God created all things good and placed man in the midst of it.
He breathed life into dust that He spoke into existence, creating man in
His image and likeness. Man was completely naked before the Lord and felt
no shame. In order that we might know and experience the power of His
love to all its full capacity, He created man with free will. In that
free will, man had a choice to make; abide in the Tree of Life or pursue our
own, apart from Him, in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Tempted
by evil, man turned in his unbelief and pride and pursued his own and bore the
shame and guilt of his decision. In fear, man hid from God and tried to
cover his shame through his own effort. God, in His loving mercy,
provided man a better and perfect covering. One that required an innocent
death demonstrating the powerful reminder that sin results in death while
simultaneously demonstrating to man, the extent to which God would go to cover
our sin and restore the relationship.
In His all-knowing love, He placed man in a broken world where the pain of
hardship and labor might stand as a sharp contrast to Him. So that in
that contrast, man might "see" and ultimately come to
"know" His goodness and pursue the Lord on his own.
Humanities heart became dark and inwardly focused generation after
generation doing that which was right in their own eyes. God again
pursues man's heart through choosing to make Himself known to the world through
a special people group. In shepherding and rescuing this people group
from the grips of slavery, He provides them Truth, a school master, the law to
show them right from wrong and good from evil. Failing to see both the
Giver of the law and the wickedness in his own heart revealed by it, man is
either enslaved into believing his good deeds will bring about his own
righteousness or, under the impossible weight of the law, he returns to
lawlessness “that which is right in his own eyes”.
To overcome the weakness of man’s flesh and the power of sin, God,
once again pursues man's heart by sending His Son, Jesus, to walk among His
creation. The Word made flesh, became a living testimony to the world of
His love and goodness. In His sovereign plan, conceived before time
began, He gave Himself over to the prince of this world as the perfect
sacrifice, taking upon Himself in death, the sin of man for eternity past,
present and future. Demonstrating His power over sin and death, He is
resurrected by the Father to life, 3 days later. He walked again among
His people biding them to lay down their own life and find a new one birthed
into Him. Having been witness to the greatest act of love and sacrifice
the world had ever seen, the Tree of Life was again made known.
Through belief in what Jesus accomplished on the cross and in
humbling ourselves in the turning away from our old sinful self, man is set
free unto salvation. A new life is given to man, based solely on what
Christ has already accomplished through the mechanism of our belief and nothing
else. Man’s highest honor and joy becomes reflecting God’s love, praising Him
in worship and infinitely giving back the life that He eternally sustains us
with.
Faith was the plan from the beginning. It started in faith,
fell from faith and was restored by faith. The story of humanity told over
thousands of years in the bible parallels in every way our own life
story. The question we owe ourselves an answer to is where in the story
do we find our self? Have we entered the Promised Land fully resting and
trusting in His goodness or are we stuck along life’s paths, stubbornly
defining for ourselves what is good and evil?
Our story is found in His story and our life, found in His
life! Do you know this life? Pursue it with all your heart and
“workout your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12).
Amen…
