Why Simple Gifts?

“. . . His compassions fail not. They are new every morning: Great is thy faithfulness.” “For this God is our God forever and ever.”

Hi, this is Cynthia Dowling, and you may be wondering “Why the name ‘Simple Gifts?’”

Have you ever enjoyed seeing a colorful sunset, hearing a rushing waterfall, smelling a fragrant flower, tasting a sweet juicy peach, feeling warm grass on bare toes? God has surrounded us with His loveliness in this world.

And God gives our spiritual senses simple gifts also: Seeing a scripture truth clearly, hearing an encouraging hymn, tasting and seeing that the Lord is good, feeling the confidence in knowing that God is my Father--all simple gifts from God’s beautiful world and wonderful Word.

God has given us His Word, so simple a young child can understand the basics of truth and salvation. Have you ever wondered about the language of heaven? From His plans for mankind before time began, God simplified His truth in the language of earth, so we could know who He is and know that He loves us.

That’s what Adam and Eve knew in the Garden of Eden—God and His love, everything good. They walked and talked with God, getting to know Him better; and they also took care of His lovely, interesting garden. Everything was perfect!

Then the test came—how would Adam and Eve choose to use their God-given gift of free will? So God gave them a simple test to let them choose to obey a simple rule: Don’t eat the fruit of this tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They had all the other fruit trees to enjoy, but just not this one.

Simple, right? God created them, they knew nothing but love and communion with God, so it’s a no-brainier, right? But no, Satan, God’s created, fallen angel, lied to Eve about God. Satan attributed his own deceitful designs to God. He accused God of deliberately withholding pleasure and wisdom and control from them in God’s effort to keep them simple and under His thumb. He even told Eve she would be like God and not die as God had said!

Disregarding all her personal experiences with God and His goodness, Eve choose to believe a beautiful being who had never done anything for her—a cheap, snake-oil salesman. Then she convinced Adam also to disobey and eat the fruit, plunging the world into complexity, the complexity of the curse of sin.

Now this couple knew evil. Before they knew only good. How tragic! Adam and Eve had to leave the garden, toil by the sweat of their brow, deal with weeds and thorns, cope with difficulty in childbearing, submit to marital hierarchy, and finally physically die. Whoa! There was nothing they could do; they were doomed.

“But God,” don’t you love that phrase? But God, our loving Creator, made a way for us to return to Him and ultimately to the simplicity He designed for us in the beginning. After God shed the blood of animals to clothe Adam and Eve, He promised them that someday He would give a Savior to the world to make a way for simple communion with God once again. Isn’t that amazing!!!

Keeping all of His attributes including His justice, holiness, and righteousness uncompromised and at great painful cost to Himself, God made His own sinless Son to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. He took our sin in His own body on the cross to give us His righteous standing before God. Simple, yet priceless! What a great and loving God!

So what do I have to do? Nothing! God has done it all. So, does everyone have God’s righteousness? No, you must take God's free gift. Come to God, the holy God you have disobeyed, confess your sins to Him, repent and turn from your wicked ways and by faith follow Jesus. At this point Jesus is more important to you than any other person, or thing, or thought that you have. You take Him as Lord of your life and begin to do what He wants you to do and to stop doing what you want to do.

”Wait!” you say. “I can't do that!” No, you can't. But when you truly turn to go God’s way, He gives every true believer 3 gifts. First, God plugs you into his power by giving you his Holy Spirit in your body as a down payment of your salvation. Now, God can empower you to know his will and to do his will. Second, He has given us the Bible, His very own words preserved for us to tell us his truth. Third, God has given you access to Him in prayer and the right to call Him Father.

Now you are equipped with supernatural power, a divine guidebook, and a channel of conversation to the God of the universe—you have a heavenly dimension you never had before! At this point, you are privileged to be called a child of God; your God-need is satisfied; you are ready to live life God’s way.

The gift of salvation enables you to live for God in this life and join Him in heaven in the next. As you believe what His Word says by faith and obey what it tells you to do, you please God; you do His will. Now you are starting at the spot closest to living in the Garden of Eden that any person can attain in this fallen world; you can walk and talk with God.

One of the things God tells us in His Word is that He would have us to “be wise unto that which is good and simple concerning evil,” just as Adam and Eve were in the garden. How can we do that? Evil is all around us. And it's so hard to think about the good.

Well, if God tells us in His Word that's how He wants us to think, we can do it. Start with prayer and ask God to empower you and show you the way to be wise to the good and simple concerning evil. One thing the Lord has shown me that I can do is to be very intentional about seeking out good and be very intentional about turning from evil.

I'll let you know that I am a reader. I love to read. I used to read with a flashlight under my covers at night when I was young. And I've always loved a good book. Going to the library was always a highlight.

Another thing is that I am a finisher. Put those two together and everything I read I finish. Did I ever feel uncomfortable with content? Yes, I did, but I just blazed through the parts that made me uncomfortable until I got back to the good part.

After I was married, I was talking to my husband about the book I was reading and that the content was heading in a direction that was starting to bother me. Then he said something novel, “You know, you don't have to finish every book you start.” Whoa! Really?

Then I realized I was not a quitter to stop reading a book where the Holy Spirit was making me feel His discomfort. The choice was simple and clear, but not easy. I had to decide. I prayed and asked the Lord to help me make the right choice, and He did! Ever after, I have never finished a book that I felt was tending toward giving me knowledge of evil.

The Lord has since let me apply that principle to other things, and I've found that I am growing to know God better and the evil of this world less. So simple, right? Sometimes yes, and sometimes no. But, when pleasing God is my greatest desire, the discomfort I experience when other people and circumstances try to discourage me will gradually become less and less important.

So, let's let the Lord teach us through His Word, through the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and through prayer to be wise to good and simple to evil.

Until next time, praying for us to have strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow. Great is His faithfulness!