Stupid Faith [part 1 of 3]...

Does what you believe in make sense?  Does it make sense to you?  Why?  History sometimes acts as a razor against our beliefs.  History demonstrates to us what is possible, from what is impossible.  When we examine our lives through the lens of History, what do we find?  Are our beliefs supported by the facts of History, or by tales we have told so long they have reached mythic proportions but have yet to include any certain demonstrable facts.  This is not a 20^th century problem or dilemma, this is a phenomenon that has gripped mankind since the fall in the Garden of Eden until now.  You only needed to live 1100 years or so after the fall, to have lost the first-person account of what happened there in form of Adam and Eve.  By then, only Seth could recount the stories his parents had told him, even though he himself had never been in that famous Garden.

But then, no one had.  An angel stood at its entrance, armed with a flaming sword, intent on keeping all interested parties out, so man could not again eat from the Tree of Life and find himself immortal.  As a side note, what is the point of guarding this entrance if the soul of man is immortal anyway?  It was guarded because upon death we sleep, knowing nothing, until our Lord returns to us and pulls us out of our rotten slumber and in to a life only He could create, re-create, or restore.  In this context, an angelic guard is needed, and was present.  Mankind could see this angel all the way up until the flood (when it is likely the Garden was relocated to heaven, until it could be returned to a New Earth after the end of all evil).  What you believed was not important.  Go to the entrance of the Garden and what you found was an armed angel to keep you out.  Nearly 4,000 years pass by this way.

But a demonstration of the divine does not repel evil.  During the 4,000 years man became so evil, it made God sorry He made us; excepting for Noah, and Noah far from perfect.  Pass by another few centuries after the flood to the time of Moses.  The children of Israel witness miracles beyond what History could have ever dictated.  They pass through the Red Sea, and have a cloud of perfect temperature in a desert of normally scorching heat.  The snakes and creatures of the desert remain hidden in their dens while Israelite feet are nearby.  At night, the cloud turns into a pillar of fire, providing light, and heat in a desert that is otherwise very cold and dark.  And nocturnal wildlife stay home while Israelite feet are nearby.  Forty years of these conditions, but evil arises from time to time, sometimes in nearly absolute rebellion.  What you believed did not matter, over your head was a cloud, or a pillar of fire, depending on the time of day.  But pass by only a century later, and all that remains are the written accounts of Moses.  A century more, and writings are everything.

And now Jesus has reached the scene.  He is preaching and teaching.  He is healing, loving, and restoring us.  And the leadership of His church rejects Him for want of power over the people.  Was it stupid to believe in a still coming Messiah that Jesus now embodies?  Was it stupid to believe in Adam and Eve, and a talking snake?  Was it stupid to believe in Moses, and the miracles of the sky that happened every day while in the deserts of the Middle East?  Crowds of Israelites now wrestle with these beliefs because once again there is a material witness to the facts of History, instead of just the stories of History.  The leadership tell the people that Jesus is a blasphemer.  They tell the people that Jesus is a false prophet, possessed of the Devil himself.  To listen to Jesus is to be expelled from the Temple, cast away from the sacrificial system whereby salvation can be achieved.  To be expelled is to cut one’s self off from the forgiveness of sins.  Or is it?

Matthew now recounts in his gospel a story in three parts.  In act one, the context is set.  It picks up in chapter nine beginning in verse 18 it says … “While he spake these things unto them, behold, there came a certain ruler, and worshipped him, saying, My daughter is even now dead: but come and lay thy hand upon her, and she shall live. [verse 19] And Jesus arose, and followed him, and so did his disciples.”  So many things to unpack in only two verses.  First, at the beginning of this chapter, Jesus told a man his sins were forgiven him, then proved it by healing him from a lifelong debilitating disease.  This meant, that being cut off from the Temple was no longer a death sentence of retaining one’s sins.  Being attached to Jesus was to find the only real outlet for the forgiveness of one’s sins.  The threat of the Temple leadership is no longer what it once might have been.  But this is what happens when God replaces men at the center of our religion.

Next, understand the position this supplicant maintains before this encounter.  He is a ruler.  This would mean that up until this request of Jesus he was in the Sanhedrin or ruling class.  He did not suffer from poverty, or even oppression by the Romans.  He was respected.  He likely had servants, nearly all rulers did.  In worshipping Jesus publicly, he would be putting everything he had at risk.  The Romans were not certain of Jesus yet, but He was being watched.  Anyone associated with Jesus would join that watch list, but anyone rich doing it would draw intense scrutiny.  The Romans did not need a worshipper capable of funding a war against them.  Poor folks were only desperate.  The rich could accomplish quite a bit more.  Worshipping Jesus publicly declared to his family and friends where his allegiances would lie.  He was out.  He was public.  He would be immediately cast aside by the Temple leadership, and you can believe, lies would be crafted about him right away to make this “sin” worse.

And finally, he was stupid.  What else do you call it, when someone believes something that History has never demonstrated is possible?  What else do you call it, when you search for life from a condition beyond the grave where death has already set in?  Is that resurrection, or is it salvation?  Do you see the condition of death you abide in today?  Your heart beats, your lungs move, but your “life” is one of pain, death, and mediocrity.  You “live” only a tenth of what you could.  Not because of poor health, or poor means, but because of poor thinking.  You trust to the habit of trying to save yourself from your sins, trying to gut-it-out and not commit certain things you know are wrong.  But all the while the desire to do those things is as strong as it ever was.  Failure heaped upon failure.  And History acts as a razor against your beliefs.  But it is not Jesus that is wrong about what you believe, it is what you think the role of Jesus is.  Jesus is the source of whatever new life you are bound to have.  Jesus cleans you up.  Jesus takes away the desires you cannot remove.  And salvation from the “death” you abide in, begins to take place.  Now who is the stupid one?

And note the response of Jesus to this request to breathe life back into what is now dead.  Jesus does not ponder the idea.  Jesus does not send it out to committee to insure there is a consensus before He takes action.  Jesus drops what He is doing and immediately leaves to find the home of this little girl, because of the request of her father.  It is not the faith of the dead one that will be tested here.  It is only her father that through his humility and submission to Jesus has sparked what will happen next.  Let the world think of him what they will, this father has a plan to see love restored.  This father has a plan to see the love of his little girl burn bright in her eyes once again.  This father has buried his hope and his faith in the person of Jesus Christ.  Whether we think that stupid or not.  And Jesus is moving, moving right away.  Those who will follow Jesus are indeed following after Him.  For Jesus always moves decisively towards seeing life return to the dead, even when that condition is only spiritual.

What this ruler did, is what you and I do, asking for life in the context of our death, each and every day.  If we have never witnessed salvation against death, it is because we have never really allowed Jesus to fix what is dead within us.  This was not a story of a father raising his daughter from the grave.  This was a request by a father for Jesus to do, what only Jesus can do, bring life.  This father makes that request, no matter how stupid it sounds to those around him.  No matter what history has demonstrated, History is about to be up-ended.  There will be a new History after this.  There will be a new set of facts from which we can derive a belief.  There will be a new set of eye-witnesses.  But then over time, all that will remain again is the written word of this account.  And centuries past that, the written word will be everything.  The story will not prevent all evil, but it will demonstrate the power of Jesus against evil and the death it brings.

Is it stupid to believe what you have not seen yourself?  Is it stupid to rely upon the witnesses of others?  What about believing something you do not at heart think is possible.  The power of Jesus is beyond what you could ever imagine.  No matter what others believed, there was an Angel in front of the Garden for 4,000 years.  There was a cloud over the desert, and a pillar of fire at night for 40 years.  There was our God on earth in the form of Jesus Christ for 33.5 years.  And now, there is a tried and true way, for you to see the death of your life ended, and a real “life” beyond the imagination of this existence waiting for you in the here and now, not just in some far removed afterwards.  Find Jesus, give to him what you call your life, and watch what He does with it.

