by monte ray fogle
God's message is simple. Though He is the most complex entity ever to exist, far beyond our own comprehension, he purposefully made His message to us simple. His message is not hidden or disguised. It is not difficult to decipher or understand. It is what it is at face value. No tricks. No catches. Just His simple message.
In the beginning, God wanted companionship from us, humans. He created man and He created woman. He gave man and woman a paradise to live in and provided everything they needed. God and man had constant fellowship with each other and built close relationships. God's plan for man was to have this fellowship with Him and for man and woman to "be fruitful and multiply". Man and woman would live forever walking and fellowshiping with God in paradise as would their descendants. No one would die. No one would get sick. Just sweet fellowship with their creator and all the bills paid by Him. This was God's perfect plan.
In creating man, God wanted beings that would, voluntarily, choose to love Him for who He was and what He had done for them. After all, if they had no choice but to love the God that created them, then that would be no love at all. They must be given the power to choose so that they could make the choice to love their Creator. If they chose to love Him, then that would be true love. So God gave man free will. Now man could make his own choices and they would be meaningful because they would reflect his heart and his mind.
God made things easy for man in paradise. Paradise was full of everything that man would need. God told man that he could freely eat from any tree in paradise to his heart's content, all except one tree. That tree he must not eat from. One rule. God's only rule. Well that was fair. Why would man need to eat from that other tree anyway? God had given him all the other trees to eat from. This would be no problem.
Enter free will. Without laying blame to who was most culpable, man and woman got together and decided to exercise their free will clause. It was just not enough that God had breathed them into existence and sustained them in paradise with little effort on their part. Well, He did ask man to name the animals. Doubt if he was too overburdened with that. It was not enough that He promised them eternity in paradise with no death and no sickness. With a slight prodding from the enemy, they quickly turned on their Creator, the One who loved them so much that He brought them into existance from nothing just to fellowship with Him forever. They were easily persuaded to distrust the One who had walked and talked with them in paradise, the One who loved them. And in an instant, man and woman exercised their free choice and ate fruit from the tree that was forbidden by God. A slap in God's face. In that one act they told God that they did not trust Him or believe Him, and they did not love Him. The God who had given them everything including their very existence now suffered Himself from a broken heart. Not only was His heart broken by man's disobedience and rejection, but God knew the consequences for man's future and this made God as deeply sad as his love for man was great.
Man immediately realized consequences of his actions and disobedience. The fruit of the tree that God had warned man about, the tree of knowledge, had now been eaten from by man and woman. Through the fruit, man and woman, received knowledge that had, lovingly, been kept from them by God. Knowledge that God caused them to see what they had done. Knowledge to realize for the first time that they were naked. The knowledge of good and evil. God had tried to give man a paradise and protect him from the consequences of knowing good and evil, but man would not believe God was acting in their interest and chose to disregard His warnings. Man now has a conscience that is aware of good and evil and now he has a lot of choices to make. Now man's existence changes.
Man is afraid to meet with God and walk in paradise. He knows he is naked and he knows that he disobeyed God by eating off the tree. He does not want to see God and he hides from Him. For the first time, man does not meet with God to walk and talk with Him. Man hides from the fellowship with his creator. God looks for man. God finds man and woman hiding from Him. God is broken hearted that man is hiding from His fellowship and has to restore man's fellowship with Him because of His great love for man. God clothes their nakedness with animal skins to cover their sins while implying that a sacrifice of blood through the killing of the animal is what covers the sins and restores their relationship with Him. But there are more consequences.
God gives man the death penalty for their sins. Now man would not live forever. Man would get old and die. Man would now have to work for his living all of his days. Pain and sickness would now come to man and woman and their paradise would slowly deteriorate. The knowledge of man's shortcomings would haunt him all of his life and restoring fellowship to his creator would be a constant struggle. And so goes the history of man.
This was not the way God planned it. He could have made everything work as He planned if He would have just left out that thing about free will. But God loved us and he wanted people that genuinely loved Him so He wanted us to have the option to choose. We did and we lost. Now God has to put it all back together again. His plan still remains the same- for us to live forever with Him in constant fellowship with Him. No death. No sickness. No pain. Just God walking with His people in paradise, providing for their every need. The simple story between Genesis and Revelation is the story of how God did it and how He is going to do it.
