Fulfilling Your Destiny
Chapter
Two
Are we to consider that it is futile to think that we could make a difference and close our minds to hearing the voice of God in this hour? Joseph dreamed a dream that carried him through a life that seemed to be filled with hopeless frustrations, but when the time was right, he was where he needed to be and equipped to answer the divine need for a man to save his own nation, as well as many others. A young shepherd boy called David, with no more education than minding a bunch of sheep, was touched by the Holy anointing oil and was spiritually fitted to bring release to the whole Nation of Israel as he destroyed Goliath. At a time when Israel had gone into apostasy having been drawn away following a false God Baal God raised up a man called Elisha to challenge the priests of Baal and restore Israel. He was able to demonstrate the power of God that destroyed the religion of the priests of Baal and convinced Israel that their God is the ONLY GOD.
What about you? Are you yielding
yourself to the spirit of the Lord joining those with like minds to be fitted
as the vessel in Father's hands to set all creation free? The Apostle Paul says
in Romans 8:22,
"For we know that the
whole creation groans and travails in pain together (as a woman in child-birth)
until now. and not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits
of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the
adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body"
He
also says in Romans 8:15,
"For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear;
but you have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, (which
means) Father."
Sickness is
increasing all over the world causing pain and suffering resulting ultimately
in death. With all the increase in knowledge and science, mankind has not even
found a remedy for the common cold. New diseases not yet given a name are
breaking out on the earth and affecting people both rich and poor. In spite of
this, Paul reminds us that the whole of creation is looking to see the
manifestation of our true identity as the Sons of God.
Jesus
declared who we really are when he taught his disciples to pray saying, "OUR
FATHER (meaning origin) which art in heaven." The "Seed" of the
father remains in the child in the natural world as well as in the spiritual
world. Marriage today in the natural sense perpetuates the HUMAN species for it
is that natural seed that reproduces itself in the child born. But mankind has
forgotten that his true origin is not "Of the earth" but out of God
in creation in the beginning.
Levi.
16:22 says,
O God,
the God of the spirits of all flesh!"
And Jesus said in Matt. 23:9,
"Call no man your father upon the earth:
for one is your Father, which is in heaven."
This
means that we were created as spirit because God is spirit and whatever the
Father or the parents are that is what the offspring will be. Jesus was born of
a virgin on the earth and no human seed was required. According to the Apostle
Paul the "Seed of God" is CHRIST (Gal 3:16) and that SEED is in every
man waiting for its conception to be birthed just as it was in Jesus 2000 years
ago.
John
explains this spiritual experience in his Gospel saying, "In the beginning
(creation) was the Word and the word was WITH GOD and the Word WAS GOD."
Then we are told that the same WORD BECAME FLESH and lived among mankind.
It
is most important to realize that what Jesus Christ was in the beginning did
not change when he became FLESH. This is most important because it is
exactly the same for us except we do not believe it.
God's
original man only had ONE FATHER and that was God and that same seed of LIFE
has been planted in every living person on the earth every since. The tragedy
is that so few understand their true identity is "Out of God",
believing rather that we are simply of human origin and our life is only
mortal. However, it is this body of flesh and blood that is subject to every
sickness in the world and finally is overcome by DEATH. Our true identity is
SPIRIT, which is that invisible part of our being from which our life flows and
that spirit is GOD. That God of our true identity is the creator of all things
and holds everything together in its atomic form by the word of his power.
Imagine for a moment that all the wisdom of God and all the knowledge of God is
in every one of us but for most it has little or no impact upon what we are on
this earth. Down through the years it has been the so-called Christian
countries that produced almost all the inventions and scientific developments
of science and not the pagan or heathen peoples of the world.
Each
successive generation should learn from the preceding one but this is not
always the case. Looking back on the days of my childhood it now seems like it
was another world. Children stayed with their parents until they were married.
Having children outside marriage was rare and families generally were united
and children honored their parents. There were very few "Retirement
Villages," as the children took care of their parents. In just 70 years
this world is not a better place but continues to get worse as God is deleted
from our understanding and "our" superior knowledge has replaced him.
The only part of us that gets sick is our body for it is subject to all
kinds of diseases and eventually becomes weaken to the point that it can
sustain life no longer and death is the result. But Jesus never became sick and
could not have died for He said, "I have power
to lay down my human life and power to take my true spirit life again which I have
always had." This is what he did at Calvary expressly for our
benefit. He took us into death in himself so that his death became our death so
as to put an end to our human Adamic consciousness. This release of that true
life of the Spirit within us allows us to assume control of our body breaking
the power of sickness through a New Consciousness generated not by the natural
mind, but by the CHRIST of our true identity.
