God's Return on Investment

By Mark Ervin

God’s Return On Investment is based on the perception that God is constantly involved in our lives and is training us to understand what He and Jesus did for us and do for us. In order to gain insight into the spiritual realm, where God wants us to have a relationship with Him, He utilizes what we understand through physical properties. In other words, what we are familiar with, that occurs in our day-to-day lives, is actually just examples of what God wants us to understand spiritually. This book takes us through the journey of our lives from birth to death by utilizing the aspect of returns that occur in each phase of our life. God put this property of returns into His plan before Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden. Before the sin was committed, He established the way for revitalizing the originally intended relationship between Him and us through His son Jesus. Now He wants us to see, through physical returns, what has been done for us by way of His investment. The things that went wrong in the Garden of Eden are counteracted by our human representative in the Garden…of Gethsemane. Why has He done all of this? Because He has always loved us and wants us to love Him as was originally intended before sin entered the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gatekeeper Press
• Release date: Feb 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9781662932731

Book preview

Prologue

What is the best way for students to learn a subject? The consistent answer from educators is repetition, repetition. All of us have experienced this form of learning or training and realized that few, if any, people learn on a onetime exposure to information and then store it away for future mental reference. Experience is another means of learning, which has given many a trade or technical school their niche in the pre-job market. When repetition and experience-based learning are combined it typically results in a foundational method of learning that only improves with time and usage. The basis of this book is founded on those very principles. God is training each of us through reoccurring returns in the different stages of our lives. He is repetitive so that over time we come to recognize the depth of His investment in us. These returns span from birth to death and everything in between those periods of life. This enables each of us to understand what His son, Jesus, did for you and me and all of humanity before he went to the cross. Jesus is the antidote to sin through his counteraction of what went wrong in the Garden of Eden.

In this book I’ve taken the steps to assist you in understanding how God has been involved in your life up to this very moment. He has been training each of us from birth to death through physical occurrences to help us understand or gain some insight into what He has done and wants us to understand spiritually. Before we begin the journey of returns, in case you aren’t familiar with the structure of Bible scripture, I’ve written it out (ex. John 3:16 is written as John, chapter three, verse sixteen) so that it’s easier to understand the scripture that I reference. Additionally, I’ve put the words of Jesus in red lettering as they are often displayed in many Bibles.

So, find a comfortable spot to read about returns throughout segments of our lives and how Jesus returned everything to what was intended from the beginning for everyone in order to make the correction (do-over) in the garden.

Chapter 1

Beginnings

It began as another perfect day. The sky was bright blue as the sun began rising in the east and making its presence known through its warming glow. The sun’s morning rays reflected the sparkling of the dew draped plants and trees. Though vacant of birds in flight, their early morning songs were being projected loud enough to fill the four corners of the sky. As the dew gave way to the evaporating energy of the sun, the fresh scent of flowers and other perfuming fragrances began to rise and awaken the couple from their deep restful sleep.

You may be thinking to yourself, I remember that kind of morning when I was awakened by the sights, sounds, and aroma’s that you’re describing. In fact, you left out the part where you could smell the fresh brewing coffee or bacon and eggs being prepared as you took in the beauty of the sunrise.

No. Even though you and I may have had a somewhat similar morning, we have never had a day quite like the one that I’m describing. Nevertheless, continue on with the comparison because I’ll be coming to a point in this story where you’ll be convinced that I really am telling your story, and you’ll be, to some extent, correct… but not yet. Not at this point.

Unlike each of the previous days, an abrupt change was about to take place, one of those changes similar to opening the drain on a bathtub—what was once sparkling clean water turning into a downward vortex, resulting in a thin film of slime lining the tub. That’s what happened on this particular day. Evidently the serpent was not a reptile to fear in a sinless environment, but resided nonchalantly in the garden as an old trusted friend when he began speaking to Eve. The Bible states that the serpent was more crafty than any of the other wild animals in Genesis the third chapter verse one (Genesis 3:1 New International Version or NIV). It’s insinuated that the serpent had been altered through the manipulation of Satan. Remember, it says the serpent and not the serpents, so evidently this serpent was behaving in a slimier manner beyond what should have been expected, kind of like having a drug dealer trying to convince you that taking their drugs won’t kill you like the media hype has led you to believe. I realize that Adam and Eve were in their early days of understanding, yet their direct contact with God, in the cool of the day each and every previous day, had to have given them a deeper perspective than what would normally take place with infancy. In fact, I’m going to suggest that their intellectual capacity was what we would come to expect from a person in their 30s. I’ll talk about that little tidbit in a following chapter, so don’t get hung up on that statement for now. Let me get back to the story.

