God’s Simple Plan
by Gloria Copeland
One of the things I love about God is how simple He makes things for us. Unlike the world, He doesn’t confuse us with a bunch of different, and sometimes contradictory, strategies for success. From the beginning of the Bible to the end He consistently tells us to simply hear what He says and do it.
If we will follow this one simple plan, He says, “Then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success” (Joshua 1:8).
We see this borne out all through the Scriptures. Whenever God’s people listened to and obeyed Him, He gave them victory. When they didn’t, He had to let them go their own way into failure and defeat.
Think about Adam and Eve, for instance. God gave them just one command. He said, “Do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Can you imagine having one “Do Not” in life, and then flunking the test? It sounds impossible, yet that’s exactly what Adam and Eve did. With all the beautiful trees in the Garden that God gave them to eat from, they chose to eat the fruit of the one tree about which God said, “In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die" (Genesis 2:17, "New King James Version").
They didn’t make that choice all on their own, of course. They had a tempter. When he showed up in the Garden, he began questioning God’s command and telling Eve that obeying it wasn’t in her best interest. She and Adam wouldn’t die if they ate of the forbidden tree, he said. Instead, “your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods” (Genesis 3:4-5).
BVOV : 5