It
would seem important at this point to share a few things about sickness and how
Jesus taught us to deal with it. There are two worlds with which we have to
deal with as we live on this earth. One is the INVISIBLE WORLD of spirit in
which God dwells and is the original creation of Gen 1. This is hidden from our
view and understanding to the point that we are not really convinced that there
is such a world or that even God has any true existence. The other is a
physical, material world which is the ONLY world of reality that we are
convinced exists, according to our awareness. For many people and even some
Christians, God does not really exist in their consciousness but only through
knowledge that is a product of their mind. Real access to either world can only
be achieved by what we call "CONSCIOUSNESS," which could be explained
by a simpler word, "AWARENESS." What you are AWARE OF becomes your
consciousness. As mortal human beings we determine our consciousness through
our five Natural senses, which are, sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. It
is only through these five senses that we create what for us is our
consciousness. You will notice that not one of those five senses can access God
or the whole invisible world of SPIRIT.
However,
there are faculties that God has built into us that correspond to our natural
senses. These faculties have the ability to create a New Consciousness that
includes God and the whole world of spirit. In Creation we were all created
SPIRIT and continue as such until our birth when we became flesh just as Jesus
Christ did when he was birthed through Mary his mother. From creation to the
time of our birth into this world we were in the Father, according to Psalm
90:1. It is God's will for us to be born into this world to be co-laborers
together with God to build his Kingdom on this earth. But here is what Jesus
Christ had to say about man on this earth. In Matthew 13:15 Jesus said,
"For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, (or come back into divine relationship with God as a SON to a Father) and I should heal them."
When
we function under our human consciousness that we ourselves have created
through our 5 natural senses, we discover that so much of what we consider is
our reality today is only make believe but we have convinced ourselves that it
is reality. To unravel this question of consciousness we need to define what
Reality is and what is not a Reality from the divine point of view. For
something to be a reality it must have always existed and can never change or
be destroyed. Everything else has no true reality if it has a beginning and
also has an end. We need to know that everything in the spirit world is eternal
and can never change or be destroyed. God's original creation is spirit and so
can never change or be destroyed. However, consider from the divine viewpoint
things like Cancer and diabetes or any sickness you can name and we realize
that no sickness has in fact any true reality. First of all, God never created
sickness so it has no true reality because it has a beginning and an end. Jesus
knew this, so he never tried to heal anyone, but spoke a word into the heart of
the people who came to him.
If
we look at the second miracle that Jesus did we see the principle behind what
we call a miracle. In John 4:46 a man came to Jesus asking him to heal his son
who was sick at Capernaum. Jesus did not have to travel to where the boy was
lying but in verse 50 Jesus said to the man, "Go
thy way, your son lives." The man responded by BELIEVING the
word that Jesus spoke to him, so he was convinced that his son was healed. He
begins to go back home but on the way he meets his servants who were coming to
meet him with the news that his son was no longer sick. The man responded
saying, "I knew he was healed before you told me, because Jesus said that
he was healed." But being interested he asked the servants when he
actually recovered, and when they told him, he said, "Yes that was exactly
the time when Jesus told me my son was healed!" How are we to interpret
this miracle? First of all we call such things "Miracles," because
from our point of view they are impossible because our human consciousness says
such things do not happen.
Two
issues come into focus here, one is the power of the word that Jesus Spoke, for
it is said that his words are Spirit and Life, the other was the response that
it produced in the man. It allow him to believe something that was not a part
of his natural consciousness. Every person who really heard the words that
Jesus spoke was changed in some way. In John 5:24 Jesus says,
"Verily I say
unto you, he that hears my word (from within) and believes on him that sent me
has everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation but has passed from
DEATH unto LIFE. The hour is come when those who are spiritually dead shall
HEAR the voice of the SON OF GOD and all those that HEAR shall LIVE in that
same spiritual consciousness in which he dwells."
These
are the true issues of life for us today. We need to hear a voice from that
higher dimension of spirit, not through our natural ears but through the ears
of our spirit within us, which will energize the same spirit that dwells in
everyone of us. Once we hear the voice of the Son of God Jesus Christ, who
dwells within us, the spiritual dimension of our being is activated, changing
us from what the Bible calls DEATH, that is living out of our human
consciousness into LIFE, which is living out of our spiritual consciousness as
a Son of God.
This
changes our consciousness which we ourselves created out of our 5 natural
senses, none of which allows us to know God. In 1Cor 2:14 we read what Paul
says about this natural consciousness,
"The man without
the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for
they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are
spiritually discerned."
