(What you are about to read is a selection from a retreat I spoke about a year ago. It is a continuation from Part 1 (The Dawn of Creation), Part 2 (The Separation) and Part 3 (The Desperation). It is based on the discussion of our connection with God and comes from John 1:1-18)
The thought of a God desperate for anything is foreign to us as a whole. God enjoys two things, receiving the glory due to Him and the love of His creation. That is the beauty of His plan to bring us back into a restored relationship. His plan would not only conquer His enemy and ours, it would bring a way for us to have fellowship and be connected again as we should be. The plan would be to take our brokenness, the fractured people that we became when Adam and Eve sinned and break Himself in order for us to be restored.
Before that happened God instituted a sacrificial system. If a person sinned, they had to make a sacrifice. There were many variances of sacrifice, all to cover sins in a temporary way. While I do not believe it wise to make light of this because of it foreshadowing of Christ’s coming, I do want to focus on the sacrifice that God made on His part. The sacrificial system that was set up was based on man sacrificing for his own sins, the plan that God had would be Him paying the price we could not. One was temporary, the other eternal…once for all. One covered our brokenness temporarily the other would fix it permanently.
This system was not the original plan or a perfect world, and God knew of a better plan than the sacrificial system that was in place. The connection was still broken; the brokenness was not fixed with the sacrificial system but it was a foreshadowing of what had to take place. Something greater than a lamb would have to be sacrificed. Something would have to be given to draw mankind back to God. For God and mankind to be reconnected…
…He would stand in our place.
Where we were broken, He would be.
This was no easy task; God would send Himself, in flesh to earth to live life with the mankind that He created. While here, He would live a perfect sinless life that no one else could, then He would die. His sinless life would satisfy the requirement or price that was needed to be paid so mankind could be reunited with God. Can you see His passion? His desire to bring us back to that connection? His desire would bring Him glory and honor and in the same breath bring the brokenness to an end. God had a plan. He would come from Heaven to earth, leaving the splendors of His unfathomable home, to walk this dirty earth that He created but we had made into something most foul, a cesspool of sin and human depravity. He would live here in this mess we had created of His creation, live as we were always intended despite mankind, and become broken. This was necessary to reconnect us.
As amazing as this plan is, it is much deeper. It is a far greater plan than we could ever understand fully. It is a God sized plan, and only He could work it out. He did so, perfectly. God carried out His plan as Christ died for our sins, rose again after three days, and later ascended back to His home in Heaven. That part of the job was complete. The barrier was removed; sin lost its hold on those who accepted Christ as Savior, as the One who died for their brokenness.
But there is more that God accomplished...
Over to you…
1. Have you ever thought about God’s plan and how elaborate it really is?
2. Do you often sit and think about the magnitude of what God did? Do you see His desire to be connected? In what ways?
3. Take a moment, think about this thought, “God … broken” and write down what comes to your mind.
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