And this was only the first act of three in this story …

 

Story Telling [part one] ...

Movies truly “move” the world.  The art of storytelling accentuated with visual effects, soaring musical scores, dramatic portrayals, and carefully scripted story lines combine into a 2-hour presentation that absorbs the senses and instructs the mind.  An entire industry exists to edit, package, and market a film.  Some films intended to entertain, others to offer the quick stimulus of fear, still others to make us feel kinship and empathy with a character who suffers injustice, or triumphs in spite of the odds.  But at the end of the day, a movie is nothing more than taking the art of storytelling to its highest level.  And this art did not originate with the birth of the camera, it has been a part of our culture from Adam to now.  The children of Adam never experienced the Tree of Life for themselves.  By the time they enter the story of our world, Adam and Eve had been forced to leave the Garden of Eden and build a home outside of it.  An angel stood there guarding the entrance to Eden with a flaming sword.  And despite the level of evil that would grow to cause the destruction of the world by flood … no human or dinosaur would ever challenge that angel for access .., and live.

So for Cain, Able and Seth to know what the garden was like, Adam and Eve would have to tell them about it from memory, and thus the art of the story was born.  It would be an oral tradition handed down all the way to Noah.  The grandchildren of Noah had never seen the angel who stood guard at the entrance to the Garden of Eden before the flood.  They never knew the world before it had been destroyed by water, and then abated to start over.  They never saw the creatures born of the evil of the minds of men, nor witnessed the abomination of altering DNA into things that should have never existed.  We discover the bones and the evidence of such atrocities now, but God chose not to preserve them in the great flood, to end those things that should have not existed but for the wickedness of men.  So to understand how evil, evil can be, the grandchildren of Noah would have to be told the stories of life before the flood.

Without the written parchment to record the recounting of witnesses who would pass on, stories tend to decay and pass away.  Even now, films of antiquity must be preserved with great care, or they too would disappear from our ability to enjoy them.  Oral traditions tend to have a much shorter shelf life.  When Moses would appear on the scene, the Law of God would be written in stone.  This would erase a complete dependence on oral tradition, and introduce something of permanence in the recounting of God’s saving love.  Stone does not decay.  The redemption of Israel from the slavery of oppression would be chronicled in books that would be meticulously preserved until our day.  Moses would be given a recounting of the important parts of the Genesis story, and it is through his record we understand what we do about our creation and our beginnings.

But outside of a documentary, no one expects a movie to be a truly accurate accounting of the story it attempts to portray.  The characters in it, rarely quote their inspiration word for word, second for second, as the story may have originally occurred … or a movie would last years instead of hours.  Instead paraphrasing main ideas occurs, symbolism is employed to accentuate a point, and what might have taken years in real time to relay can be condensed into a digestible time period to sit in a theatre and enjoy the spectacle.  This needed condensation of time is not intended to destroy the point of the movie, or lessen its emotional impact, if it does the movie is discarded as “bad”.  The condensation of time must be used to effect, the symbolism well employed, in order that we remain emotionally invested in what we perceive, and that our learning is accentuated not destroyed.  Often elements of a story may have never actually happened, they are “made up” to help move the story along, or help us understand the real dilemma of the characters portrayed so that the main point remains intact.  Audiences understand this phenomenon and do not stomp out of the theatre because one of the Marvel Super-heroes strays off the story line for a minute or two.

The reason why movies exist today, why oral traditions of storytelling began with Adam and Eve, why Moses wrote down the recounting of history in his age remain the same … storytelling is effective.  While we recall a favorite book, or movie, or time at the feet of our grandparents so long ago; we can remember new elements of the story, or new interpretations of what was relayed.  In point of fact, the original story was never changed in its telling to us … what has changed is our perspective, our own experiences, and the truth we can now perceive in the same words, and same stories, we heard or experienced so long ago.  The story remains the same, but our ability to understand more of its truths is brought about by our maturing process and life experiences.  It is perhaps for this reason that Jesus chose to reveal some truth about the gospel in the form of parables, or storytelling, to those who sought to hear Him.

In our day, I have often joined in the voices who wish He would have just spoken plainly instead of through parables.  But then I must remember the Bible is full of plainly worded speech and language, and it is perhaps my own resistance to truth that keeps me from accepting those ideas.  So perhaps “I” needed Jesus to preserve the art of storytelling for “me”, in order that I too might return to the same stories and discover new truths in them, because my own experiences have changed since the last time I read them.  They are the same truths, the same main themes, the same ideas that Jesus wished for me to learn.  The stories and parables of Christ are not point for point, exactly accurate literal words; that I must mimic with precision in order to understand what Christ was attempting to communicate.  They are instead like the movies and storytelling of my own day, without all the production quality, but with a far deeper scripted story line, that offers me truth like no movie I have ever seen has been able to do.  As I begin to grasp His main themes, I begin to get a different perspective on truth, and salvation, and what it means to be made free from who we are.

Peter recounts the storytelling technique of Christ to teach truth about salvation for the first time in John Mark’s gospel in chapter 4 and verse 1.  Up to this point, only literal recollections of events that had occurred were cited by Peter through Mark.  “Plain speech” had formed the record up to this point, so chapter 4 was a departure from the style of the gospel till now.  However, there was a reason why Christ chose to teach us through stories, and Peter was keen to preserve them for us.  So he begins his recounting in verse one saying … “And he began again to teach by the sea side: and there was gathered unto him a great multitude, so that he entered into a ship, and sat in the sea; and the whole multitude was by the sea on the land. [verse 2] And he taught them many things by parables, and said unto them in his doctrine,”  The doctrines, or the truth of redemption as taught by Christ would be slowly revealed in parables.  This would allow His audience to digest them over time, and not be inundated with too much too quickly.

Imagine the alternative for a moment.  You and I know, through the study of His word, that Jesus Christ is the literal Son of God almighty.  He is God on earth at this time, in the flesh.  If the crowds had grasped this concept thoroughly and believed it with all their hearts, how could they allow the Romans or the Jews to put God to death?  They, like you and I, would have fought to the death to protect their God from human stupidity.  You and I know that it is only through the power of the redeeming love of Jesus Christ, that we can be made free, even from the desire to sin.  Had the crowds of that day embraced this idea with all their hearts, the world may have been made ready for saving right then and there.  No need to delay His coming, and again yet another fight to the death to protect the savior of our very souls and nature, from the stupidity of those steeped in evil.  These truths necessitated time to understand and adopt by those being taught (including us), in order that we build trust with our God, and do not react in haste to the truth that is revealed to us, interfering with the plans God has for our own redemption, and the redemption of others.

So the story begins by Jesus in verse 3 saying … “Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow:”  It is easy to simply continue with the story here instead of pausing for a bit.  But the point here is critical.  It is God who takes the initiative to go out and sow the seed of His Word in us.  We did NOT ask for this to occur.  We were instead steeped in our embrace of sin and self-love.  We were not really interested in asking for redemption from our condition.  Instead, we were where the story finds us in just a few moments.  However God, was keenly interested in our redemption.  He does not wait for an invitation from diseased souls who are incapable of asking for what is good for them.  Instead He goes about His mission to see His precious children redeemed, even when they do not know this is good for them, or do not have the good sense to ask for the freedom He offers.  God initiates the process of our salvation.  Lest you think your faith originated in you, it did not.  Lest you think your desire for God originated in you, it did not.  Your ability to even make a choice to find the freedom God offers, began with Him taking up His role of sower of seed.