There
are only two groups of people in this world, those who live out of a natural
consciousness who cannot know God in reality but only by knowledge. Then
there are those who have heard the VOICE OF GOD within that has activated the
spirit of their true being which has opened up for them a higher dimension of
consciousness in which miracles are as common as our daily bread, and sickness
and disease have no true reality. The world that we created through our 5
natural senses is the world we see around us today. In that world Animals kill
each other and people kill each other and crime and wickedness fill the headlines
of our daily papers. This cannot be GOD'S WORLD which He created, for He looked
at all that He created and said, "It is
very good." Gen 1:31. The world we have created through our 5
natural senses has become our reality and it is for this reason that so many
people embrace death as a happy release from this world of pain and suffering.
Religion has provided another reason to want to leave this world offering a
paradise called heaven in another world on certain conditions.
It
comes as a shock to discover that Jesus never suggested that we should embrace
death as our friend, stating rather that it is the last enemy to be destroyed.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told the people that the MEEK WOULD INHERIT
THE EARTH and not heaven. Psalm 115:16 says,
"The Heavens, even the
heavens belong to the Lord, BUT the EARTH has been given to the children of
men."
However,
Jesus was not saying that we would inherit the world that we have created out
of our 5 natural senses consisting of what we see, touch, taste, feel and
smell. The world that we will inherit will be God's Kingdom. It is very
interesting that for some people this world appears as a terrible place filled
with adverse circumstances and with hate and everything seems to be against
them. Then we meet others who are always smiling and are happy and generous in
their spirit to all. What is the difference between such opposites? The answer
is that one created a hostile world because of what they saw with their eyes
etc, while the other saw the sunrise each day and the flowers that blossomed
for our benefit and not just for their own. They looked upon their children as
saw them as a gift from God and every blessing they enjoyed, they saw as a
token of God's blessing to them.
To
understand this duality we need to find the cause in the Garden of Eden which
has been perpetuated by mankind ever since. After man was created (Gen 1:26)
and given a body (Gen 2:7) God prepared a place for him to live. It was a
beautiful garden that provided absolutely everything that man needed without
any toil or sweat on the part of man. The fruit of the trees provided the food
and a spring provided the water, then, company and fellowship was a daily
experience as the man walked and talked with God his Father who created all
things. In that garden there was no death and no sickness, and nothing that
could break the tranquility that Adam experienced. However, Adam's Father told
him one thing that he needed to understand, and that was everything in the
Garden was available to him, except for one thing, and that was the Tree of the
Knowledge of good and evil. The Father said to Adam,
"Son do not eat the fruit of that tree, because the day you do YOU WILL
DIE." Now the Bible is a spiritual book written by men who were
Inspired (God breathing into them) the words God wanted written. Therefore for
any man to pick up the Bible and consider that they can understand with their
natural intelligence exactly what God is saying is both arrogant and ignorant.
First
of all the forbidden tree was not planted by God for it was not included in
creation so it has no true reality. In the scriptures it says that the TREE OF
LIFE was in the middle of the Garden (Gen 2:9) and also the TREE OF THE
KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL, so both trees were in the same position in the
middle of the garden. Here is where we need divine help to decipher what God is
telling us here. The MIDDLE of the Garden is a specific point and only one tree
can exist in that position, for whatever is planted there is the centerpiece of
the view from any position in that garden. The truth is that from a spiritual
point of view, we are all living in that Garden today and our view of the world
will differ according to which TREE is planted in the MIDDLE of your garden!
The TREE OF LIFE represents Jesus Christ who said, "I
am the WAY the TRUTH and the LIFE." The tree of the knowledge
of good and evil represents the serpent that debated with Eve in the Garden
after she was separated from Adam. But again the serpent also represents the
NATURAL MIND of the woman that functions being separated from Adam, who is
Christ the Son of God. Remember the woman was never created by God as a
separate entity, but the man is SPIRIT which is MALE and FEMALE functioning
together in unity.
Eve
was never recognized by God as a separate entity, so in Gen 5:2 it says,
And God called their name ADAM. The term used for the world
population is MANKIND not man and woman kind. Even in the Old English language
the woman was called the WOMB-MAN or the MAN with the womb. This duality has
created many problems today as we have defined the role of the man and the
woman specifically, which has affected the woman in business and relegated her
to the weaker vessel etc etc. Reproduction was the role given to the MAN in Gen
1:28, when he was told to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. That
task was not given to ADAM and EVE as separate entities, but today the man has
in many cases ruled over the woman as God told her this would be the result of
her functioning on her own, and eating of the wrong tree. But have you noticed
that today the woman is asserting herself and has climbed the ladder of success
in the corporate world, to compete with the Man. Even in Politics the woman is
now assuming equality and we will see more leadership of the feminine kind in
the days ahead. In God, MAN and WOMAN were united as one and from his viewpoint
have never been separated.
