God’s Love Story
By Major Beth Desplancke
I am a sucker for a good love story (give me a Romcom or a good Hallmark movie any day!). As a child, my favorite stories began with “Once upon a time…” and ended with, “They lived happily ever after.” I remember as a young teenager seeing the movie “Love Story” (for the record, I wasn’t born yet when it was released in 1970). With a title like that, it had to be a love story. Wrong! Yes, Jenny and Oliver fall in love, but there is no happily ever after for these two. Jenny dies! (Since it is more than a 50-year-old movie, I don’t think I have to worry about spoilers.) Then in High School I had to read a William Shakespeare play that is a classic and is called a romance. Once again, I was disappointed as I slogged through old English in poetic form, which was often hard to understand, to discover that Romeo and Juliet both die!
The best love story of all is the love story that God has written. God is love (1 John 4:8) and all that He is and all that He does flows out of that fact. He showed His love by creating a beautiful world – with trees, flowers, plants, animals, fish, birds – and then He created humans, made in His image, to have fellowship with Him.
We know the story. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, enjoying life and everything is wonderful. And then the hiccup of the love story – Satan slithered into the garden as a serpent and has a conversation with Eve (Genesis 3). That conversation led Eve and Adam both into eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The tree God had clearly told them not to eat from. Immediately they were ashamed and tried to cover themselves and they hid from God.
Genesis 3:8 says, “Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.” It implies that God did this regularly – where He would come and spend time with and fellowship with His created ones. He calls out to them, asking where Adam is at. He knew both where they were hiding and the reason why. In Genesis 2:17, God had been clear to Adam about the one rule – eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and you will experience death.
Lovingly He disciplines them, and speaks words of hardship, pain, sweat toil and thorns, but not words of death to Adam and Eve. He does speak words of death to the serpent. In Genesis 3:15 (which has become one my many favorite verses in the Bible), He tells the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” This is the first promise of a Messiah, a Savior, who would come to pay the price for the sins of humanity. Yes, the serpent will strike the heel of the Messiah. A wound to the heel is painful but is not fatal. Satan would think he would win, but the Messiah would crush the serpent’s head, which is indeed a fatal blow.
Afterwards, God clothed Adam and Eve with animal skins (an animal had to die as a sacrifice to provide clothes for them to wear) and God lovingly sent Adam and Eve out from the garden and blocked the way to the tree of life. Not as punishment, but as protection. If they were to eat of the tree of life in their current condition of sin, they would be separated from God forever. If that were the end of the story, that wouldn’t be much of a love story because isn’t a happy ending.
Hallelujah God’s story doesn’t end with Genesis chapter 3. God lovingly sent His Son, Jesus, to be born as a baby, to grow up as a man, to live a normal human life, to be the sacrifice to pay for our sins. He was the only person who could take the place for us. God made him who had no sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Jesus died the death we all deserved. He died and was buried. Once again, that isn’t the end of the story. He didn’t stay dead but rose again. After 40 days Jesus went up to heaven with the promise that He is returning someday for those who have chosen to accept God’s gracious gift of love through His Son Jesus.
God made it possible for those who choose God’s love story, we will have a happy ending. If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).
Someday, in true love story fashion, Jesus, our Bridegroom, is going to return for His Bride (the Church – those who have received Him as their Savior), Satan will be defeated once and forever, and we will spend eternity with God (See Revelation 19-22). And for those who have received Christ as their Savior we can honestly say, “they lived happily ever after.” No other love story ever compares.
Hold your head up high, knowing you are dearly loved by God who was willing to pay the price for your sin by sending His Only Son to die in your place.
Enjoy Phil Wickman’s song, “How Great is Your Love:”