The story continues in verse 4 saying … “And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up.”  To better understand this part of the main theme, I will recount the words of Christ to explain this passage found in verse 15 below as He says … “And these are they by the way side, where the word is sown; but when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts.”  Ouch!  For a brief fleeting moment, nearly before a decision can even be reached, there are those of us who squander our opportunity to be saved by Jesus Christ, to be made free from the sins we have chosen to embrace through our addictive love of self. 

These may well be those poor souls who have no one praying for their salvation, and have only a limited opportunity to ever hear the word of God.  The one single chance presents itself, and in nearly an immediate response, the love-of-self Satan sells us, floods over them to quickly take away the adoption of the seeds of salvation.  It may represent an even worse scenario where the love of God is misrepresented by someone bearing the name Christian, and the hate of Satan that spews from the mouth of the supposed “Christian” robs the unbeliever of even a motive to begin to seek change.  We might pray to be vessels of His love, and not thieves of souls spouting the hate speech of the enemy.

You will note, this story is not about a gardener who is transplanting fully grown trees.  That symbolism does not work.  The process of salvation does not begin with maturity, it ends with it.  The removal of sins from our lives does not happen in full in an instant because we won’t let it.  For us to bear fruit will take time with God to mature, we will need to learn what it means to love like He loves.  We are too ignorant to know that is what we need.  We are too stooped in our addiction to self-love to recognize how bad off we are, and how desperately we need to be saved from ourselves.  So the process of salvation begins with a seed, with a still small voice, with an inclination to seek something more, to end the pain we bring upon ourselves.  It begins with something small, but it ends with something huge and magnificent.  It is worth considering, that repeated attempts to get us to find the salvation God offers are themselves an added blessing.  For this crowd described in this first allegory received only the one invitation, squandered it, and were never able to find another attempt.  There is a finality that comes from choosing to continue to embrace the self-styled-salvation Satan offers.  That finality ends in our destruction, not in our self-based-salvation.

Jesus continues in verse 5 saying … “And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth: [verse 6] But when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away.”  The explanation Christ offered is found in verse 16 saying … “And these are they likewise which are sown on stony ground; who, when they have heard the word, immediately receive it with gladness; [verse 17] And have no root in themselves, and so endure but for a time: afterward, when affliction or persecution ariseth for the word's sake, immediately they are offended.”  There is a depth to the story that is revealed in this scene.  The Word is Jesus Christ.  It is not the accumulation of our interpretation of doctrines or the wealth of our memorization of scripture that is described here.  It is our willingness to submit ourselves to Jesus Christ, and allow Him to remake our desires and who we are.

There is a class of Christian who appreciate the theory of salvation.  They believe in the power of Jesus Christ to save them, and they profess to accept His offer.  Immediately the Word sprang up in these souls.  They did not allow Satan to take it from them, as the first group willingly did.  But they did not allow the seed to penetrate into the core of who they are either.  These are the Christians who want God to solve some particular sin they struggle with … but not all of them.  They are willing to give a part of themselves over to Christ to be saved, but the stone of their hearts remains unconverted.  The benefits of following Christ and lessening the pain of their self-love appeal to them.  But to truly change everything about themselves is just something that is a bit too far for them.  These Christians are able to give to the poor what they have in excess, but not everything they have.  These Christians have 50/50 marriages made up of give and take, not a marriage based on giving everything all the time no matter the response.  In short, these Christians are living with a “balanced” idea of salvation where being “reasonable” about how much we give, and how much we allow Christ to change our hearts seems like the right approach to them.

But the problem with withholding parts of ourselves, and entry into our hearts of stone from Christ, is that the disease we suffer from remains within us.  When the trials of life, and the desire of Satan to hurt God by hurting us enter our lives, we run from God, instead of running to Him.  We compromise beliefs and ethics in order to lessen the pain the world brings.  We align with the world to lessen its hatred of us.  We become offended at the idea of giving “everything”.  We become offended at the idea of having to change “who” we are for the sake of our salvation.  We believe we should be able to change parts of us, and leave the other parts intact.  Having to become someone else entirely is offensive to us, as we see ourselves as “good people” who are plainly “good enough” and if that is not enough for Christ, then that is His problem instead of ours.  Who is He anyway to ask us to give “everything”, nobody gives “everything” … except … well Jesus Christ did to redeem us.  Giving everything was what our God did for us, and it is in giving everything to others, that our hearts of stone begin to melt into hearts of flesh, that are moved by the needs and pain of others, not just ourselves.

Scene 3 in our story resumes with the work of the Sower continuing His efforts for our redemption and begins in verse 7 saying … “And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.”  The explanation of Christ found in verse 18 saying … “And these are they which are sown among thorns; such as hear the word, [verse 19] And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.”  This is the horror scene of this movie.  It might be frightening to think of Satan’s evil crows stealing our salvation with our gleeful willingness at the outset of this story.  It might be scary to think we might embrace it partially, and then find we have lost it to the stone of our hearts in a brief time.  But this is the horror scene altogether.  Jason, Freddy, and Manson together conspire for this scene of the movie.

A few things to note.  The ground of these souls is not condemned as was the stone of other recipients.  They did not immediately reject the word, or allow Satan to steal it from them.  All indications are the ground looks like good ground.  These souls embraced the salvation of Christ, or so it would appear.  They spend time with Christ.  Weeds do not kill in an instant, they take time to grow up as well.  In fact the distinction between the seeds of grass and the seeds of weeds is hard to tell in the infancy of the life of the plant.  They both look green.  They both look pretty.  They seem to equally decorate the lawn we hope to enjoy.  But there is a distinction.  The plants are actually different.  One is rooted in the salvation of the Lord, the other only looks that way.  The Christian in this scene looks like a good guy, and seems to be doing the right things.  His only problem is that it appears his best friend is Charles Manson.  And when Chuck is not around, he looks for counsel from Freddy Kruger, and Jason to get advice.  Of course to the Christian, these ruthless psychopathic killers look as harmless as the cute little yellow Minions.  But they are not, they are in fact, ruthless killers, who leave no one left alive.

An “innocent” Christian considers the needs of his own life as he makes decisions about his future.  His job, the needs of getting a promotion, and a good increase in pay are important to him.  He worries about the repair costs of his Mercedes, and whether he can afford to buy the necklace for his wife.  The pressure of wealth is no less a burden to him, than the advice of Charles Manson.  Jason and Freddy stand ready to inform him about where money should be invested in the stock market, and that becoming a millionaire is not as rewarding as becoming a billionaire.  The horror of this scene, is that it is not the poor who are its victims, it is those who consider themselves successful Christians.  Americans meet this criteria in no small quantities.  We live in a country of relative wealth, or at least comparative wealth.  We have ease, vacations, weekends and pools.  We eat out, and drive advanced automobiles.  We work in industries and jobs that require better education, or offer better pay than any contemporary in any other nation.  Our families need our financial support, and we are blessed enough to be able to provide it. 

The horror story of this scene, is that it looks to impact those who are NOT in great need, instead they look “normal”.  The condition of this horror does not impact the poor, it impacts the rich, and even more terrifying … the middle class.  This could well describe the state of Christianity in every denomination in our nation.  We have our poor, and sometimes we consider ourselves to be in need, but most of us are surviving.  And in our survival, we consider the cares of this world that begin to choke out our ability to spend our resources on others.  We can afford to give less and less instead of more and more.  Our blessings look more and more like Freddy Kruger, an anchor around our souls, than an opportunity to make a real difference in the life of someone else who neither deserves our love, nor can repay it.  The deceitfulness of the lure of our wealth, is that no matter how much we have, we will always “need” just a little bit more.  We lie to ourselves, that if we get that raise, or bonus, we will surely use part of it as a gift back to God.  But for every dollar we acquire there is always a destination in mind for it before it even touches our hands.  Our “needs” always find a way of outpacing our supply.  And thus the lie of the lure of wealth chokes our “ability” to give.