Now
we understand by the spirit that Adam the MAN represents the spirit and EVE the
feminine, or the soul of MAN. However the account in Gen 2 of the separation of
the Female from the Male cannot be literal because the Male and the female, the
soul and the spirit are both spirit which cannot be separated. You cannot have
half a spirit, because it is indivisible. Spirit has NO GENDER, therefore there
is no such thing as a MALE SPIRIT or a FEMALE SPIRIT. God is SPIRIT and he also
is MALE and FEMALE so that he had no problem bringing forth a son without any
help from anyone else. God is the only source of life in this universe
including the life that each of us have today. Life is of such a character that
if it is separated from its source, it cannot exist or function. The fetus in
the womb will die if the Umbilical Cord that connects it to its life source is
severed before it is ready to be birthed. Life cannot be transmitted by proxy,
so it is for mankind. The spirit within us is Christ, but when the spirit
leaves the body the person is DEAD. The truth is, if God ever left anyone of us
for one minute we would be DEAD. Our body does not possess any life of its own,
for the life that energises our body is the spirit of our true being, which is
CHRIST.
The
taking of the Female from the man, although it is only an allegory in Gen 2,
represents the sense of separation from God that we feel within us today. But
it is reinforced by the fact that Adam found himself outside the Garden of
Eden, which we consider to be Gods judgment upon Adam for eating the
fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and then passed upon all
of mankind who have also sinned. This is the fundamental fault in mans
theology, to believe that God has banished everyone from his presence because
of what Adam did in the Garden of Eden, that is called S-I-N. To unravel this
whole question as to what actually happened in this drama recorded for us in
Genesis 3, let us seek the knowledge and wisdom of God for the true answer as
our relationship with God is at stake here.
We
have already discovered that Man was created spirit and not as flesh and blood,
because the law of bio-genetics declares that whatever the parents are that is
what the offspring will be. God is spirit so his offspring must also be spirit,
but today most people have no idea that they are spirit that lives in a body of
flesh and blood. In Gen 2:7 the Lord God forms a manifestation of himself out
of the dust of the earth. Then into that form he breathed the breath (spirit),
and it says that the man BECAME a LIVING SOUL. This occurred when he ate
the fruit of the tree of the Knowledge of good and evil. We do not know how
long Adam enjoyed such fellowship with God but it continued until that day when
Adam was put to sleep and the female part of his being was taken out of him and
this became a woman and was brought to the man who said, You are bone
of my bones and flesh of my flesh, so I will call you woman (Heb. Ishaw)
because you were taken out of me (Ish). Man had now become a duality in the
allegory and no longer functioned as a single entity.
The
allegory now shows the woman going out on her own, and immediately she begins a
debate with what the Bible calls a serpent. This Serpent was
said to be more subtle (shrewd, crafty, sly, sensible) than all the beasts of
the field. Remember the serpent was the ancient symbol of wisdom and even to
this day the Medical Doctors still use it as their symbol set on a pole, which
was portrayed as the healer in Israel when they were in the wilderness and
turned against the Lord. God told Moses that he was to make a copy of the
seraphs, that were biting the people out of brass, and put it on a pole in the
midst of Israel and as they looked at the brazen Seraph on the pole, they would
be healed. The Bible is written with signs and symbols, and if we do not
understand these things, it will be unintelligible to us. The serpent here in
the Garden of Eden represents the MIND of Man that God says is more subtle than
all the beasts of the field. As God created man, the spirit which is Christ
within him, contained all the wisdom and knowledge of God but now the female
part is functioning as a separate entity which we know as the SOUL. This new
entity is called a LIVING SOUL as opposed to a LIVING SPIRIT as Adam was
created in the beginning.
The
soul consists of three parts, the MIND the EMOTIONS and the WILL which together
form the government of our whole being. Now there is an important change, for
when the soul and the spirit functioned together all the wisdom and knowledge
of God were at his disposal. Now the MIND has assumed its authority over the
body and in fact over the whole man, without any input from the Spirit hence
the man has now become a LIVING SOUL, without any input from the spirit which
is CHRIST, who is God. Jn 10:30. Every person on the earth has become that
WOMAN that is governed by the natural mind, having no input from God and
therefore cannot know God, so they are limited to human knowledge and human
wisdom. The serpent in Our Garden continues to practice
deception, bringing all the people on the earth under its power. It comes as
quite a shock when we begin to realize that we have actually been hypnotized
into believing that this is Gods world, but in fact it is not
Gods world at all. In Gods world there is no good and evil, for
after creation was finished he said everything was very good.
