God's plan
Introduction
Welcome to “God’s Plan”, the third part of the story of how to become a Christian using shapes. The shape of the heart in the pictures represent God. And the shape of the circle (earth) represents humanity.
The cross represents Jesus Christ and what he did upon the cross.
Last chapter we saw that because of what Adam and Eve did in disobeying God a separation came about between God and humanity. This affects everyone even today. We also saw that no amount of effort by humans can fix this separation. In this chapter we are going to look at God’s Plan to breach the gap.
God’s Plan was a person - Jesus Christ
God created us to walk with him. When Adam and Eve turned away from God by eating the forbidden fruit a separation came about between God and people. But God didn’t give up on people. God had a plan and over centuries spoke of this plan and brought it into being at a moment in history.
God's action in history
God sent his son
Finally someone who had no separation with God
While waiting for his ultimate plan to be fully realised, God intervened in history along the way. This showed his ongoing love for humanity and each step pointed to God’s final plan. Many thousands of years ago God spoke to a man named Abraham and through him made a people to follow him (Acts 7:2-5). God gave them something called “the Law” which told people what God wanted of them (Acts 7:30-44). He told them to shed the blood of animals to cover over what they did that was wrong. But even his own people kept turning from God and disobeying the law. So he sent people called prophets through which he would talk to the people. But the people didn’t listen to the prophets and often throughout history would reject or even harm the prophets (Acts 7:2-53).
So finally God broke through into history and sent his only Son (John 3:16). This was a man called Jesus who was born about 2,000 years ago. His mother was a human being called Mary but his Father was God himself. She became pregnant not through the usual means but through the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:26-38). So Jesus was a human being but he was also divine. Jesus is often called Jesus Christ. “Christ” means anointed one. In the bible in John 1:1 it says that Jesus was there at the beginning of time creating the world.
Unlike everyone else on earth up to then, Jesus didn’t inherit disobedience or sin from Adam and Eve. He was holy and pure (1 John 3:4-5). He walked with God on earth in a way no one before could ever do even the prophets. For him there was no separation between God and himself. They were one (John 10:40).
The cross - God's hidden plan
God wanted everyone to be have the opportunity to be one with him as Jesus was one with him (1 Timothy 2:3-4). However all people still had this rebellious nature coming from Adam and Eve (Romans 5:12, 14). This rebellious nature of sin had to be dealt with once and for all and then the separation would be broken for those who wanted it so.
God’s plan was hidden from the devil (Ephesians 3:4).
The devil attacked Jesus by stirring up people’s anger towards him. He ended up being crucified (Luke 23:32-33). This means being nailed to a cross and hung up there till you die. This was a common way that the Romans of the day used to execute people and it was very, very painful.
What the devil didn’t know is that this evil he was bringing about was in reality opening up God’s plan. Jesus himself knew about this plan and went into it willingly trusting God even though he knew it would be very difficult (Mark 14:34-36). He did it because he loves us and wants all of us to know the intimacy that he has with God (Ephesians 5:2).
The cross makes the way for the circle and the heart to come close again
The cross builds a bridge between the circle and the heart
A gift for everybody in one person’s death
A momentous moment in history
All proved true when Jesus came back to life
When Jesus took his final breath the earth shook. People came up out of their graves (Matthew 27:51-53). The curtain in the temple in Jerusalem was split in two (Luke 23:45). Something amazing had happened in history. The world would never be the same.
In the bible it says that on the cross Jesus paid the punishment for all the “sins” of all humanity in time and space (Romans 5:18; 8:3-4) He paid for it all. The separation was finally breached.
Any human beings that would accept this gift of what Christ has done could be totally washed clean and forgiven (Romans 5:17). They then could be born again and become children of God (John 1:12-13) . They could walk with God and be one with him (Ephesians 2:13,16). Instead of being baptised or immersed in water Jesus would immerse them in the Holy Spirit. God would be in them and all around them (Matthew 3:11).
We know the truth of what Jesus Christ did upon the cross because of something even more amazing that happened in history. Three days after Jesus’ death God brought him back to life (Acts 2:24). For 40 days he walked around on earth and showed himself to people and then went up to His Father in heaven in a cloud (Acts 1:9). He is still there praying for us all that we would receive this gift and be changed from the inside out (Romans 8:34).
Because of the cross we can be immersed or baptised in the Holy Spirit
NEXT STEPS
The next part of the story will talk about the invitation given to all people to receive what Christ did upon the cross for themselves.