Had the movie ended in scene 3 with the horror of losing salvation slowly insidiously and over time, choked out by the Charles Manson’s of the world who look like regular guys and seem to offer practical advice; this would be a horrible story.  But fortunately, in the movie script Christ was relaying, the movie had one more act.  A scene 4 was ready for entry on the big screen as follows beginning in verse 8 saying … “And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred. [verse 9] And he said unto them, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”  The explanation Christ offers beginning in verse 20 saying … “And these are they which are sown on good ground; such as hear the word, and receive it, and bring forth fruit, some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some an hundred.”  This is the redemption scene.  This is the scene that is the main point of this picture, and the reason why the story was told in the first place.

The intent of this story was not to leave any single audience member in the danger of immediate loss, or quickly withering away, or even losing the battle over time to the lie of wealth in this world.  The intent of this story was to get it right.  To find salvation, and witness the results of what it does.  In this scene, the seed grows up and does something the other scenes have lacked.  It bears fruit.  The amount of fruit for these souls varies.  It is not uniform.  It is not exactly the same for each of us.  But it is common to each of us.  It is unavoidable.  We cannot help but bear fruit.  It is His fruit in us.  This is the end state of maturity not the beginning of it.  When we grow up in Christ, we become like He is.  We begin to love others like He loves others.  When we love this way, we cannot help but to meet another’s needs.  We don’t look at it as a burden to us financially but as an opportunity to us to love someone else.  The fruit we bear is “real” wealth.  It is the wealth of providing for others, for loving others like He loves them.  This is the only “real” currency in heaven.  When we love like Christ loves, we regret that giving our all, is so meager.  If we had one more penny, we would share it, even if it were our last one.  God does everything for us.  He loves us that much.  This story was designed to show us that.  It was not designed that any should be excluded, but that ALL should be in the good ground category.

But there was more Christ had to teach His disciples and us that we will soon learn …

 

Food, Health & Poison ...

Sensory organs; the ability to experience life in ways that defy explanation for those without a reference, it is how we live, it is what we are. Imagine trying to describe the brilliance of color, texture, and lighting to someone who has been blind from birth. Without any sort of reference to go by, the sensation of sight seems like an impossibility, yet most of us see. Imagine your world in total silence, no more the flowing ambient sounds of a park at sunset, or a chorus of Handel’s Messiah sung by a brilliant choir. To describe sound without a reference is again very difficult. To smell, to taste, and to touch – a life deprived of these sensations seems a poor life indeed. It is said new born babies will literally die if they are denied tactile contact with another person for too long after entering the world. Why would these abilities be such a tangible part of our existence, if we were merely the product of random chance or evolution? And why stop there? Why not evolve the ability to break laws of physics? It makes so much more sense that we were created with abilities that mirror the God of creation who invented them.

Yet for every gift of sensation we have been given from God, His enemy Satan has a way of us misusing them to our detriment. We focus our attention on the things that would harm us, and harm us they do. We choose to seek out images that feed our lust, until we are slave to lust. We listen to rhythms and beats and words that degrade, until we can repeat them from memory and recite them at will. We eat things and drink things that slowly deteriorate our bodies, adding excess weight, tearing down our foundation of health. We seek to touch what we should not, and we become immune to the pleas of a conscience instilled by God. The devil uses our gifts, and turns our focus on excessive usage of each of them, to the point of our doom and self-destruction. These tricks are called “sins of the flesh”. Is it any wonder, the first temptation in the Garden was based on seeing, touching, and eating what we should not? Seems after 6,000 years we wander right back up to the fast-food counter and repeat the process of self-destruction again and again despite our knowledge of the impending results.

Yet despite our misuse of His gifts, the end of our existence will be as the beginning was. For in the Garden of Eden, there was a tree of life. This tree yielded a different fruit every month, and its produce literally extended life in all who ate of it. Because the fruit was so effective, it had to be guarded after the fall of man, so that none would continue to eat of it, and extend the life of sin indefinitely. An angel was sent with a flaming sword, until the garden itself was transplanted to heaven immediately preceding the flood of Noah’s day. When we return to Heaven, John describes seeing the tree of life once again. John also sees a river of life that flows from the throne of God Himself. This fruit and water will once again be our eternally sustaining bond with God. Of course once we enter Heaven, we will never again wish to choose a path of sin, for knowing how bad sin is, we will want no part of it ever again. So we will be free once again to eat of the tree of life.

Thus the practice of eating meals and drinking for sustenance was established in perfection PRIOR to sin. And while sin may have used this vehicle to enter our world, it does not eradicate our created instinct to eat and drink to survive, even after hell itself has passed away. Of course, like Adam and Eve in the Garden, what they ate had no waste byproducts. It was turned completely into the energy their bodies required. Vitamins, Minerals, and energy were the result of digestion. No need for bathrooms, or waste disposal systems to filter poisons from our bodies. There were no poisons to dissipate, or dissolve. Our perfection included the ability to taste, food that God considered “good”, and a conversion process that had no waste at all.

We have lived under the curse of sin for more than 6000 years now, and still we think we imagine, and we try to create. We put new combinations of elements together in new ways, looking for better foods, or fuels, or materials from which to build. We aggregate our knowledge and attempt to expand it despite the limited usage of our brains. Imagine what perfect health and conditions would do to increase these abilities. Imagine just what the lack of pollutants could accomplish in improving our lives and surroundings. Imagine clear air, clean water, and sun filtered through the ozone the way it was intended. I submit the improvement in our conditions alone would enable us to achieve greater accomplishments than we can even imagine today.

Now imagine what using 100% of our brain functionality might enable us to do; perfect recall for instance. Where now, the ability to perfectly recall experiences is more of a curse than a blessing due to the prevalence of evil in our world, in a world where only joy exists, perfect recall will be wonderful. But imagine what an IQ of 2000 might do, where today the higher IQ’s are measure above 150. Where now we deduce based on the best recollection of facts at our disposal, there we could deduce from brain cells without decay, or degradation. It is hard for a junkie to imagine the life of Bill Gates. The junkie has a much different perspective, from living in horror for a long period of time. While Christ can turn around a life like this, He is seldom permitted to do so, and it is why addicts more often than not, die from their condition. Sure, Bill Gates could become an addict, but the salient question would be “why”. He does not need drugs to avoid his problems, and his life affords him better perspective on solving any problem that comes his way. So we too, may not be able to imagine just how good, good will be, but to the best of our imaginations, this is what Heaven will be like.

Adam and Eve knew only this life of perfection prior to sin. They lived in a beautiful world, custom crafted by God to be their home. They had the beauty of marriage, the rest of the Sabbath, the company of God taking walks together in the evenings. They had a bountiful plethora of fruits and foods to eat, animals who sought their affections, clean water and clear air. They had 100% of their new minds to absorb the truths they were taught. They had all of this. And we will have all of these gifts once again restored to us. After time has no more meaning, all these conditions will be restored to us. We will live again as they lived at first, returned to our state of perfection. We know what they did not. We inherited the curse of knowledge of good and of evil. It did not make us like God in any other way than we have come to see how bad, bad can be, played out in our own lives. God knew it would lead to this and tried His best to help us avoid this fate. But we chose not to. It is our choice to throw away perfection that must be examined.

A Cycle of Remembrance ...

Six days of work for our Creator, six days to put together our home, make it beautiful, make it full of life, make it produce everything we would need or want, in only six days. Then something unusual occurred, God rested. He decided to take a day off from His work and rest, set the time aside to be with us in a special way. God blessed this seventh day, made it Holy, and set it up as a cyclical revolution of days so that we would remember and celebrate His crowning work of achievement, His creation of our world.