It
was Eve the woman taken out of Adam that brought us into this world of illusion
having been deceived by the snake in the Garden which was actually her natural
mind. Now Eve had no input from the spirit having separated herself from Adam,
feeling capable of making her own decisions without him, which meant living
apart from God. The subtlety of the natural mind (Snake) is so great that it convinced
Eve that what God said about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, was
wrong. In fact the snake went further by suggesting that God was cheating her
out of a wonderful experience, in which her eyes would be opened to a wonderful
new world of which at that moment she had not become aware. Eves world
up to that time was functioning exactly as God intended with no sickness, no
pain, no suffering, no death and no evil at all. Such a world she forfeited to
embrace the world in which we presently exist, with the proliferation of every
known evil. We may read these words and wonder how Eve could make such a stupid
decision to eat the fruit of the tree when God had said, I do not want
you to eat of that tree because I know that the day you do, you will
die. Would anyone in their right mind make such a choice?
The
answer is NO, so why did Eve decide to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree? The
answer is simple because her carnal or natural mind has the power to deceive
her, and also all of mankind. Let us consider the two trees in the Garden. The
tree of life has the power to sustain life forever with absolutely nothing that
could affect it in any way. That Tree of Life represents JESUS
CHRIST who said, John 3:15 That whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have eternal life. I AM THE LIFE.If you
eat of me you will live forever. (John 6) Of course Jesus
Christ is not a literal tree but as we assimilate him into our lives we have
embraced the life that Adam knew when he was put into the Garden of Eden. But
there was another tree called the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Again
this is not a literal tree but represents a KNOWLEDGE outside the bounds of all
that is called God. Both Good and Evil have nothing to do with
God for they are comparative terms. If I say that meal was good, I am saying
that it is good compared with other meals that I have had. If I call something
evil then I am saying that comparing it with other things it appears to me to
be evil.
All
wisdom and knowledge is found in God, so the Apostle John told the people of
his day, You have an anointing from God and YOU KNOW ALL
THINGS. 1John 2:20. Then in verse 27, he said, The
anointing which you have received of him abides or remains in you, and you do
not need any MAN to teach you, but as the same anointing teaches you of all things,
and is truth and contains no lie, being your teacher you need to walk in the
truth he has taught you. The anointing (Greek Charisma) is actually
CHRIST from which the word is derived. God has not left mankind without a sense
of direction because he has put the Holy Spirit which is Christ within every
man, and all the knowledge of God is in him. BUT like Eve we have fallen under
the spell of the carnal mind that has convinced us we do not need God in our
lives as we are quite capable of finding our way through life without his help.
However, when we face problems like sickness and disasters we then reach out to
God and expect him to respond immediately or we consider him to be uncaring and
ignoring our need.
As
God Created us we should never make a bad decision, but some people go from one
disaster to another. Take marriage for an example and see how many people
choose a partner for life only to find they have chosen the wrong person. Could
such situations be avoided? O course but for some reason we are convinced that
God does not love us, but seems to want to deny us Peace, Joy and happiness. So
we are more comfortable ignoring God and avoiding having much to do with him.
How could such a concept of God be so established in the heart of man? Let us look
at what happened when Adam had eaten of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil. The first thing he said is, I AM NAKED. A new
consciousness changed his thinking even about himself, as well as everything
else. We do not know how long Adam lived in the Garden of Eden, but he had
never felt NAKED before, and if we had been looking at him we would have said,
I cannot see any difference in you from what you have always
been. But a new consciousness had changed his perception about
everything. Instead of walking and talking with God as he had always done, this
day he went among the trees and HID HIMSELF from God. But God went looking for
him asking Adam a question, not just where are you, but, What are you
doing hiding from me? Adam replied, I am naked and that is why
I am hiding from you.
I
want you to notice how God responded to him with a simple question. God said to
Adam, WHO TOLD YOU! The implications of this question are very
clear, for God was really saying to Adam, I NEVER TOLD YOU that you are
naked, but WHO DID TELL YOU, because you have been listening to another voice.
To understand what happened to Adam let us look at the Life of Jesus Christ on
the earth and what he did. First of all you will notice that the term
devil does not appear in the Bible until we come to the New
Testament in Matthew 4:1, and the first person that becomes involved with this
devil is Jesus Christ before he begins his ministry. Then
was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
It was the Christ within Jesus who directed the following procedure and not the
devil. Why was this experience essential to his life and ministry? Because it
was the FIRST ADAM in the Garden of Eden who was infected by the serpent and so
with that first victory, the serpent (devil) had infected every man and woman
who has ever been born on the earth since then. However, a Son of God had just
been born of a virgin and slipped through the serpents net. So before
he could be the Savior of the world there must be an open contest with the
devil, because unless he can defeat this enemy of mankind there can be no
redemption.