Of course, although God did not plan it to go this way, He certainly knew that it would from the beginning of time. He did not want us to disobey , but He knew that we would. Even before our existence, God began the plan of how He would make this all right again and restore for once and for all our fellowship with Him. This would require a sacrifice. A death. The only sacrifice able to make up for the disobedience and sins of His people would have to be the death of an innocent , unblemished, perfect Savior. A Savior who would live among men but remain true and obedient to His God, His creator. A Savior who was the very essence of God in the form of a man. God in the flesh. A Savior who would willingly agree with God to be sacrificed for the sins of His people. An innocent Savior who had done nothing to deserve such a finality. The fate of this precious innocent One would be GodÂ’s prescription to heal the people's severed relationship with God, their Creator. Forever. This was the final cure. This was Jesus.
Yes. Jesus! God in the flesh! God in man form. Jesus. God walked on planet Earth. He healed the lepers, the paralyzed, the sick. He brought some from death back to life. He stopped the rain and the wind with a word. He calmed the rough seas. He fed over 5,000 people with a young boy's lunch of a few pieces of fish and bread. And He loved. He loved everybody. He loved the outcasts, the prostitutes, the thieves, the unloved, the children, the old- everybody. He just loved everybody! Who else could He be but God? Who could have done all these things but God?
And for all these great things that He had done and these people He had loved, this is what he got. His friends turned on Him and He was betrayed. He was left alone to face an angry mob who would beat Him, torture Him, defile Him, strip Him naked, mock Him, insult Him, and nail Him to a wooden cross to slowly die a torturous death. This they did to the God who came down to Earth to show His love. Free will again makes its ugly mark on man's history.
But it was, again, not a surprise to God. This was part of plan B that would get us back to plan A. All going according to plan. The Savior, God in the flesh, sacrificed on the cross to cover the sins of the world. A done deal. God has overcome the world's sins by the sacrifice of a Godly Savior. Now only one thing left- overcoming the finality of death itself. Easy enough for a man if He is God. So Jesus just brought Himself back to life, walked Himself right out of the cave that was His tomb and spent 40 days talking and fellowshiping with family and friends before going to meet the FatherGod back in Heaven. Isn't that just like God to want to spend time with His friends and loved ones?
And so what's left? Choice. That's what. And we have a chance to get it right this time. God sits in Heaven right now and offers us complete, permanent, eternal, reconciliation to Him. He offers us complete and permanent restoration to fellowship with Him. He offers us a life that has no end. A life lived in a new paradise with Him, while He provides for our every need. A life like He had planned for us from the beginning. And the price to us is free. Jesus already paid the enormous cost of our rescue. The catch? No catch. It's just your choice. Your chance to exercise your free will. God just asks that you accept what he has done for you. He asks that you would acknowledge the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross as your payment of debt for your sins and disobedience to God. He asks you to accept Jesus as the Savior that died to save you from the consequences of your disobedience to God. And He asks you to follow His ways and trust Him to give you the best for your life. But it's your choice. If you want to be your own savior and try to work out your misdeeds on your own, then God will not stand in your way. He will not stand in your way to try to find happiness and fulfillment in your life on your own either if that's what you want. But keep in mind that God is offering the only way to accomplish reconciliation to Him and eternal life. Only one way. Jesus. He offers you Jesus. Take it or leave it. That's the choice. God requires from us that our lives be sinless and perfect to fellowship with Him. God offers Jesus to accomplish that in us. Your choice. God, again, loves us so much that He will not coerce us to accept His forgiveness and accept the free gift of eternity with Him.
The alternative- eternity without God. Eternal life separated from God. Eternity without goodness. Without love. Without joy, without happiness, without peace. An eternity of darkness, of pain, of eternal death and dying. An eternity of everything bad. An eternity without a loving God. There is no choice, but it's still your choice.
This is the simple story between the pages of Genesis to Revelation. In a nutshell, this is what it comes down to. Nothing mysterious. Just God's simple story of how He loves us and how He plans to get us back to Him for eternity.
And you can settle this personal matter with God today in just a few minutes. I know. It seems too simple. But this is how God wanted it. Remember, this is God's free gift. In a simple heartfelt prayer, you can settle your account with God. No special words are required. Just tell God that you heard what Jesus did for you on the cross and you want to accept Jesus as your personal Saviour to pay for your sins and that you want to make Him Lord(leader) of your life as you turn away from the things in your life that are not pleasing to God. In one instant, you will have gained eternal life in a heavenly paradise on a new earth with God and begun your journey on a life of more abundance, joy, peace, and fullfillment. These things are promised in the pages between Genesis and Revelation to those who believe on Jesus and trust Him with their lives. You have everything to gain.
