God’s Perfect Plan
God has always had a perfect plan for everything. Even before He spoke the words that created everything we can see, hear, smell. taste and touch, in other words, the natural world we live in, He had His plans formulated that would provide everything we would ever need in this life. He created the sources for food that would provide nutrition without breaking a sweat to obtain it.
Everything Adam and Eve could have ever needed was already there for them, or would be when it was needed. Life could have been, and should have been a perfect utopia, a literal heaven on earth. That was God’s plan.
All that was required on the part of Adam and his wife was—obedience to God’s words. They were given every blessing that God knew that needed. Life was truly perfect. They had been warned by God about a curse that would overtake them if they chose to disobey His words.
Man’s Plan Comes from Listening to Satan
But, before Adam and Eve could experience all the goodness God had planned for them, as well as their offspring that would eventually come, sin entered as a result of their disobedience, and in a moment, everything changed; their disobedience had activated the curse that God had warned them of.
Suddenly, their perfect food supply was cut off. The requirement to break that sweat to provide their own food was introduced as a part of the curse that was activated when sin entered. Now, in order to obtain food, Adam was required to till the soil, which previously had only produced the perfect plants designed by God, but was now producing thorns, thistles and weeds. How far man had fallen in a very short time, based on one bad decision.
Just how did man get himself so quickly from a position of perfection, and having authority over all of God’s creation, with his life totally planned by the Creator, into the mess that the world became? A mess that caused him and his wife to be forcibly removed from the Garden of Eden?
A mess where the man was required to toil and sweat to grow their food, an act that had been previously accomplished simply by picking perfect food from a tree? A mess where the woman would suffer anguish and pain during childbirth? He decided, as an act of his will, to follow his own plan, or at least the plan that Satan offered to him.
Having listened to Satan’s plan, tasting the fruit of disobedience that would make them like gods, knowing good and evil, they gave their attention to the evil plan and obviously decided it sounded better that God’s. They willingly turned from God to Satan. That action immediately set into motion the future course of the entire human race, and made Satan their god, instead of the Creator of all things.
Did the actions of Adam and Eve in deciding to follow Satan catch God by surprise, and cause Him to go into panic mode to quickly formulate a new plan? Absolutely not. God has always known the end from the beginning, and he knew that this would occur, but, being the ultimate planner, He was ready with His plan to redeem mankind from the thief and destroyer.
The needed redemption of a lost human race was already a part of God’s perfect plan. We are told in in revelation 13:8 that Jesus, the sacrificial Lamb, was “slain from the foundation of the world.” Jesus had been chosen to become the Redeemer of lost mankind long before Adam and Eve were created. He was chosen, sent, prepared and anointed to provide the redemption that would be offered to anyone who would choose to accept it.
God is never caught up short by any attempt of Satan to stop His plan. While He knew exactly what would happen in the Garden of Eden, he was way ahead of Satan and at that time, He prophesied that Jesus would come to bruise his head. That took place when Jesus was crucified, died and was resurrected.
From the time of disobedience until the arrival of Jesus, nothing could stop God’s plan from succeeding. He is always in control and will not allow Satan to defeat Him, or even delay His plan. Man was always to be the recipient of all the good that God planned at the time of creation, but, he still must accept the redemptive part of God’s plan for it to have any positive affect on his life.
By exercising his free will, he can still choose to refuse God’s plan just as Adam did in the Garden. Throughout the ages since creation, and especially since Jesus completed His perfect work, man has tried to succeed using his own plans, thoughts and ideas. And, every attempt has been a dismal failure.
The Fix for Man’s Failed Plans
The words of King Solomon declare in Proverbs 3: 5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” In this Scripture, the Lord is letting us know that our plans will never succeed unless we first place all our trust in Him and allow Him to establish the plan needed for success in our personal lives.
For thousands of years, mankind has tried to do just the opposite and expect God to bless our plans without any recognition of Him. This is the reason why human government has been a total failure on this planet. Political leaders have continually tried to institute their plans, using politics, consisting mostly of intimidation, manipulation and human persuasion, to accomplish their goals without first recognizing God and allowing Him to direct their thoughts and ideas. This process has caused all the wars and other terrible events that have plagued mankind since creation.
Conclusion
Until those who are called leaders in this world finally give up their own ways and allow God to direct their thoughts and paths, human government will continue to be a disaster and complete failure. Until individual men and women recognize the sovereignty of God in their lives and allow him to be the Lord of their lives, their lives will also end in complete failure.
Until the Church gives up its own plans, created in the minds of so-called Church leaders, the Church will struggle to be what God intended it to be-Salt and Light. God’s plan was for the Church, the Body of Christ, to take His message to all the world, but only after “trusting in the Lord with all their hearts and then allowing God to direct the paths.
It is up to the Church to get the message of God out to all those who have been struggling for their entire lives, trying to make something good happen without any input from the Creator. Until God is allowed to be God in the lives of people, whether a government leader, a pastor, a lay person, or the unsaved, the plans of man will continue to fail. It is time to let God’s plan take over and finish what He started in the beginning.