As Eve carried on her discussion with the serpent, it becomes clear that this day would not end like the previous days. Its consequence will be more cataclysmic than if a massive meteor had bombarded the heart of the garden. When Eve eats the forbidden fruit and hands it off to Adam to eat, the separation of man and God occurs and results in pain, suffering, and eventually death. What if this could have been erased from history? What if time could have been stopped and Adam and Eve could have gone back and performed a do-over? This is the point where you may want to say, This is the same kind of day that I’ve had. Things started out great and cratered later in the day. If I could only go back and change things, I would!

I think this desire for wanting to go back and correct a mistake is one of the main reasons why we are so intrigued with time machines or some form of time travel. We would be able to transport from the result of a poor decision into the enjoyment that we’ve come to look forward to in the cool of the day, so our natural desire is to either try and fix things or wish that we would be given the chance to go back and correct the error before the consequences took effect and get out of our control.

If you continue reading the third chapter in Genesis, the Bible’s account shows that Adam and Eve knew that they had made a gigantic mistake. When their eyes were opened they tried to do what they could— they made coverings for their naked bodies and hid when they heard God walking in the garden. If you have children of your own you’ve probably had this scene play out before your very eyes when they did something wrong. They knew that they couldn’t correct it, so they hid and hoped that mom or dad wouldn’t get too upset when the damage was discovered. Or they used the nonchalant (i.e. crafty) approach and said, Oh, that thing has been broken for a long time. You mean that you are just now noticing that? Yet some mistakes you just can’t hide, and the results from eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden made their grossly obvious disobedience as evident as their nakedness.

After God is told what happened and the man blames the woman and the woman blames the serpent, (Sound familiar? Maybe like the children referenced earlier?) God lays down His decree. If only God would let them have a second chance or move them back in time to a reset point and let them have a do-over, then they would correct the error. Still, that’s not what happened, nor is that how God works. They can’t correct anything. A do-over is what God does! What if I told you that the Bible tells us that a do-over (or you may want to say an atonement) is exactly what happened…in the garden? If you’re a Christian or Christ follower you are probably going to say, Well, Christ’s resurrection is the do-over that you’re talking about, but that didn’t take place in the garden. No, that’s not exactly what I’m talking about because Jesus Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection (rising from the dead) come after the completion of what I’m terming as the do-over. If you are not a person that considers yourself a Christian or Christ follower, you may be thinking that I’m talking about some magical moment or mythical tale that only people that handle snakes or sorcerers can concoct. To me personally the moment is very magical, but not in the way that you’re thinking right now. In actuality God has shown each of us throughout all of our lives that He fixed things with a perfect plan in order to get things back on course. Once things have gone astray the best action is to return to the point of error and get back on track. If you turn to the left when you should have turned right you have to go back to the point of error before you can move on in the correct direction. This is the same requirements demanded by the situation in the garden.

Occasionally you hear about a sports team that had a difficult period and suddenly turned things around in order to achieve success. In the 2007 / 2008 season of the National Basketball Association, the Boston Celtics went from worst to first. It had been a twenty-one year drought since the franchise last played for an NBA championship. The media touted the fact that several important trades had occurred to make this turn-about possible. Nevertheless, Coach Glenn Doc Rivers said that the trades were an important factor, but something beyond the trades made success a reality. Coach Rivers stated that the Celtics returned to the basics, and credited the team’s success to their dedication to perfecting themselves in the fundamentals of the game. The key word that I want to focus on is returned which is what this book will delve into. Each of our lives and the lives of creatures around us involve returning to key points or times to achieve a desired next step or conclusion. No matter what your background or belief system, if you will take this trip with me through the chapters of returns you will discover that God has been intimately involved in your life even if you didn’t recognize it. Before you dismiss this as more holy roller talk, look at the first few chapters and see if you don’t recognize some familiar story lines. They may not be your individual story, but each one will hopefully make you think of your personal returns through this life. If you like what you see, keep reading. If you don’t like the material, give it to a friend and tell them to take a look and then you can reason with their analysis.

Like everything else in this world, there are a few ground rules for this book. One of the rules involves the idea of a standard. There is a standard for everything in life. If we can agree on a standard, then we are both starting with the same basis to form our own conclusions. In other words, if we both agree that one plus one equals two, then additional mathematics beyond those numbers has a foundation. If we can agree that a measured foot equals twelve inches or 2.54000 centimeters equals one inch, or one meter equals 39.3701 inches; which equals 3.28084 feet, then we have the foundation for measuring objects or projects. If I were to ask you at this point how you came to know that 100 centimeters equaled one meter, I would expect you to tell me that it was a learned and trusted process that required study and application on your part, or that you looked it up on a metric conversion table like I just did (you can’t expect me to remember all those conversions). Whatever the case, a known or agreed upon standard works as a starting point. Whether you believe that the Bible is the divine inspired word of God or not, I need you to bear with me and use the biblical accounts that I identify as if we have agreed that the Bible is believable and is the standard. Since we don’t have eyewitnesses from biblical times available, we’ll use their written accounts collected in the Bible as our standard.

Another rule of this book is to recognize that life is the physical example of the spiritual reality. At this point even some of the Christian readers