The first thing to notice about the Sabbath day is that the Lord created it. Man had almost nothing to do with its inspiration, nor with making the day special. It was the Lord who blessed it. It was the Lord who made it Holy. It was the Lord who rested from His own work. It was the Lord who set aside His own time to be with us in a special way. The Sabbath then, like everything else, was a gift to mankind; a gift of time and attention from the God of the Universe to man; a gift of a day in seven to rest from our work, reflect on the beauty of Lord’s gifts, and enjoy our time with Him. Jesus, our Creator, reminded us of this many years later when He said … “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” This was a gift to us, and so we should receive it as such, value it for what it is, and honor it as we honor its maker.

The second thing to notice about the Sabbath is its key ingredient, the absence of work. Now it is important to remember that prior to sin, “work” was not done as a matter of survival. And particularly in God’s case, He did not “work” to earn money in order to pay for rent and food. The Lord’s work was that of running the universe, of creating things that prior to His imagination, did not exist. This was the work He set aside. Our “work” was that of tending to our garden home. We were assigned the task to caring for it, or trimming it, guiding it, and insuring it grew in a sensible fashion and not just out of control. Considering that seasons did not exist in this early world, neither did death or decay in any way, plants like animals and man, would simply grow continually. Insuring that they grew in harmony with each other was the task assigned to man. This was the “work” we were first asked to set aside, to honor the day of rest God had sanctified.

The third thing to notice about the Sabbath, is that it would have been no different from any other day, had not the Lord MADE it so. There is nothing inherently holy in our world, particularly days on a calendar. But when God sets something aside and makes it holy, it becomes Holy through His actions. Even a space in time, even such a thing as a day itself, can become Holy when God makes it so. In our world, we are far from Holy ourselves. Yet at the end of time are the fateful prophetic words of John the prophet uttered in heaven … “let He who is holy be holy still.” We are no more able to make something holy than a leopard can change his spots, or a donkey could start talking, but with Christ, all things are possible. It is Christ who can and will MAKE us holy, if we but let Him. The same God, who set aside time to make it special, can defeat the sin in us, and make us special. What we so desperately need is a God of creation, for we must ALL be recreated to be saved. As the Sabbath could do nothing to make itself special, so we can do nothing to make ourselves holy, but God can fix us, and MAKE holy, what we could not.

Now we must remember that this institution, like marriage that preceded it, was created for man BEFORE the introduction of sin in our world. If sin had never come to us, we would all be living in a garden paradise, married with families of our own, and taking one day in seven aside to be with God as He made it for us. Marriage and the Sabbath were created without deadlines, without time limits, and without the taint of sin. These two institutions were ordained by God Himself, prior to having to make accommodations for the evil we would inflict on ourselves and the inevitable arrival of death in our world. We were told to … “go and multiply.” This first directive was not set against a numbered criterion; this ability was given to us according to the will and plan of God. We were also told to “rest” and honor our creation. This was not done to remind us of sin in any way, it was done before that. Remembering our creation helps man to understand His place in the universe. When we are finally restored to the perfection we were intended for, the Sabbath will once again be a part of our traditions.

Some argue that it is man by his actions or lack of actions that makes the Sabbath holy or not. But as we have seen the creation of the Sabbath, man had nothing to do with it. This was a gift of God to man. We were not created so that we could “keep” the Sabbath, rather we were created and given the Sabbath as a gift from the Creator of all things. The biggest gift any parent can give their child, time and attention. So it was with our God. Some argue that God is always with us, and therefore the Sabbath is or should be, no different. But this is not so. It is true that God is always with us, but the requirements of life keep us working in order to survive. In the garden, work to trim and keep it, had to take place, thus focusing the attention somewhere besides upon the God who is “always” with us. It is our attention that MUST be refocused. It is WE who need a priorities adjustment.

The Sabbath is a humbling concept to modern man. It reveals that we are not self-evident, nor self-sufficient. It reveals we are a “created” being, sprung into existence by the will of an all-powerful God. The Sabbath stands in direct contradiction to those who believe life evolved to its present state. Survival of the fittest is not the mandate of a loving God, but rather the edict of His enemy. The Sabbath bids us to rest from our labor, not intensify it. The Sabbath bids us to remember the gift to us of the special time with our God. When we realize our dependence, when we realize our utter helplessness, it is only then that we begin to understand why our God is so good. He does not leave us in the conditions we begin to recognize. He does not leave us to our weakness. Rather, He redeems us from the pain of evil and sin. As the Sabbath was MADE holy by God, so the weakness of our characters are MADE perfect in HIS strength and not our own. The Sabbath reminds us of a need for a creator God.

When perfection is restored, the Sabbath will continue not as a reminder of sins past, but as a lasting covenant between God and His people of His commitment of spending time with us. Think of it, centuries and millennia from now, week to week, we will still enjoy the company of our God, set aside from all the other pressing demands of running a universe to be intimate with us. One to one, God and man, conversing, laughing, learning, exploring, eating, drinking, singing, and listening: imagine what this precious gift of time will be like. Some treat Sabbath here on earth as a time-out from their otherwise desired pursuits. We act as if Sabbath prevents us from enjoying our time, rather than enables us to enjoy it. We act as if Sabbath is a deterrent to the things we love, rather than pointing us to them.

This is because our hearts have been turned from the God of love, and have been pointed at the god in the mirror. We love only pleasing ourselves as our carnal nature dictates. We spend every waking moment thinking and working in the interests of ourselves. We sometimes squeeze in time for others, perhaps in our immediate circle of family and friends. But by comparison we spend the majority of our lives in pursuit of things thought to please us. Emptiness. Vanity. And without success, are our efforts. But when considering the gift of the Sabbath in perfection, we are pointed back at the things that maintain real value. We are given cause to pause. We are told to be still for a minute, and think, and consider what perfection and rest really mean. Time with God. Time set aside for us to laugh together, walk together, to learn, to live, to skydive or swim with the sharks. Perfection does not mean that we will go around heaven seeking out new entertainment for only our own enjoyment, but it does mean that we will share our every joy with each other, and WITH God.

Like a father who sets aside time to play with his children after a long work week, so God sets aside time to spend with us on re-creative things. The Sabbath may include singing, worship, and lectures from a pulpit in church; but it may also include riding waves on an ocean created for our delight – WITH our God. It may include walking among the Sequoia trees in a forest of His creation. It may include exploring the lunar surface of our moon hand in hand with God, who compensates for the gravity and air we require, while He teaches us of the history of our rock in space. The Sabbath is time off first and foremost for GOD. It is His choice to take time away just so that He can be free to be with us. How wonderful for US. Like the small children who eagerly crave their father’s attention to look at the drawings they made in school, the crafts they made afterwards, and the mud pies baking in the back yard – so we will eagerly await the God of the universe to visit with us week to week, looking at our “art”, commenting on our “offerings of love”, and perhaps politely avoiding the actual consumption of our mud pies baking in the back yard.

So many Christians are content to take an institution created in the Garden of Eden, before there was sin the world, and completely ruin it. They arbitrarily decide that the actual day does not matter, whether the first day, or the seventh, only that WE set aside time to worship God. The Catholic church admits to changing the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday to avoid being confused with the Jews, and to honor the resurrection of Christ. Protestants refuse to accept this man-made change and so argue that Christ Himself changed the day, although there is not one single scripture to identify where He would have done this. And there are many that show He worshipped on Saturday … “as was His custom”. “How” Christ worshipped was radically different than His contemporaries, but “when” Christ worshipped was from sundown to sundown Friday evening, to Saturday evening. Christ honored His own day of rest, that He created in the Garden of Eden, even in His own death – resting again on the Sabbath day. He could have arisen Sabbath morning, and gone about the “work” of our redemption, but instead He lay asleep in the tomb, choosing rather to rest on His sacred day, and do the work on the first work-day of the week.

