The fall didn’t test God’s manhood; it proved His love. When Adam and Eve were unfaithful to Him, He didn’t play hard to get and force them to have to chase Him down, salvaging God’s pride. We aren’t God chasers. We are the chased by God. Revelation 13:8 says that Jesus was the lamb “slain before the foundation of the world.” Before mankind ever fell in the garden, God had already decided to pursue us and to pay whatever price was necessary because He was compelled by lovesickness. God created us to live in an intimate lovesick relationship with Him and to fully participate in His life, sharing and enjoying all that he is and all that he has. This was God’s predetermined plan. He predestined us in Christ to fully experience the life that Jesus lives in the heavenly’s and on earth clothed in our humanity. Jesus came that we might experience the abundant life that God imagined for us before we were ever created. He refused to allow the Fall to spoil His heart’s desire for us. John 3:16 is likely the most famous Scripture in all of the Bible, and I believe there are a few verses in the Song of Solomon and Micah that explain John 3:16 perfectly.
Jesus is speaking in Song of Solomon 8:6- 7; “Put me back and seal over your heart… For love is as strong as death, (the Cross proved that) jealousy has severe as Sheol; its flashes are flashes of fire, the vehement flame of the Lord. Many waters cannot quench love, nor will rivers overflow it; if a man were to give all the riches of his house for love, it would be utterly despised.”
Of course, Jesus was slain before the foundation of the world – God would’ve paid even more to restore us to the predetermined desire of his heart for us. But of course, there was nothing more that could be paid. God didn’t bargain for our redemption. He gave everything he had up front. Jesus did not go to the Cross just so we wouldn’t perish. He went to the Cross that we might have eternal life, which has nothing to do with chronology. It has everything to do with the quality of life lived in heaven, lived in us in the person of Jesus. Nothing could stop the vehement flame in the heart of God from paying whatever price was necessary that we might have life (Zoe= God’s kind of life) and have it abundantly.
Also, Micah 7:18 is an amazing verse and describes how God has always felt about us and always will, and therefore why He could not bear our not having a chance of experiencing all the favor and blessing He’s always dreamed about for us.
“Who was a God like you, who pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession? He does not retain His anger forever because He delights in unending love.” Micah 7:18.
In light of all this, do you really think that God is a respecter of persons? Do you really believe that you are the one Christian who can’t experience the abundant life that God chased us down to experience. That is a lie from the enemy. Stop pondering what you think about yourself and what you think you deserve or are adequate for. Start asking God what he believes about you, and then refuse to entertain another thought about yourself that doesn’t have its origin in the One who chased you down from ages past so that you could live in the daily glory that He created you for. Joy unspeakable full glory.