In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1), then over the next few days God made everything that fills our Earth today, including humans. And God looked at everything He had made and saw that it was very good (Genesis 1:31), and He was pleased!
Then God took the humans He had created and put them in a very special place, the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:8), and He “walked” with them. Life was very good indeed for Adam and Eve, the first humans, and they had an idyllic life in a beautiful paradise.
Their relationship with God was a very personal one. They had first hand access to Him and communed with Him on a “one on one” level. He gave them very few instructions, they had to simply look after the garden, and also not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:15-17).
Meanwhile, in Heaven there was a very special angel, Lucifer the "son of the morning" (Isaiah 14:12), who it seems was very special indeed, seeing as he was the “anointed cherub”, he also walked in the Garden of Eden and he was considered “perfect” in his ways from when God created him (Ezekiel 28:12-15). Unfortunately he was eventually lifted up in pride (Ezekiel 28:17) and he decided that he wanted to be in charge.
He managed to mislead a third of the angels (Revelations 12:4) into following him in his rebellion against God, but it didn't last long before he was defeated, in fact Jesus said He saw Satan fall as lightning from heaven (Luke 10:18).
It was at some point after this event that Satan then approached Eve in the Garden of Eden and asked her a question. “Has God truly said that you may not take of the fruit of every tree in the garden?” Eve answered that this was true and they could eat of any tree except the tree in the middle of the garden. (Genesis 3:1-3) He employed a very common technique here which is frequently used by salesmen the world over, which is to start with a question that you know the answer to knowing that the respondent will answer in the positive! It’s called a hook.
He then moved to step number two and stated that instead of being a bad thing and leading to death, eating the fruit would in fact be harmless to Eve, and of course to Adam! (Genesis 3:4) He then took it another step further and said that in fact it would be good for them! He played to their pride by telling her that they would become “as gods, and having knowledge” just like God. (Genesis 3:5)
Right here is where “religion” was born!
Since that very day there was a steady decline in the relationship humans have with God. God cast them out of the Garden and into a far less idyllic state and they lost their previous privileged life. (Genesis 3:15-24)
For the next 4000 years humans gradually developed a more and more religious method of regulating their relationship with God, introducing all kinds of laws and traditions. The previous close personal relationship was relegated to only the head priests of the new religious order, making everybody dependent on them and their organisation for all matters of faith in God.
But God had a great plan to restore our relationship with Him by breaking down the barriers that had been put into place and opening up a direct channel to Him once again! He sent Jesus, His Son, who was there with Him from the beginning (John 1:1-3), to defeat the Satan inspired religious order of the day and replace it with something better, something closer to what His original plan called for, so that humans could once again be in a personal relationship with Him!
Because of Jesus and the price He paid for us on the cross we have regained direct access to the wonderful grace of God! Because He paid the price that ensured our freedom we can have the kind of faith that relies directly on God and His Holy Spirit, and we are empowered through His Spirit to teach others about this wonderful good news of the Gospel of Christ, and we can live in wonderful fellowship with other believers!
But that liar and betrayer, Satan, is still around, trying desperately to twist and pervert God’s Word, with the intention of leading as many astray from the mighty Truth of God as he possibly can! And he still uses the same methods, trying to deceive us into falling back into the law filled religious state we were before Jesus supreme rescue mission. He still questions and lies, dividing the church against itself through his deceptions.
The apostle Paul ran into this problem early on and in one account he asks the religious Galatians “O foolish Galatians, who bewitched you not to obey the truth,... Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, do you now perfect yourself in the flesh?” (Galatians 3:1-5)
I have seen so many Christians over the years that start off in the red hot fire of faith, freedom and the Holy Spirit only to end up falling back into the tiresome religious laws that Paul calls a curse. (Galatians 3:10)
Jesus Himself, when asked which is the greatest law proceeded to sum it all up for us beautifully! He said that we should love God with all our heart, soul and mind. He called this the first and great commandment. (Matthew 22:36-38) Then He said that the second is “like unto” the first, or in other words it’s basically the same as the first, that we should love our neighbours as ourselves. (Matthew 22:39)
He then took the whole thing one step further and struck the final blow against religion when He proclaimed “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:40)
In this short passage Jesus sums up how He wants us to live our entire lives as Christians, a life dedicated to loving God and others without the restraints of the old obsolete religious order. He truly was the ultimate revolutionary, which is why the religious leaders of the day felt they had to have Him killed in a vain attempt to silence Him and His message of salvation by grace alone.
Romans 13:8 says: "...he who loves another has fulfilled the Law." And Romans 13:10 says: “Love works no ill to its neighbour, therefore love is the fulfilling of the Law.” This all sounds very easy and simple to implement, but I have to say it is a very difficult law to practice! But when we do strive to practice it, I guarantee we will fulfil every one of God’s commandments because if we do all things in love then we will do no harm to others, or ourselves and we will be better fathers, husbands, neighbours and citizens!
Ever since the time that Jesus gave us this “new” law there has been a great battle between those who live free from the restraints of religion/tradition/law, those who live within Jesus wonderful law of love to God and others on the one hand, and the legalistic religious order who still try and keep control of people by attempting to preserve the old laws of “sin and death” on the other hand. (Romans 8:2)
Living our lives governed by the amazing love of God is no easy task, and we are bound to stumble on this incredible journey, but Jesus opened the way for us to take a step closer to the Garden of Eden where we can walk with Him once again unfettered by man's own traditions and laws in personal fellowship with Him until we meet up with Him in person once again. (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)
I beg you now to choose to live free, and not to try and live once again under the same laws that got us into this religious mess to start off with. Stop trying to become Scribes and Pharisees again; it didn't work out the first time, why would it work now?