Muslims who claim to worship the same Father God, understand the cycle of remembrance but they too have decided to alter the day of worship to Friday rather than Saturday. They like the Catholics believe that man has the power to make these changes as long as one day in seven is set aside to worship God. The problem with this thinking is that it is “man” centric. We decide the time and day. We decide when we and God are supposed to rest and get together. WRONG. The Sabbath itself reminds us, that man makes NOTHING holy by decision or fiat, or inaction. Only God can make anything holy including time, and therefore only God can make a day Holy, as He has with the seventh day Sabbath.

Those who believe the Sabbath was nailed to the cross (despite Christ’s own observance of this “law”), forget that the Sabbath was created long BEFORE Moses or the law. The Sabbath was instituted BEFORE sin, and in the Garden of Eden. To nail the idea of the Sabbath to the cross, would be the same as nailing the idea of Marriage to the cross as well. Both had the same origins, the same creator, and were given at the same time. No, those who war against the observance of Sabbath, usually do so because they wish to be “free” to pursue their own desires, without the imposed “sanctions” of Sabbath rest. But one can no more legislate “rest” as they can legislate “love”. And again, polluted hearts miss the blessing of time spent with a God of infinite love.

Well-meaning Jewish religious leaders in the time after the captivity of Babylon wanted to insure they never broke the laws of God again. To accomplish this, they set about trying to conceive of conditions related to work and rest so as to define “how” to properly “keep” Sabbath. Their lists of do’s and don’ts got so long it became ridiculous. Christ pointed out their folly through refocusing on motives and relationships, and meeting the needs of the hurting. His “work” on Sabbath was constantly and only for the sakes of others, never Himself. His example of helping the hurting remains in place today, as people are more important than rules and regulations. Yet He never arbitrarily discarded Sabbath traditions either. He worshipped in the synagogues on Sabbath, often reading from the Scriptures, and teaching those in attendance about His Father God. He rested with His disciples and spent time with them one-on-one teaching them also what they had need to know of. Christ honored his own created day of rest, and was found to be a perfect sacrifice, blameless in front of the laws of God.

Seventh Day Adventists tend to take pride in their discovery of Sabbath truth. But just like their contemporaries in other faiths, they have found a way to make Sabbath “man” centric, rather than “God” centric. Many SDA’s take up professions in the health care field, as working in this field is considered “acceptable” on Sabbath. Without the guilt of working on Sabbath, they then take the additional step of choosing to work weekend shifts for pay differentials, or reduced hours during the rest of the week. Most of these choices are voluntary. Few choose to donate the pay they receive for work of helping others on Sabbath to those in need, this is not even a consideration for most. Rather, they have come to rationalize that since helping others is “OK” to do, there should be no moral problem with it. But they miss the time out God wishes to spend with them, and their families. The Sabbath loses all significance, and just like their less fortunate contemporaries in the world around them, who live working on this day of rest, they stress themselves out over their day to day activities – leaving no time to unwind and reprioritize their own lives. In this line of thinking, they lose out on a blessing designed for them. Gift rejected.

Other SDA’s who make a stand to avoid working on Sabbath themselves, have no problem being waited on by other forced to work. They are free to go to restaurants, or shopping, or any other place where employees are there to cater to their needs. The logic behind this, is that those employees would “be there anyway”. And so they feel no remorse for taking advantage of a resource that is there anyway. But in this too, they participate in activities that do not lift one up to God, rather they keep the attention focused on the man in the mirror. What am I eating, when, and where. What I am wearing, what are my needs, etc.. The focus is on self, and others who do not know the beauty of Sabbath truth, are forced to help them miss the blessing God would have for ALL. It is the shopper who misses MORE of the blessing from God, than the employee who is forced to serve them, by their mere presence. It is the shopper who knows the truth and ignores it, while the employee craves the truth, but will be left in ignorance, as it is hard to witness about the value of rest to someone you are forcing to serve you at the time. All these self-oriented activities, designed to please one’s self, all make the Sabbath a day of “man’s” idea of rest, rather than God’s.

Still other SDA’s design rigid lists of do’s and don’ts that would rival the Pharisees of old. They have meticulous clocks of worship traditions which must take place on prescribed intervals lest they lose their value in tardiness, or extension. They remove any sort of enjoyment from the Sabbath believing without the “discipline” of keeping God’s day there is no real reverence. These people would never be caught dead at a mall on Sabbath, but then they would not be caught in a park, or the beach, or a pool either. Nature is forbidden to them as much as commercialization. And so Sabbath is a burden, not a rest. Rather than being a time they enjoy with God, as He intended, they make it a time to watch your wristwatch and count down the seconds until Sabbath is over. They secretly yearn for sundown, so that they can resume their “normal” lifestyle. And they dread the coming sundown in six more days that will begin the “time-out” again. They too, miss the blessing God intends.

All of these well-meaning SDA’s and Christians have one thing in common – they have lost sight of the GIFT of the Sabbath to man from God. When one allows work, money, self-interest, legalism, or commercial pursuits to come between them enjoying time with God, they miss the blessing He intended for otherwise worthless endeavors. Those who work, even in health care, should make an effort to get time off on Sabbath – so that they too can actually begin to enjoy its value in rest and relaxation. Those who allow the mundane needs of life like eating and shopping and leisure like organized sports, etc. to dominate their rest time – should forego this for a single day per week, and let God spend some quality time with them, undisturbed by these distractions. Those who follow legal lists of do’s and don’ts should throw caution to the wind and bury themselves in the nature God created, to find the beauty He designed for them in what He has made. Those who think that Sabbath is only about making themselves happy, should take time to serve another, and find the real meaning of “rest unto your souls.”

Do something unusual. Make a home cooked meal from scratch on Sabbath and invite over someone new from church, or a neighbor you hardly know. Barbeque something at the beach. Go swim in a lake. Take a bike ride with the kids. Enjoy your church service for a change. Go there with the intent of singing your lungs out, or making comments in the Sabbath school classes, or saying a hearty AMEN every time the pastor says something you agree with. Treat church like an action oriented sporting event, not like a boring game of golf on TV. Get involved. Get a group together, and go to a homeless shelter and volunteer to help out for an afternoon. Go caroling (in season). Go caroling at a nursing home (when not in season, just sing hymns or worship music or whatever), but smile, and visit the old folks afterwards for just a few minutes. Rather than criticize that single mom whose baby makes noise all throughout the services, go talk to her, get to know her, see if you can help her out instead. Do something unusual. Our “normal” activities are too self-centered. The Sabbath allows us to reprioritize.

“Remember” … God uses this word in only one commandment, the one that began with creation, the one that transcends into perfection. Someday I will be sitting to prepare a barbeque with my God on a beach of His making to enjoy a Sabbath meal for us both. I expect my family to be in attendance. I expect to serve all who are there. I expect to cook, clean, and eat with my God. I expect He would probably not take “no” for an answer as He helps me to serve. You see that is the nature of my God. He who alone is worthy to be served, is constantly serving us. And I expect His offer will once again break my heart and bring me to tears, as once again I can see His love has no bounds. The Sabbath is something I cannot wait to enjoy, here and someday in the perfection it was intended to be …

A Happy Couple (part 2 of 2)

“… in the image of God created He him; male and Female created He them” - Genesis 1:27. Being made in the image of God, we are able to sense and feel the need for companionship and love, as our maker created these capacities. God loves us, and we realize what it means to be loved, and to love another. God’s first lesson about intimacy was not to be His last. As such, the first marriage in Eden was not designed to be the last, but it and all that would follow were designed to last without end. God intended to use marriage to teach us what it means to love in a different way than we had already learned. Beyond how a spouse loves its partner, a child loves a parent in a completely different way. The romantic love was designed to come first, and through its expression came the familial love of parents and children, siblings, and extended families.

