Paul (Ephesians 1:1-10) lays out God’s plan. We all have heard it. We all say we believe it when we pray the Creed.
It all seems so easy. Christ comes down from heaven, takes the form of man and becomes true God and true man, suffers and dies so that we all would be reconciled to the Father. So that the great plan of God for all of mankind to be standing with Him, at His side in the most wonderful, beautiful, peaceful place imaginable for all eternity will one day be reality.
What has gone wrong? Why do we so often act like we just don’t get it? Why do good people do bad things? Why do those who say they love God act otherwise?
Perhaps we are all the personification of Job. Perhaps the devil has free reign to tempt and torture us short of determining when we will die, and God allows this to happen in order to see if we are up to the task.
Perhaps it’s our pride that drives us to think we can gain heaven on our own merit. “Thanks Jesus for hanging on that cross, but I’m a good person, I go to Church, I keep the commandments, I love my fellow man – that should be enough to get me a ticket to the Show.”
The problem is that we as humans so often really just don’t get it. We just don’t see reality when it comes to our place in creation and our relationship to God.
Why do so many of the saints tell us how unworthy they are? Tell us what great sinners they are? (Even compared to so many of us who are not half as holy or close to our Creator as they)
The truth is we are so much inferior and insignificant compared to God as to be likened to a single grain of sand on all the shores of all the oceans of the world in His sight. We have no chance of meriting our own salvation! But God, in the Second Person of the Trinity, knew us from before we were conceived, loved us perfectly then, and loves us perfectly now. He knew we would be frail, prone to failure, and yet He also knew that we deeply wanted to love Him back and complete His Great Plan. It is because of this love that He suffered for us and it is because of this love that He never says no to us when we ask for a second, third, fourth,… chance.
So take heart! Paul has told us of a Great Plan for mankind and if we will only try we can and will be part of that plan.
May God Bless You,
Deacon Doc