GOD'S PLAN
Class Rules
Welcome to God’s Plan on LearningGod.org. We are glad you are here.
For the purposes of learning about God, it is important to cover the “class rules”, or how the Teacher operates His classroom. If you want to do well in class, it is valuable to understand the teacher and what He is looking for. Is He a hard grader? Does He grade on a curve? Does He give multiple choice tests or expect essays? Does He stick to the textbook or expect you to do further research on your own?
Whether you know it or not, you are in a lifelong class on “Learning God”. We all are. As we go through this journey together, we will help you understand the purpose of the class and how to make sure you get a passing grade. The good news is that passing this class is super simple once you understand and accept the basic truths.
In the end we will all be graded. That goes for those who do not know they are in class and for those who do. It even applies to those who do not want to participate in the class. When we are graded, the first question will be “Do we pass pr fail?” The second question is, if we do pass, what is our grade?
If we pass, we get to advance. If we do not pass, then we do not advance and will not get another chance. We get one shot at this, so it is a good idea to learn how to pass this class! By putting the in the effort to learn about God, you will increase your chances for a better grade! It is most important to pass the class, but if you do, then your grade matters. We will explain why as we go.
With that in mind, here is a summary of the class rules that will help you grasp what the Teacher wants you to understand. These provide the foundational way God wants you to think about Him. Make sure you stick to these rules and by the end of the class, if you are open minded and willing to learn, you will understand what the class is all about, how to pass it with ease and score an A+!
Prerequisites
A belief in God, or at least the possibility that there is a God that created the universe and everything in it. If you struggle with this concept, then see the section on Apologetics.
Rule #1 – There is only one Teacher and what He says, goes.
The Teacher of this class is God. This is the God of the Bible. There is only one god. Anyone or anything else that claims to be god is detracting from the message of the Bible and leading people astray.
God told us Himself in Exodus 20:3-5 (KJV), “Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, …”
Rule #2 – The textbook for the class provides all the answers you need.
The only textbook needed for this class is the Bible. The Bible is the Word of God. As John says in John 1:1 (KJV) “ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” It has all the answers we need, as stated in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (KJV), “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”
When it comes to listening to other philosophies, Colossians 2:8 (KJV) says it all; “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” Galatians 1:8 (KJV) further reinforces this point. “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.”
Rule #3 – The Teacher will not change the way He grades.
God has a plan for this world and that plan is not going to change for any reason. Like any class, grades are based on following what the Teacher says. If you do what He says, you get a good grade. The more you follow, the better your grade. Where this gets difficult for some is in what is considered following God. You cannot change what God considers good or bad. God is absolute and unchanging. If you tell your teacher, you think the teacher’s answer is wrong and yours is right, do you expect to get a good grade? Or are you going to get put in detention or kicked out of class?
It was spoken in Numbers 23:19 (KJV) “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?” God says what He means and means what He says. The Word of God will stand forever, as stated in Matthew 24:35 (KJV) “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.”
Rule #4 – There is only one way to pass the class.
New Age thinking says there are many ways to eternal life. Each of the major religions, Christianity, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu and Judaism, among others all seem to be pointing at the same concept of an eternal life with the creator. They all have different ways of getting there. The prevailing concept here is that to say “Only way to eternal life cannot be right. All of the other ways cannot all be wrong.”
Let’s take a simple analogy to demonstrate how wrong this thinking is. How many answers are there to the question, what is 2+2? There is only one correct answer. It doesn’t matter what philosophy you apply, you aren’t going to change that answer. This is a clear example where everyone can accept that there is only one correct answer. The reality is there is only one answer to how to have everlasting life with God. John 14:6 (KJV) makes it clear. “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” So if there is more than one way, Jesus cannot be telling the truth. The reality is that every major religion is exclusive. They all say there way is the only way. If they are all exclusive, they can’t all be right, only one can.
Rule # 5 – Everything we do gets graded.
