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THROUGH HEAVEN'S GATE
A
Plan of Love of Love and Redemption
God’s plan to redeem Man was simple but costly. And
to God, Man was and still is worth it. To understand God’s heart and plan of salvation, let’s
examine a few things.
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 1. Introduction
2. God and Man 4. Disharmony, Disunity, and Death 5. The Big Fix 6. Happily Ever After…Maybe 7. A New Beginning
Introduction
God’s plan of Salvation is really very simple.
It is the plan of God to restore the intimate fellowship and harmony between Himself and Man
which had existed until Man chose a path separate from the path that God had lain out for him. But, God,
knowing that this was a possibility and being the master strategist and planer that He is, already had a contingency plan
in place to deliver humanity from certain death, which lay hungrily waiting on the other path. It
is because God loves Man so much that He did not simply surrender him to death, leaving him no second chance… no hope
of salvation.
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God and
Man
God is the creator and sustainer of all that is. WOW! What a
mind-boggling reality. God created the heavens and all that are in them - suns, moons, stars, planets, galaxies, matter,
anti-matter (if, in fact, anti-matter does exist), and far more things than can possibly be mentioned here. God also
created the earth and all that is in it - sky, water, land, and every creature seen and unseen. He set the courses of
heaven and earth in motion and maintains the balance necessary for their continuation. Without Him, all would cease.
But His love is so abundant and all encompassing that He has, since the beginning, sustained all of creation in perfect balance
so that life could not only continue but thrive.
Man is the creation of God. But unlike everything else God
had created, Man was not spoken into existence. No, the creation of Man was far more personal, far more intimate.
Man was formed and molded by the very hand of God, fashioned out of dust into the very image and likeness of God. They
(Adam and Eve) were given wealth, power, and authority to live well and rule over all the inhabitants of the earth.
They were created to rule not to be ruled. They were God's precious offspring and He loved them
very much.
Man's (Male and Female) authority was given by God and He had a personal relationship with them.
He walked with them in the cool of the day. And they stood before Him and each other, completely naked but not at all
ashamed. Their relationship with Him and each other was peaceful., harmonious, and intimate. |
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Disharmony, Disunity, and Death
God
had provided for them everything they could ever need or want. But God is not a tyrant. Of
all the gifts He had given them the most powerful (and potentially the dangerous) was the gift of CHOICE.
God had placed in the Garden of Eden with them two trees. One
would bring life (The Tree of Life), and the other, death (Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil).
Then, one day (after an encounter with a real snake in the grass) they used their gift of choice. Life
and death stood before them and, though they had been warned by God what would happen, they chose DEATH.
In that instant, everything changed. They became afraid and
were ashamed of their nakedness. They ran and hid. They tried to cover themselves with
leaves. Beforehand, God would just show up wherever they were and walk with them. Now,
He had to look for them. When God asked them what happened, they turned on each other. Adam,
afraid for his own well-being, angrily betrayed his wife, blaming her for his choice. Previously,
he had called her ‘bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh’, but now he called her ‘that woman’.
Eve, feeling the pain of her husband’s accusation, followed his example and blamed the snake for her choice.
Bearing the guilt from her own choice, the betrayal from her husband, and the accusatory tone in which he spoke concerning
her shattered her heart. He had never before spoken in such a harsh tone to her or about her.
So she did what any woman in her position would. She wrapped her heart in a cool veil of distrust
and shielded it from him. It would never be completely open to him again. He was angry
with her. She was distrustful of him. Their relationship would never be the same.
In addition to all this, God evicted them from the
garden, but not before He revealed the consequences of their actions. Among other things, Adam would now
have to work extra hard to feed himself and his family. Eve would have to endure unbelievable pain in childbirth.
Animals were killed to provide clothes for them. The ground was cursed, the snaked was cursed, the
man was cursed, the woman was cursed, and at the end of all this hardship, DEATH would be their reward.
The curses that resulted from their disobedience were not punishment from God.
They are the natural consequences of their sin, consequences about which God had warned them. But
they had not listened. Because they chose not to heed God’s warning these thing came upon them, their
descendants, and upon all the earth.
But God is
a loving God who cared deeply them (and for us). His love never wavers or fades. It
was not His desire that mankind be eternally separated from Him. He created man to be loved by Him and
to love Him. The disobedience (sin) of Adam and Eve had not changed that. It could not
change it because the very nature of God is Love and nothing Man can do can change the nature of God.
The Big Fix God is a God of life
so death was never God’s intension for Man, but when Adam and Eve chose to disobey God, they made themselves (and us)
slaves to death. That’s why everybody dies whether we want to or not. Yet, when God spoke to Adam and Eve concerning the various curses resulting from their
sin and concerning their impending death, He also gave them hope for life anew. He told them of His plan
to redeem (to recover by payment) mankind from death and restore us to life. He told them (and is telling
us today) that he would send a Redeemer (the seed of the woman who would crush the serpent’s head) and He did. That Redeemer was (and is) Jesus the Christ – mankind’s only Hope
of Salvation. Jesus was (and is) the Son of God, not the son of Adam, therefore He was not subject (a slave)
to death. He lived a life of perfect obedience to God so death had no authority over Him.
But He, like His Father, loved mankind so much that He chose to die (payment) in our place, thereby redeeming us from
certain and eternal death. Consider
this: If a man who had committed no crime were to enter a prison cell and sit down, he could at any time
get up and leave that cell, and the prison guards, and governing authorities could not stop him. So it
was with Jesus. He willingly submitted Himself to death, but, because death for Him was a choice not a
requirement, it could not hold Him. So when He was ready, He got up to live again (resurrection).
And since mankind’s debt was paid so can we!
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Happily Ever After…Maybe
The payment for sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ. Jesus
paid the price for our salvation, however that salvation is not automatically imparted to everyone indiscriminately.
Just as disobedience (which brought death) was an active choice made by Adam and Eve,
so Jesus Christ (Who brings life) must be an active choice made by each individual.
Now
then, what must we do to receive salvation? The process is simple.
1. We must acknowledge that sin is alive
in us. The moment Adam and Eve chose a path away from God, our God-likeness (holiness) was destroyed and
we became wicked and sinful and there is nothing we can do about it. 2. We
must acknowledge that God is holy and unstained by even the tiniest sin, and because sin lives in us, we deserve to die and
spend eternity apart from God. And there is nothing we can do about that either. 3. We must believe that
God grace and love for us never wavered and His plan for us is still eternal life. And, though Adam and
Eve chose poorly, God in His mercy has given each of us a new opportunity to choose. Death is ours by default
but He has presented us with a new Tree of Life (Jesus Christ). He is available to all. 4. We
must say with our mouths that Jesus is the Son of God and that you receive His death and resurrection as payment for your
sins.
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A New Beginning
If you have accepted these truths with all of your heart, then pray this prayer
with me.
Lord, I know
that I am sinful and unworthy to spend eternity with You but I am grateful to You that You have not held my sins against me.
You have chosen instead to cleanse me from my sins through Jesus Christ. Today, I accept Your Son,
Jesus Christ, as Lord and Savior of my life. I believe that His death and resurrection has provided for
me a new and eternal life. Thank You for loving me into Your family and saving me from certain death.
Amen.
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