I will leave you with this quote from Paul in Galatians 2:21: “I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.”
Then God took the humans He had created and put them in a very special place, the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:8), and He “walked” with them. Life was very good indeed for Adam and Eve, the first humans, and they had an idyllic life in a beautiful paradise.
Their relationship with God was a very personal one. They had first hand access to Him and communed with Him on a “one on one” level. He gave them very few instructions, they had to simply look after the garden, and also not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:15-17).
Meanwhile, in Heaven there was a very special angel, Lucifer the "son of the morning" (Isaiah 14:12), who it seems was very special indeed, seeing as he was the “anointed cherub”, he also walked in the Garden of Eden and he was considered “perfect” in his ways from when God created him (Ezekiel 28:12-15). Unfortunately he was eventually lifted up in pride (Ezekiel 28:17) and he decided that he wanted to be in charge.
He managed to mislead a third of the angels (Revelations 12:4) into following him in his rebellion against God, but it didn't last long before he was defeated, in fact Jesus said He saw Satan fall as lightning from heaven (Luke 10:18).
It was at some point after this event that Satan then approached Eve in the Garden of Eden and asked her a question. “Has God truly said that you may not take of the fruit of every tree in the garden?” Eve answered that this was true and they could eat of any tree except the tree in the middle of the garden. (Genesis 3:1-3) He employed a very common technique here which is frequently used by salesmen the world over, which is to start with a question that you know the answer to knowing that the respondent will answer in the positive! It’s called a hook.
He then moved to step number two and stated that instead of being a bad thing and leading to death, eating the fruit would in fact be harmless to Eve, and of course to Adam! (Genesis 3:4) He then took it another step further and said that in fact it would be good for them! He played to their pride by telling her that they would become “as gods, and having knowledge” just like God. (Genesis 3:5)
Right here is where “religion” was born!
Since that very day there was a steady decline in the relationship humans have with God. God cast them out of the Garden and into a far less idyllic state and they lost their previous privileged life. (Genesis 3:15-24)
For the next 4000 years humans gradually developed a more and more religious method of regulating their relationship with God, introducing all kinds of laws and traditions. The previous close personal relationship was relegated to only the head priests of the new religious order, making everybody dependent on them and their organisation for all matters of faith in God.
But God had a great plan to restore our relationship with Him by breaking down the barriers that had been put into place and opening up a direct channel to Him once again! He sent Jesus, His Son, who was there with Him from the beginning (John 1:1-3), to defeat the Satan inspired religious order of the day and replace it with something better, something closer to what His original plan called for, so that humans could once again be in a personal relationship with Him!
Because of Jesus and the price He paid for us on the cross we have regained direct access to the wonderful grace of God! Because He paid the price that ensured our freedom we can have the kind of faith that relies directly on God and His Holy Spirit, and we are empowered through His Spirit to teach others about this wonderful good news of the Gospel of Christ, and we can live in wonderful fellowship with other believers!
But that liar and betrayer, Satan, is still around, trying desperately to twist and pervert God’s Word, with the intention of leading as many astray from the mighty Truth of God as he possibly can! And he still uses the same methods, trying to deceive us into falling back into the law filled religious state we were before Jesus supreme rescue mission. He still questions and lies, dividing the church against itself through his deceptions.
The apostle Paul ran into this problem early on and in one account he asks the religious Galatians “O foolish Galatians, who bewitched you not to obey the truth,... Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, do you now perfect yourself in the flesh?” (Galatians 3:1-5)
I have seen so many Christians over the years that start off in the red hot fire of faith, freedom and the Holy Spirit only to end up falling back into the tiresome religious laws that Paul calls a curse. (Galatians 3:10)
Jesus Himself, when asked which is the greatest law proceeded to sum it all up for us beautifully! He said that we should love God with all our heart, soul and mind. He called this the first and great commandment. (Matthew 22:36-38) Then He said that the second is “like unto” the first, or in other words it’s basically the same as the first, that we should love our neighbours as ourselves. (Matthew 22:39)
He then took the whole thing one step further and struck the final blow against religion when He proclaimed “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:40)
In this short passage Jesus sums up how He wants us to live our entire lives as Christians, a life dedicated to loving God and others without the restraints of the old obsolete religious order. He truly was the ultimate revolutionary, which is why the religious leaders of the day felt they had to have Him killed in a vain attempt to silence Him and His message of salvation by grace alone.
Romans 13:8 says: "...he who loves another has fulfilled the Law." And Romans 13:10 says: “Love works no ill to its neighbour, therefore love is the fulfilling of the Law.” This all sounds very easy and simple to implement, but I have to say it is a very difficult law to practice! But when we do strive to practice it, I guarantee we will fulfil every one of God’s commandments because if we do all things in love then we will do no harm to others, or ourselves and we will be better fathers, husbands, neighbours and citizens!
Ever since the time that Jesus gave us this “new” law there has been a great battle between those who live free from the restraints of religion/tradition/law, those who live within Jesus wonderful law of love to God and others on the one hand, and the legalistic religious order who still try and keep control of people by attempting to preserve the old laws of “sin and death” on the other hand. (Romans 8:2)
Living our lives governed by the amazing love of God is no easy task, and we are bound to stumble on this incredible journey, but Jesus opened the way for us to take a step closer to the Garden of Eden where we can walk with Him once again unfettered by man's own traditions and laws in personal fellowship with Him until we meet up with Him in person once again. (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)
I beg you now to choose to live free, and not to try and live once again under the same laws that got us into this religious mess to start off with. Stop trying to become Scribes and Pharisees again; it didn't work out the first time, why would it work now?
I will leave you with this quote from Paul in Galatians 2:21: “I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.”
No comments:
Post a Comment