The
first issue Jesus Christ had to face was to Fast or eat no food
for 40 days, which would have drained his natural energy and created a craving
in his natural body for food. Now the Tempter comes to test this man to check
on his integrity. Knowing his physical condition after having no food, he says,
If you are the son of God, inferring a doubt about his true
identity, command these stones be made bread. The tempter
is not foolish enough to tell him to do some wicked thing, but this is quite
legitimate because he was very hungry and it does not affect anyone else. But
that is not the issue for a Son of God, for a true son only DOES what he sees
his Father do, and only says what he hears his Father say. To simply do what
others may want you to do is not legitimate for a SON OF GOD, even if it seems
like a good thing to do. So Jesus responds to the tempter by quoting a
statement God made to Israel concerning the reason for their wilderness journey
so long ago. This is what he said, Deuteronomy 8:3 And he humbled
you, and suffered you to hunger, and fed you with manna, which you had no
knowledge of, neither did your fathers know; that he might make you to know
that man does not live just by eating natural bread only, but LIFE flows to you
through every word that IS PROCEEDING out of the mouth of the LORD.
The
life of a Son of God is not sustained by physical bread but flows from its
source which is Christ within us. The next test required Jesus to be taken into
the sacred precincts of the Temple in the Holy city of Jerusalem. Seated upon a
pinnacle of the Temple He is again instructed, If you are the Son
of God, cast yourself down because, it is also written that he shall give the
angels charge over you and in their hands they will bear you up lest at any
time you dash your foot against a stone. Jesus of course did
not do what the tempter told him to do, quoting again from the Old Testament,
It is written you shall not tempt the Lord thy God. Presumption
is not a suitable response for any action in the life of a Son of God. To act
that way is like we are demanding that God has to respond in a certain way
regardless of our motivation. The scriptures say, The lord searches the
Heart. The only true motivation for a son of God is true obedience to
the word and will of God.
The
third test saw him on a high mountain surveying the Kingdoms of the world and
the glory of them. Then the tempter said, All these will I give you, if
you will only bow down and worship me. But Jesus was not moved in any
way but replied quoting the scriptures again saying, Matthew 4:10
Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt
worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. So the
test was over and Jesus was victorious and declared to be the Son of God with
power over all his enemies. Jesus Christ was the LAST ADAM, which means that he
was the last of a whole generation of people, all of whom were the seed of the
woman who had been seduced by the serpent. God had told the serpent that he
would put enmity between the woman and the serpent. However, there would come a
SEED OF THE WOMAN that would crush the head of the serpent and the seed of the
serpent would bruise his heel. We must remember that the woman was an integral
part of the Man ADAM who was the Son of God created out of God.
Jesus
was born of a woman but she was a virgin, which means that she had never
received the SEED OF MAN for if she had, she would not have been able to birth
the Son of God. The seed of God according to Gal 3:16 is CHRIST, and Christ is
spirit and not a man. Christ is the spirit dwelling in all of mankind, and he
is the SEED OF GOD. Every seed contains within itself the very life of the one
from whom it came, therefore if you plant an orange seed you would only get an
orange tree. But the VIRGIN did not need the seed of MAN to bring forth a child,
because she already had the SEED OF GOD which is CHRIST, and that seed caused
her to conceive by the Holy Spirit who told her that the child she would bring
forth would be the SON OF GOD. Now we have just seen how the head of the
serpent was bruised by the SEED of the woman and Jesus Christ came away having
the victory which he won not just for himself, but for all mankind. Jesus said,
In this world you will have tribulation but be of good cheer for
I HAVE (already) OVERCOME THE WORLD (for you).
We
need to understand how Eves disobedience changed everything for
mankind. Remember that Adam did not sin as Paul told Timothy, but it was EVE
who was in the transgression. 1Tim 2:14. Because God never recognized the woman
as a separate entity, the disobedience is attributed to ADAM. Many Christians
have never understood what was involved with the eating of the fruit of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Religion suggests that Adam simply ate
an apple, without any spiritual understanding at all. We understand that the
Tree of Life represents Christ who declared himself to be the Way the
Truth and the Life. But what does the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil stand for? It is obvious that it represents a certain kind of
knowledge that is so profound that it changes the whole world in which we live.
