else would He bother? His yearning heart devises all that is best for me; yet His fairness and justice allow me to reject His blueprint, if I insist.
Jesus Christ found immense satisfaction in this; “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do”. John 17:4. Jesus never rejected His blueprint; therefore, His work was “finished”. I may reject my blueprint many times, and therefore may not finish my work as Jesus did. But if I trust my Father and through His power, I will finish out my life far better than if I had no blueprint at all. My joy is in what in the psalmist assurance in Psalms 32:8 “I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.”.