God's Personal Plan

Ever wonder why God’s plan is the way it is? I don’t mean His plan as symbolized in the Holy Days. I mean the crux (pun intended) of God’s plan…that His own son would die for us. He certainly could have used another plan. He could have done anything He wanted I suppose! Of course God had untold billions of years (if eternity can even be measured in such ways) to devise the perfect plan to increase His family and I’ve had only a couple of decades to ponder it…so my speculations are bound to only scratch the surface.

It seems to me that there are some very profound psychological reasons for His plan to work the way it does. It also seems to me that some Protestants are closer to understanding some of them than some of us in the CoG tradition. The key is to take things personally.

The Bible wasn’t written for us to hit each other over the head with it or to sit in judgment of each other…it was written to each of us…personally. I’m convinced that when someone reads it and comes away understanding say…one thing…that stealing is wrong. If that person goes away and doesn’t steal I think he will be blessed for obeying what he understands. He took the admonition personally.

We must accept the sacrifice that Jesus the Christ made for us…personally. For His sacrifice to be meaningful in our lives we have to realize that it was OUR sins that made it necessary. I, personally, have disobeyed the will of my Creator. The result of ‘my’ disobedience is death…it demands blood so that I understand the seriousness of acting contrary to His will. I have to take that to heart...personally.

For God to forgive ‘me’ because someone else paid the price for ‘my’ disobedience…I take that personally… I’m forgiven. I feel...loved… That is one of the most powerful forces in human psychology to incite change…maybe the most powerful force. Just think of how you have felt when you’ve wronged someone and they forgave you.

It is common for counselors to hear that many people feel like others wouldn’t like them if the others knew what they were really like. Most of us have our outer selves that we let people see…and our inner selves who we think we are really are. Most of us at some time or another think that people wouldn’t…like us, respect us, accept us, whatever… if they knew what we are really like. When we wrong someone, when we trespass against them, it usually comes from someplace deeper in us than our outer self. When they forgive us they are telling us they see a glimpse of what we are really like and they still accept us. That's called Love and it has the potential to form a bond between people that can be deep and lasting…if we take it personally.

God, our Creator, our Sustainer, our Redeemer will forgive us…if we take His sacrifice for us…personally. We should take at least a moment each day to reflect on that. If we do we will come to feel that this life is a gift…something we didn’t earn…it was given to us. God’s forgiveness is a gift. He loves me…personally. To show my love for Him…I have to show love for the rest of His family…personally.

So what is good…what does the Lord require of us? …To do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God…personally.