We understand that all the Wisdom and Knowledge of the universe is to be found
in God, but there is a knowledge of a different character that is called the
Knowledge of GOOD and EVIL that has the power to transform us and our personalities
completely. Until the time when Eve took the fruit of that tree and ate it Adam
walked and talked with God in perfect union. If you had asked Adam what is
Evil, he would have looked at you and said, I have no
idea. In the entire world that God had created there was absolutely
nothing that was evil, for he declared after he had finished everything that it
is very GOOD. That word GOOD means that everything functioned
as it was intended, and fulfilled the will and purpose for which it was created
without exception, and this included the MAN.
When
Adam ate the fruit of that tree nothing in creation changed, for it was perfect
and on the seventh day God rested from all his work because it was FINISHED.
This is the divine creation with no beginning and no end, this is actually the
only true creation that there is. Because we have not seen nor are able to
comprehend that creation, most people do not believe that it exists. The reason
for this is we have embraced a knowledge that is not related to God nor is it
compatible with what God declares as being truth. Both Good and Evil are
comparable terms and are used to compare different things. But there is nothing
that we can use to compare with God, nor to compare with what God created for
it was all VERY GOOD, and there was nothing else. God is above and beyond
everything we know, but we in our ignorance have embraced a knowledge in which
good and evil represent reality, and we declare the right to determine what
everything is.
The
Prophet said in Isaiah 25:7 And he will destroy in this
mountain (of our raised consciousness) the face of the covering (of ignorance
and blindness) cast over all people, and the veil (restriction of vision) that
is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord
GOD will wipe away tears (of frustration) from off all faces; and the
Rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth:
for the LORD hath spoken it.
The
word Rebuke used here refers back to the highest rank of the
Priesthood which is the High Priest. In Israels history the High priest
had to belong to the family of Aaron and was appointed for life only changing
upon his death. He was the only member of the Priesthood allowed into the Most
Holy Place, behind the veil, and in sacred issues he was the final authority in
Israel. However, during the one hundred and seven years between King Herod the
Great and the destruction of the holy city, twenty eight persons held the High
Priests position. The Roman Authorities of the day had assumed the
right to appoint whoever they considered fit to hold that high and holy
position and power over the people. This was indeed a terrible Rebuke
to the people of Israel, degrading the highest divine authority established by
God to rule over his people Israel. Remember the High Priest was vitally
involved in the crucifixion of Christ during his trial.
However
a new priestly system had been established in the time of the New Testament
with every believer forming part of a Royal Priesthood and a Holy Nation under
the sovereign direction of CHRIST our High Priest. This New Priesthood made
Christ our High Priest, being developed under the New Order of
Melchisedec who is both a KING and a PRIEST, uniting the two roles which
formerly had been kept separate. The prophet Isaiah, makes it clear that in
these days of revelation there will be a clear elevation of the house of the
Lord, lifting truth above and beyond the realm of intellect and human
knowledge. This demands that we should recognize that Truth will not be
advertised on Billboards or simply available in books and writings, but it will
only be available by the spirit of the Lord. Jesus said, But the
comforter which is the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, HE
will guide you into all TRUTH and bring to your remembrance the things I have
said to you. In these words Jesus Christ is telling us that true spiritual
intelligence will not be available, in the multitude of human voices that fill
the airwaves today. But will be transmitted only through ONE VOICE and that is
the voice of the Holy Spirit who dwells within you.
In
a strange way it seems that Father is taking us back to the Garden of Eden
living under the same conditions under which Adam functioned back in the
beginning. In that Garden, GOD and MAN lived and functioned together in
beautiful harmony and peace, as spirit to spirit. Adam did not need to go anywhere
or to fulfill any kind of Ritual, in order to be intimate with God, because he
and God were O-N-E. Flesh and blood and spirit involve two different orders
that have no relevance to each other functioning in two different realms. Jesus
corrected the woman at the well, telling her that the transition in worship was
already set so that neither in This Mountain or in Jerusalem,
would be a requirement in order to worship God. True Worship will be
emancipated from both TIME and PLACE, representing both the religious world
(This Mountain) and Jerusalem (The people of God). The rivalries between these
two will disappear when true spirituality is fully realized. Jesus told the
disciples in Matt 24, that the Temple in Jerusalem was destined for destruction
which took place in AD. 70, ending the connection between Worship and a place
or building.
Jesus
told the Woman of Samaria a very important truth that God is SPIRIT, and those
who would worship him must also be spirit and living in the power of an endless
life. Man was created spirit in creation to be ONE WITH GOD. Spirit has its own
language which does not need words to communicate. Spirit has its own activity
that does not require actions to facilitate its function. Worship today for Gods
people, requires many words and actions following the function of religion and
heathenism, both of which know nothing of true worship. Worship cannot be
organized or controlled and must be completely spontaneous in each person.
