BEYOND BREAD: UNDERSTANDING GOD'S PLAN FOR HUMANITY

Rediscovering God's Plan: His Purpose, Providence, and the Promise Beyond Physical Needs

By Jun P. Espina | 07/19/2023 | 5 min read | Updated: 09/17/2025

God’s Plan

How to understand God’s plan? Moses said, “He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna… that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.” (Deut. 8:3) Note the phrase, “[T]hat He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone.” (Deut. 8:3b) This is God’s concern for all of humanity: To make us understand that there’s life beyond our bread-sustained existence. That’s God’s plan is not of this world.

On the flip side, the devil’s business is to thwart God’s plan for our immortality. He told Eve not to listen to God’s command. And we blindly followed Mama Eve.

Today, most people obey the devil more. In Canada and other countries, you will go to prison if you preach Christ in public.

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From the Introduction of my book: “Verses from the Bible for Strength: Finding Unshakable Faith Through God’s Word.“

One trending topic is “Bible verses about strength” notwithstanding people’s natural abhorrence to biblical truth.

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Someone said our righteous God wouldn’t send people to hell. And he was partly correct, for hell was intended for the devil and his demons. (See Matthew 25:41.) That’s why God sent His Son, Jesus, to save us from hell, since from our moral choice, we choose the darkness rather than the light. (cf. John 3:19)

But how do we choose Christ and His salvation on our own when the “natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:14)? This is hyper-Calvinism, but let us figure it out.

First, Paul said that “man does not accept,” which implies a moral choice or decision to accept the things of the Spirit. Had Paul said, “Man CANNOT accept…,” it would denote mental impairment, like a madman who obviously CANNOT teach quantum mechanics. The psalmist said, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.'”

We don’t have a mental defect, right? So Christ said, “You search the Scriptures because you think [have the moral capacity to decide] that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me [man rejects Christ consciously] so that you may have life.” (John 5:39-40) To help us out of our demon-wired cubicle, God said, “There was the true Light [Jesus] which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.” Pray for our Lord’s enlightenment, and surrender to Christ by faith.

Why Can’t We Understand God’s Plan?

Why can’t we understand God’s plan? This is because faith is necessary in God’s domain. The apostle Paul said, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” (Rom. 1:20) Everything about God is visible, since His superpower is visible everywhere. We can understand His promise in the Scriptures if we like. But humanity denies Him. They crucified Jesus, His Son. We choose to live life apart from our Creator because of our sins, for which our Lord died.

We’re like having an ultra-rich grandfather whom we ignore and hate. He won’t let us see His hidden master plan for our eternal inheritance. He is hiding His plans for us in the area of truly understanding and believing them. Christ’s enlightenment is lacking in our understanding of self and the world around us for lack of faith, love, and trust in Him. Paul states, “[B]ut just as it is written: ‘THINGS WHICH EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND WHICH HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HUMAN HEART, ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM.’” (1 Cor. 2:9) Note the last part of the verse: “THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM.”

Earlier, we quoted Moses saying that hunger, thirst, or other adversities were designed to make us understand God’s fatherhood of us—because He has magnificent plans for us. But our unbelief blocks God from partnering with us in running our little lives. We want God to stay out of our beings, just as when the leftist Americans celebrated the assassination of Charlie Kirk because he preached the gospel that divorce, LGBTQ+, Islamism, and other types of leftism are sinful deeds before God. Our Lord Jesus states, “In My Father’s house are many rooms; if that were not so, I would have told you, because I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again and will take you to Myself, so that where I am, there you also will be.” (John 14:2-4) For lack of understanding and faith in Christ’s word, most of us don’t really feel the grandness and beauty of this God’s plan.

What About the Scriptural Teaching that We Are Blinded by the Devil—And Cannot Understand God’s Plan?

True, the devil is said to dim our awareness of the gospel. But he can’t do it even if we have just a mustard-seed faith in Christ and His word. Satan’s blinding capacity only follows unbelief. Paul says, “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (2 Cor. 4:4) As mentioned above, Christ enlightens every person. (cf. John 1:9) Demonic deception concerning the gospel grows only in the soil of doubt.

Understanding God’s plan can be achieved through prayer and faith. After writing my book titled “Overcoming Adversities by the Power of God,” I discovered a new thesis for the same core idea while working on my next book. It’s about Christ’s perpetual presence, as when He was just inside the boat sleeping when the storm hit them. In short, we can overcome our trials and sufferings because Christ lives in our souls by faith. As taught by Apostle Paul in Galatians 2:20, “Christ lives in me.” As a believer, this verse is absolutely profound and can mean many things. For example, Christ’s promised intercession (Heb. 7:25) unmistakably becomes a doctrine to grasp, since the Spirit of our Lord Jesus “lives in me.” As popularly coined by Thomas Aquinas, “With faith, no explanation is necessary.” With faith in our dear Lord and Savior, God’s plan is just an open book we can always look up to, especially during our dark moments. Faith in Christ is our only key to understanding God’s plan for our lives.

These books are available at je-estore.com.

17 ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES TO LIVE BY: Rules for Happiness in the Race of Life

THE SAFEST ROUTE TO ETERNAL BLISS: Exploring the Truth About Christ’s Promised Eternal Life

14 TIPS TO PROMOTE LOVE & FAMILY HARMONY: Family Focus Made Simple

I wrote this book, “BORN AGAIN CHRIST’S VERSION: Understanding the Biblical Born-Again Experience,“ after discovering firsthand that, sadly, many church leaders are not born-again Christians. During our long-standing Sunday school sessions for adult men, I encountered so-called Christian leaders—including pastors I had once held in high regard—who spoke the loudest during church meetings yet remained ignorant of God’s Word, even after decades of what they called “devoted” Christianity.