The first gift given to the newly married couple in Eden was the gift of procreation. We were counseled by God to “be fruitful and multiply” BEFORE any test of sin or disobedience. Therefore if our premise holds that what was perfect prior to sin, will one day be perfect after sin’s extinction; we can assume that procreation remains a gift given to loving couples who marry. Man’s repopulation could one day replace the loss of the angels who turned away from God and now delight in forming his demonic league, but there is no indication that once these numbers were met, we would suddenly stop our ability to procreate. God did not counsel us to be fruitful and multiply … to a point, or until we reach some magic number, but essentially “throughout the earth”. Our ability to create families from the union of two was established even prior to outlining our dominion over the earth, and before our first dietary menu was laid out. We could imply from this perceived pecking order, that family is MORE important than work, and MORE important even than what we eat; perhaps outlining a parent’s willingness to sacrifice for the sake of protecting and providing for their child.

Today’s parents struggle to provide for their children, often with both having to work to insure there is enough funds to eat under the roof of our own residence. But this was not the original intent of God’s plan. Survival was something He provided. Notice in these same verses, He spells out that HE GAVE us all the herb bearing seeds, vegetable, fruits, grains, and nuts for us to eat. He did not say, if you work enough, and to my satisfaction enough, then I will consider giving you what you have earned. Instead, He only focuses our attention to the “gifts” He has already provided. The devil has gotten good at using our need for survival to rationalize our priorities to earn money as being more important than meeting the emotional needs and companionship needs of our families. This is to our detriment.

Remember the feeling of “new” romantic love when all you really want to do is “be with” the object of your affection. Time together, i.e. companionship, is at the top of your priority list on the things you value in life. The same feelings occur again when holding your new-born child in your arms. Both the baby and you feel a bond from the close proximity of holding that new precious life in your arms. The baby is invariably happy as long as you’re around, the minute you’re out of view, the baby tends to get nervous, or cry. In short, a baby craves the tactile companionship of its parents. Over time, age will continually reduce the need for tactile assurance from mom and dad, but it never will fully go away. Watch a grand-parent of 80-90 years in age, hug a son or daughter who is in their late 60’s, and you still see a familial version of love that exists that is unlike all others.

This entirely new dimension of love opens the doors to even other possibilities. So we learn that love can exist in romantic form with a specific object of attention, or in familial manner with multiple objects of deep love – each with their own personalities and perspectives; and now also in a fraternal sense or perhaps better stated, between friends. Friendship of the deepest variety is a non-romantic love, but is also born of the choices to two friends. You are not born into your relationship as it is in families, but rather choose to share a similar kind of love with someone you develop a relationship with. The lessons of love than began in garden, ripple through time and relationships, and extend well beyond what we know today, and beyond our sin-sick-vision. For eternity we will study what love is, what it means to love and to be loved. It is a subject we will not tire of, grow bored with, or master fully; for as God is infinite, so Love also is infinite. We have only begun to scratch the surface.

All these lessons of love began in the Garden of Eden with our first parents Adam and Eve. It is believed that both Adam and Eve were naked in the garden, but covered as the angels are with a covering of light. This belief may well have been reverse-engineered from the descriptions of the Heavenly city to come, where each of the saints is covered in a covering of light. Apparently God’s “light” makes a good set of clothing. It was only after man sinned that he lost the cloak of lights, and realized his nudity. He then attempted to cover himself with leaves. God fashioned the first set of clothing from the skins of animals, a practice man would grow to emulate far too often. But these handmade clothes were only necessary after sin had been introduced to man. Prior to sin, a light, some say the light of righteousness, was what covered man, and will one day cover him again.

In my experience, sin is much like entropy. Entropy in the sense that everything sin touches disintegrates, falls apart, loses its value, and drifts towards nothingness. Evolution as a concept, stands in direct contradiction to the reality of entropy. Evolution would have us believe that everything around us is evolving into a better, more advanced state of being. Yet nothing in our reality supports this conclusion. Our cells divide, reproduce, and divide again – yet we all age and die. Prey evolve their camouflage and personal habits, but then predators adjust to continue to make the kill. It is said the level of naked self-interest grows with each subsequent generation. Everywhere I look, I see the effects of entropy at work. There are only certain areas where I see the evolutionary concept at work, such as computer CPU’s. They double in capacity as our manufacturing techniques improve, and has our ability to engineer more capacity in smaller spaces improves. One could rightly assert the computer CPU’s are evolving. Bu the people making them are certainly not.

It is believed that Adam and Eve created in perfection used 100% of their brains, we use around 6% now. If entropy were not at play, why not maintain our 100% usage. If we were evolving, why evolve more brain capacity than is required to survive as a species? That seems to be all the animals ever evolved into. Seems to me “cavemen” would have been the 6% capacity utilizers, with modern man being the 100% users. But science proves this notion untrue. Along with our 100% brain utilization in perfection, was a radical increase in proportionate sizing. It is believed man was somewhere around 15 feet tall and weighed nearly a ton. This radical increase in size would have made man much more formidable, and helped establish his dominance over the animal kingdom in the earth even after the fall of sin. But the Bible also states were given dominion over the fish as well. I guess we were much better swimmers then.

There was a certain strength formed in the union of man and wife. It was noticeable by Adam before it was present. It was appreciated by Adam after it was corrected. Men and women need to be together. They need to look to each other to complete themselves. It is not good for man to be alone. He needs a help mate. Men and women were created equal in every way, each different and with unique abilities and purposes, but equal to each other. But then too, the mantra of the day was not how much one could acquire, but rather how much one could do to serve another, and cause the happiness of another. A service focused society does not need to fear equality, but can rather embrace it, and demand nothing less. Our union was strong, and beneficial. Marriage became the building block of society. It is why Satan focuses so hard on destroying marriages as a means of destroying nations. With isolation comes inevitable failure. With concern for another, comes strength and unity.

The “image of God” was designed to teach us what love is. These were the lessons we were supposed to have absorbed from the study of our origins. But there was so much more to impart, a ton of things that must be completed, our first parents had as much on their plates and more as we today. But suddenly, after six days, God delays the work load, and takes a day of rest. Perhaps there is something more we are to learn …

 

A Happy Couple (part 1 of 2)

Simple algebraic logic states that if God is love, and God is infinite, then love is also infinite. Or perhaps better stated, we serve a God of infinite love. Just as no finite human being can fully describe God or somehow know His limitations; so no finite human being can fully describe love or any ideas of its limitations to what love can inspire, feel like, or be shared. Christ proved His love for us on the cross, choosing rather to risk that the stain of our sin may forever keep Him parted from His Father’s side, rather than give us up to the punishment we had earned. But the love of Christ was evident to us long before the cross marked it in His blood. Our creation was an entire testament to the love God has for His creation. The first lesson of which taught in the garden was the one of intimacy.

We are created in the image of God. This means we have a sense of the things that our creator intends because we carry His likeness. After naming the animals brought before him in the Garden of Eden, Adam observed closer the relationship between male and female. This was not simply a sexual relationship with the intention of procreation; it was a bond, the foundation of a family unit. Animals appeared to work and play in teams, or in reliance on their counterparts. It was this phenomenon that caused Adam to realize he had no such partner in his world. The animal kingdom was created male and female, but man was still alone. Adam missed the companionship of someone like himself, and this was the issue God solved in the creation of Eve.

