It’s a beautiful day in St. Louis, MO. I finished my morning routine before the humidity started to climb, and I saw an awesome sunrise. I’m home now and just came in from a cup of coffee on the deck, a bit of reading, and some precious moments giving thanks to God for his bountiful blessings. Now I’m totally pumped and ready to start writing the Monday morning, “Thought for the Week.” I love this opportunity to share the good news of God’s love, mercy and redemptive grace, knowing full-well that this truth has the power to transform anyone’s life, regardless of “…who you are or what you have done..” (Romans 3:22) It’s only 8:30, but this is already a Grrrreat day!!
As was stated in the previous two blogs, it sees there are two principles from which everything else in the Bible sprouts: God is love, and God wants a relationship with each of us. If we look in Genesis (chapter 1) and read the story of creation, we learn that on the sixth day, after He had created all the other birds, small animals and wildlife, He produced his finest creation; MAN. We were created in his image; we were created for his purpose; we were created for his pleasure, and we ARE his proudest creation! We have that distinction because He gave us something quite different from all the other members of the animal kingdom… he gave us a brain capable of rational thinking. By doing that God gave us the capacity to fulfill his purpose (to bring honor and glory to Him) and to fulfill his pleasure (to enter into a relationship with Him.) So as you can see, even before creation itself (Eph. 1:4), God had a plan for our lives, and that plan was to have a relationship with each of us.
As stated in last week’s blog, in order to enter into a relationship with God we had to have the capacity to make that choice. Why?…because a relationship is a choice between two people. To accommodate that need, God gave us free will. Wow! Do you see the dilemma inherent in that decision? If used as God intended, we could choose to love Him back, (ie. enter into a relationship with Him). However, if we choose to use our free will to accomplish other purposes, ( ie. to satisfy ourselves and our own desires, it could lead to quite a different outcome). As we know from the story of Adam and Eve, the latter choice was made and we are still plagued with the consequences today.
The Garden of Eden was paradise. Adam and Eve were connected spiritually with God and they wanted for nothing. As we can clearly see from that relationship, from the outset God intended to be our caregiver…to meet all of our needs. (sidebar: Very important distinction to make here. God is about taking care of, providing for us…not controlling us. Remember, he gave us free will. We are in charge of our choices.)
But as we learn from the story of man’s downfall, Eve fell for a lie perpetrated by the great deceiver himself, Satan. In Genesis 3: 5, Satan tells Eve the same lie he still tells us today, “…God knows your eyes will be opened and you will become like God…” In other words, you won’t need God; you can become your own god! Through that one act of disobedience, sin entered the world and that spiritual connection between God and man was severed. (Sin in this instance is defined as living separated from God, and that definition continues throughout the Bible when the term is used as a noun and not as a verb.) By taking the focus off God and putting it on themselves, Adam and Eve announced their self-sufficiency. “I can do this thing called life all by myself…I don’t need any help, thank you.” (Hummmm….sound familiar??)
The relationship God wants with us is more than a here and now relationship; it’s an eternal relationship. And since God is a God of love and because we are his proudest creation, he wants all of us to spend eternity with Him. He doesn’t want to lose even one of us!
Today I smile when I think that early in my ministry I would say, “God always had a plan B in place”, meaning that even though man would make the wrong choice in the Garden of Eden, God still had a plan for our salvation. Luckily for me, the light bulb finally went off in my head and I came to realize, the Garden was actually His plan B. I say that because God, being God (omniscient), knew what choice would be made by man on that fateful day, and that choice would set off the whole drama of good vs. evil throughout this epic of time. However, the good news is….there was always a plan A in place, and that plan was to give us a Savior to do for us what we (mankind) would prove without a shadow of a doubt we were incapable of doing for our self. And what is that?? Resist sin!
I want to quote a question asked of me by a young man at Sunshine Mission. “So what’s the big deal with sin?” he asked. The answer is simply… it’s the only deal!!!. The only thing that stands between us and an eternal relationship with God is SIN!! In short, SIN contaminates, spreads, kills and destroys! If you doubt that look at the Garden of Eden before and after sin entered the world, then look at the world today. Does this world look like Paradise to you????
1 Peter 1:16 states, “You must be holy because I am holy.” (Holy means to stand apart from sin and evil, or simply “to be without sin”.) We cannot come into the presence of God if we are stained with sin. Why….for the reasons listed in the previous paragraph. Sin kills and destroys! Romans 6:23 tells us,”…the wages of sin is death…” This is one of those passages that is hard to misread. It very explicitly tells us… we cannot enter into an eternal life in Paradise with God if we have not been cleansed of our sin. Remember, we’re talking about Paradise. That’s what God promised his children and he is going to protect Paradise from the contamination of sin! In other words…ya can’t get in with sin! I Corinthian 2:9 tells us, “no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind can conceive the things God has planned for those who love Him.”
I will close today’s blog with the following questions: How are YOU going to deal with the sin issue? Do you have a sin issue or are you free of sin? (We ALL know the answer to that!) Are you going to rely on your own effort? (Have you ever made a New Year’s resolution? How were you doing with the resolution on January 30)? At some point in everyone’s life there comes that moment of decision when our choice will have eternal consequences. The good news is….because God is a God of love and because He does want an eternal relationship with EACH ONE OF US, He has the PERFECT plan for your life that is the answer to the dilemma of mankind. (Inherent in that statement is the answer to the title of this week’s blog). Check back next week for (not the question but the answer)…“God’s Plan for our Life.” Feel free to chime in with your thoughts at drpresgr@gmail.com
God bless Y’all,
Dan Presgrave (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)
Leave a Comment