Genesis 3: God Has a Plan
Thursday, September 11, 2025
Written on March 5 and posted today as a Favorite . . .
Yesterday we reflected on the idea that God sets a sign before us; he comes to live among us in the person of Jesus. Today we reflect on the reality that God has a plan in mind; God does not come to humanity as an afterthought. It has always been God’s idea to be born of woman as a redeemer of God’s own creation. God’s plan is to create us and to give us a choice of eternal life or death in the world. God’s plan is to come to us as a saver and protector who will lead us out of the physical and into the spiritual world. God’s plan is to abide with us as a comforter and lover who brings us wisdom, forgiveness and compassion. God’s plan is to lay before us life and death. God’s plan is that we choose life, but he allows us to choose death.
Amazingly, even though we may make poor choices, God is still willing to allow us to atone and in fact the Lord rejoices when we reverse course to turn back to God. God knows that Satan patrols the world as we have examined in Job 1:7. God knows it is Satan who has tempted Adam and Eve to think that he holds the mystery of eternal life when it is God who actually does. And God knows how and why we will choose between self-serving pride and life-sustaining humility at the hinge points of our lives. And through all of this, God abides. This is God’s plan.
Satan tempts Jesus in the desert and when he does, these are Jesus’ responses.
Scripture says: Human beings live not on bread alone.
You must do homage to the Lord your God, him alone must you serve.
Do not put your Lord your God to the test.
At the end of this passage, the Gospel remarks: Having exhausted every way of putting [Jesus] to the test, the devil left him, until the opportune moment.
And so when Satan approaches to test us and to draw us away from God, as he does so often, let us stick to God’s plan and let us pray the words Jesus uses when tempted by Satan in the desert – the words of God come to walk among us on earth.
Dear Lord, deliver us and remind us that we do not live on bread alone.
Dear Lord, protect us and remind us that it is you alone we serve.
Dear Lord, love us and deliver us from this test.
Dear Lord, do not allow us to become blind by the light of adversaries who seek to dazzle us with their moments of opportunity
Dear Lord, abide with us always.
We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
A re-post from August 19, 2011.
Image from: https://www.livinglutheran.org/2018/04/when-the-scars-come-out/
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