There are many who wonder at the composition of the Trinity. Within it, we find God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Father and Son are always referred to in the masculine genre, but this of course is based on a human perspective. The Holy Spirit however is not gender identified, some speculate that it embodies the feminine qualities of the God head. It is pure speculation, as other theories suggest it is the “power” or “energy” of God unencumbered by a physical form. It is of note that man is created in the image of God, and we are listed as both male and female. Those who speculate that God is woman probably go a step too far. But as God created women, He certainly would know them inside and out, a feat men have yet to come anywhere near. Some speculate that God created Christ, this idea comes from the word “begotten”. If the example of Eden holds true, then God the Father might have taken a piece of Himself and separated it into His son Christ. This of course is pure speculation and matters little to our existence or fate. But this topic is one I imagine we will study for years to come once we enter the gates of perfection and shed ourselves of the nagging sins that now cloud our eyesight and judgment.

For Adam, God chose to perform a surgery (the first ever) and remove a rib from Adam’s side. Adam’s partner was more than just another creation from the ground. Woman, or Eve in this case, was to have originated from a completed part of man’s body. Symbolically she was made from the bone closest to our vital organs such as the heart. Eve was to be special, in that Adam would see her as a part of himself. The union of Adam and Eve sexually would literally be the reunification of Adam’s flesh, uniting both parts of himself into one. This was to be a special relationship. This was to be more than a friendship. This was to be inherently close. The love between Adam and Eve would be the greatest the world would see between man and wife until they died. Having been created before sin, Adam and Eve would know what pure love is like.

Notice that man was not left alone upon noticing his condition, it was promptly remedied. Notice that man was not given the sole power over procreation, it would take a team, it would take a woman to complete the process. Procreation would be the result of two who consented and shared their love, it was not an arbitrary decision for one to make alone. Notice that intimacy God intended for humans to understand required a man and woman in order to fully appreciate it. God did not create a platonic friend for Adam, He did not create a group of friends, He only created Eve His wife. Eve was intended to meet Adam’s needs completely on her own, and he to meet hers. “More” was not a consideration in this plan. “Time limits” were not a consideration in this plan.

Today we look at married couples in Hollywood and declare that if any couple lasts longer than 5 years they should be national heroes. Our standard of marriage completely embraces the concept of divorce; the garden had NO such provisions, or intentions. If Adam and Eve had never broken trust with God, we would all be living in perfection as God originally created it. Adam and Eve would STILL be married as they will one day again. Their marriage was created with the idea of lasting forever and ever. It is because their relationship was created for MORE than just sexual expression, and procreation. It was created to demonstrate the intimacy of families, and to show us exactly how God wishes to be a part of what we call family. He knows us better than our spouse, He loves us more than our parents or lover, He longs for our companionship more than Adam felt his own loneliness before Eve. Marriages were to be forever and will one day be so again.

What keeps our marriages from being what God originally intended for them lies in the mirrors of our homes. It is self-interest that keeps us from giving “all”. It is fear of rejection that keeps us “suspicious”. It is “looking out for number one” that literally prevents us from any sense of real fulfillment, joy, or peace. In short, it is the carnal man in the mirror, who robs us of God’s intent and designs. He must be killed, that is to say, “I” must die, if HE is to live in me. For, “I” am the enemy; His enemy, your enemy, and sadly my own enemy. It is my selfishness that destroys everything that it comes in contact with. It is the disease of sin that turns a relationship designed to show me the intimacy that God wants with me, into a 50:50 proposition based on a subjective fairness standard that is highly influenced by my own desires, prejudice, and perceived needs. Self-centered thinking becomes the cancerous root to all of my self-destructive behavior.

Those who debate gay marriage miss the lessons of our creation, in the same way as those who contemplate divorce as a solution for getting what they want out of life. Divorce was not an institution of perfection; it was an allowance to compensate for the self-focused hearts of man. It was our addiction to sin and self-service that made divorce a necessary escape from even greater levels of evil and pain. And once sin is removed, divorce will be unnecessary once again. Marriages will again be destined to last forever, sharing the intimacy that God intended. It is similar with the idea of gay marriage.

Homosexual life styles have been brought about by many factors such as genetic disposition, forced victimization of adult pedophiles on the innocent, and the purely optional choice to pervert or alter what “was” considered normal sexual expression into something else. It is impossible to judge the origins of another person’s sexuality, and so we should not. Christians should stay out of the bedrooms of others and suggest only that each person submit themselves fully to Christ and let Him lead as He will. If Christ is leading, we have nothing to fear. When we jump ahead, we err, and usually fall flat on our faces. Christian churches should not condone marriage outside of the Biblical guidelines we have been given as corporate organizations. This should include a re-examination of what it truly means to commit for eternity, how to submit one’s will to Christ, and what it means to give another 100% of yourself without thought of reward. However churches should not condemn gay partners for attempting to live a monogamous, committed, lifestyle as best they know how. Judgment should be left to God, and leadership to Christ. How individuals commit to each other is their own business. What the church sanctions is another.

The Government makes laws around families to protect property rights. It is impossible to legislate intimacy, or love. In point of fact, there are no laws required to limit how much we love our spouse, only to limit how “badly” we can treat them. Laws are a construct of sin. They are required to keep our self-interest in check, under threat of punishment. The government should not have a moral basis for marital law, only an equity based one. Insuring fairness, and equality under the law, must be the ONLY goals of governmental legislation related to families. Protect children and adults from abusive situations, insure equitable distribution of funds in situations of separation. These are fine ideals. But prevention of consenting adults to live as they choose transcends the goals of protection and equality and attempts to enforce a moral code based on one’s own ideology. This is a step too far for a government that is built on the ideas of separation of church and state. And the compelling of conscience under threat of law, is against the character and teachings of Christ. Christians should fight against such legislation even if it seems to agree with their ideology. It is in fact, against the entire nature of God to force compliance to His will. God invites, He does not compel.

Gay couples could “marry” in civil courts, non-church affiliated organizations, or even in privacy between themselves and God. The same thinking would apply to those groups of adults who choose to embrace a multiple partner scenario, it is morally no different. Attempting to marry a child or animal or inanimate object is forbidden by government laws as in each case, the intended object of marriage is incapable of making an informed consent. It is also out of the biblical guidelines of marriage as established in Eden and throughout our Bibles. Not allowing gay marital ceremonies in the church is only a reflection that we hold to the original ideals of marriage as set forth in the garden until Christ returns and can resolve any unanswered questions.

This does not mean that churches should ban gay members, or oppose adoption of children into gay families, or dishonor the commitments that gay families may choose to make to each other outside of our doors. Rather ALL should be welcomed to the hospital for the hurting that is our church. ALL should learn the solution of submitting the will and desires to Christ in order for the healing to begin. And ALL should refrain from judging anyone else along this journey we undertake. In truth, we ALL struggle with sexual sin, whether it be lust, uncommitted sex without love, adultery, jealousy, envy, greed, or even violence. To exclude gay members because they too suffer from the effects of a world steeped in sin, is hypocrisy. There is no effort to excuse or rationalize any form of sin and pain, only to escape it. The only solution for that is Christ. And that solution does not require the judgment or condemnation of others.

Christians who refuse to embrace their brothers because of a particular sin have not discovered love, forgiveness, or the solution to their own sins. When we love as He loved, we do not reject those in need, rather we embrace them, pray for them, and ask for their prayers in return. Divorced members, are no more failures, than any other who has fallen short of the ideals God has set forth. We have all missed that mark. There is no more a reason to judge others based on the failure of their marriages than there is to judge anyone for any reason. Marriages fail because we fail. Marriages fail because of sin, not just a single individual’s sin, but all sin. And what is more, marriages can succeed beyond our wildest imaginations when we put Christ back into the center of them where He belongs. It is Christ who wishes for our companionship from the garden until now. This is why He fights so hard to see His erring children return home. But there is more to learn about love from our first example, we will continue our lesson in the next section …