Have you ever done something you know is wrong but you were all alone and thought to yourself, “no one will know?” You may have even got away with it and no one to this date has found out what you did. It could be something significant, like committing a crime, or simply having lustful thoughts about someone other than your spouse.
God sees everything we do and notes all thoughts and acts, both good and bad. The reality is that unless we are entirely blameless, we are not worthy of living with God in eternity. Unfortunately, none of us outside of Jesus are blameless. Romans 3:23 (KJV) says, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”
For those who do not accept the truth and fail the class, all of their sins will be put before them and they will be left without a defense. Revelation 20:12 (KJV) says “And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.”
For those who accept the truth and pass the class, we will be judged on the works we do after we accept Christ as our savior. This is referred to as the Judgement Seat (Bema) of Christ and it is not to punish us for sins, but reward us for our good works. Those who do the most good works get an A+! This is said in Revelation 22:12 (KJV) “And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.”
Everything we do is being recorded, everything. This applies even to our thoughts. Having a sinful thought is just as bad as doing a sinful act. In Matthew 5:27-28 (KJV), Jesus says, “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery’. But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” It’s the condition of the heart that matters to Jesus.
By accepting Christ as our savior, we get to wash away all our past sins and God will actually “forget” them. In Isaiah 43:25 (KJV), God says “I, even I am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.” That is good news! So throughout our lives everything is recorded. Sins can be forgotten if you accept Christ. However, the grading doesn’t happen during our lives, but at the time of judgement. This leads us to Rule #6.
Rule #6 – While in class, you can change your answers.
This class is a little different than most regular classes where you are graded along the way. In this one, you are only graded when class is over. You can change your answers up until the moment your life ends. 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” You can accept Christ at any time, but you never know when your life will end, so if you haven’t already, NOW would be a good time!
Be careful not to think that gives you liberty to sin knowingly and then ask for forgiveness. In Hebrews 10:26 it is made clear. “For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins.”
Rule #7 – You will be tested, and the tests may be difficult.
God wants us to learn and grow. As such, we will be tested, as we are in any kind of school. Our lives will sometime, often in fact, have challenges of differing degrees. It seems inevitable. There seems to always be something going wrong and even if you are sailing along, it won’t be long before something throws a monkey wrench into the works. We don’t always know why we are being tested, such as in the case of Job, who endured a most brutal test in which he suffered immensely because Satan had accused him to God of having it to easy. Job had no idea why it was happening and it was horrific for Job, but his Faith in God got him through it and he was rewarded for it.
In the case of Abraham, God asked him to sacrifice his beloved and innocent son Isaac. This sounds like cruel torture, but it was a shadow of things to come. God ended up providing Abraham a substitute and didn’t require the death of Isaac. Abraham had to show God he was willing to sacrifice his only son, even though he was innocent. Does this story sound familiar?
God has His reasons for testing you and you may not always understand what they are. Neither Job nor Abraham did and they did what they had to do anyway. We must do the same.
This school is only open for a short time and you only get one chance.
We have a short life span of less than 80 years for the average person. The thing is, as mentioned in rule #6, you don’t know how long you have. There are no guarantees. Don’t think you get another chance in the next life, you don’t. This is made clear in Hebrews 9:26-28 (KJV), where it is said, “For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment. So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.”This means Christ died once for all humanity’s sin. Those that turn to Him have salvation. We die once and then there is judgement. We don’t get to keep coming back and trying to improve. There is no reincarnation.
From the perspective of all of humanity, this school has been around for about 6,000 years and has a definite ending in God’s Plan. Read Revelation 21 and 22 and you will see this earth is done away with and replaced by a new Heaven and Earth. In Revelation 21:1 (KJV), it says, “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.” This is a new world for the believers. All those that failed the class are at that point in the lake of fire. That means the world as we know it will end and judgement will have been made. At that point, class is over, and school is closed!
So let’s learn about God and earn our A+ before class is over!
