God is Love

The limitations that we have in our spiritual perception as a result of not understanding scripture, causes us to live in the shadow of death...we create God in the image of that.  Scriptures have been interpreted by man and are subject to the lens through which he looks.  A good example of that is the Garden of Eden experience...Satan viewed God with distortion and promoted that.  He can stoop to lies.  God is truthful.   

Before the distortion of God's word by Satan, Adam and Eve were in a place of oneness with God because they lived in the truth of who He is. After Satan distorted God's character, causing distrust in man towards God, man no longer knew the truth of who he was in God.  Not knowing who we are in God does this, and it propels us into a fear-based, works orientation.  We traded "knowing" God to "knowing" good and evil.  Remember, "knowing" is an intimate relationship in the Bible.   

God showed up in the Garden.  Their confusion did not change God's ability or desire to show up.  It is important that we get this.  God is faith sensitive, not sin sensitive.  Luke 18:8 asks this question: when He comes, will He find faith in the land?   God has dealt with sin...His Son died...got us covered.  God is love.  Everything in scripture must be evaluated from this standpoint.  I keep saying this for my benefit because the lessons I got in the first two-thirds of my life, missed that standard of love.  Now, when I revisit the scriptures, I see them with new eyes.  

John 3:16 says that God so loved the world that He sent His only Son and whosoever believes in Him shall not perish. Even though Adam and Eve had been in a face to face relationship with God, the delusion that Satan brought to them was so great that they no longer saw Him correctly.  It is this spirit of delusion that we are still trying to get over.  How do we get over it? 

John 8:31.32 -- "...if ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed.  And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."  We can only be disciples of truth, if we are continuing in His word.  It is a must.  It is all about God's identity and our identity in Him.  Jesus said that if we have seen Him, we have seen that Father.  Our only work is to see Him clearly without the distortions that have come down to us by scribes and Pharisees of our day.  Jesus said to those leaders of His day: "Ye neither know Me or My Father; if ye had known Me, ye should have known My Father, also."  John 8:19.   

Am I getting it?  The only truth I need...it is foundational for all the others...is the truth of who God is, who Jesus is, who I am in the Godhead.  Colossians 2:9-10:  "For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.  And ye are complete in Him which is the head of all principality and power." 

I find it interesting that the struggle with spiritual darkness in Jesus' day was with the religious people...the established church of that time. They had set up man-centered religion, and that which was spiritual (Jesus) they crucified.   

It was the same in the Old Testament.  In Ezekiel 13 (and many other places), God is talking to Ezekiel about false prophets.  Prophets are from the spiritual camp.  They are not the outsiders.  These false prophets were leading the people astray.  It is interesting here that we are told what they should be doing: verse 5 -- they were not standing in the gap for God's people, and they were not building a hedge around God's people.  This is an other-centered work.  The false prophets...self-centered.  This is a good way to measure the prophets of today. 

The above text in Colossians says we are "complete" in Him.  In the Garden of Eden the devil suggested that we were incomplete because God was withholding something...something we would be given if we disobeyed.  Not trusting that they were "complete" was the problem then, and it is the problem now.  For it is the belief/feeling that there is something wrong with me...something I am missing...something I don't know...that propels us into making fig leaf garments.   

Are the messages that I am listening to suggesting "incompleteness."   Are they fear-based?  Or, are they building hedges and standing in the gap?  Are they telling you the truth about the Godhead and about who you are in the Godhead.  

 A young person that I know who has experienced the truth about Jesus this year and has come to know Him as her Savior rather than someone she can never please, told me that recently she was listening to a program at church and that in those words, she suddenly felt the old stuff of doubting her salvation creating tension in her body.  She quickly realized that she was not the problem...she was not incomplete...the message was.  In Christ Jesus, we are complete.  Anything else is a false prophet.   

Isaiah 8:19-20 -- If they speak not according to this Word, it is because there is NO light in them.  2 Timothy 1:17 -- God has not given us a spirit of fear, but power, love, and a sound mind.  Man's ways seem to promote fear.  That is a control technique.  The Lord is our Shepherd, we shall NOT want.  We must see ourselves through Heaven's eyes.  God did not shed the precious blood of Jesus over that which has not merit...His people and His character.  Thank you, Jesus!