This
is not the general consensus among Christians, for Worship is not spontaneous
so does not often take place in the home or workplace, but only under human
leadership when they are in a meeting. The reason for this is that it seems few
Christians see themselves as SPIRIT, so CHRIST is our true identity, and as he
said in John 10:30 that he was ONE WITH GOD. We tend to Worship God who is UP
THERE or OUT THERE somewhere, instead of going inward and finding CHRIST IN YOU
the hope of Glory. There is no such thing as God and me as separate entities,
nor that mortality and spirit can walk together in harmony. Creation was a
spiritual exercise including man, for God did not begin with dust as a material
substance and actually make a man. There was no formal activity required nor
was there any material necessary, for GOD SPOKE a WORD and that WORD became the
MAN. When God needed LIGHT he did not have to destroy darkness first, only to
SPEAK THE WORD, LIGHT BE, and light was. These are the
principles of spirit function that most Christians have not yet discovered,
because they still believe the lie of the serpent that they would become AS
GODS through knowledge.
This
whole question has come up so many times over the years that I want to discus
it more fully here. The difference between the two Trees in the Garden has not
really been understood. The tree of life represents God or Christ as the
absolute source of LIFE itself for all living creatures. To EAT
of that tree simply means to embrace that life of God as being the same life
that functions in me today which is both spiritual and eternal, and there is no
other. However life is not static so scripture says, to EAT the bread of LIFE,
To drink the water of life as from a living stream, to breathe in the air is to
breathe in Christ, so it suggests a continual partaking of that eternal life. A
child does not have one feed and then needs no more but they must continue to
eat, replenishing the life within. Our LIFE flows in a constant stream from its
source and is available at all times. But to appropriate that life requires no
manual effort of any kind nor any external help, but is as simple as breathing.
But
the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is different. It requires an
activity of a part of our humanity called the MIND to seek out knowledge that
is constantly expanding in the world in this 21st century. This now
includes a myriad of books that we must read. Mans view of everything
that we may feel is important of us to know. Then we have the internet where
millions of words are available right at our fingertips on every conceivable
subject. The Bible for most people is difficult to understand because it is a
spiritual book and can only be spiritually understood. It holds a most
important place in a Christians life being considered to be our
inerrant guide to truth. If that is true then please tell me how people in the
New Testament times could know truth because no one had a Bible? There were
scrolls in the Synagogue which contained the first 5 books of the Old Testament
but that was all. In fact for 1600 years no one had a BIBLE as we know it
today, as the printing press was not available, so how could all those people
know the truth?
The
place given to the Bible today by Christians has replaced the Tree of LIFE with
the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil. Such a statement will be challenged
by many but let me explain a little more. The Psalmist said, Thy WORD have I
hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. Most Christians consider the
Word refers to Verses in the Bible but this is not true. We
also read, Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light to my
path, and this also is thought to refer to the Bible, but this is
untrue also. John begins his Gospel saying, In the beginning was THE
WORD, but he was not saying that the Bible was there in the Beginning
with God and that the BIBLE WAS GOD. That would not make any sense, because the
WORD was a Person who exists because GOD SPOKE a WORD in the
beginning and that WORD was his son Jesus Christ. When God said, LIGHT
BE, then from that moment light existed.
If
we look carefully through the scriptures we discover the key to spiritual
knowledge is not by what has been written, but by what God is saying to us now.
You will notice that everything that God desired to do was done by speaking a
word. What God says to us has the power in itself to accomplish his will so as
we HEAR the word he speaks to us and act upon it, the power of God is released
to accomplish whatever he desires to do. 2 Peter 1:18 And this
voice which came from heaven (another world) we heard, when we were with him in
the holy mount. We have also a more sure WORD of
prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shines
in a dark place, illuminating our understanding, until the new day dawns, and
CHRIST arises as LORD in your hearts. Isa 55:10. For as the rain cometh down,
and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth,
and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and
bread to the eater. So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it
shall not return unto me until it shall have accomplished that which I
purposed, and it shall accomplish the thing that I sent it to do.
Every
miracle Jesus did was accomplished by Jesus Christ speaking a word. To the man
with the withered arm he said, Stretch forth your arm, and the
mans arm responded accordingly. No healing was necessary in terms of
dealing with sickness or disease, for Jesus knew that such had no true reality
for it is not part of creation. His direction to the disciples was to Preach
the Gospel of the Kingdom and heal the sick, because there is no sickness in
the Kingdom of God. Sickness is escalating on the earth in these days with more
and more diseases being discovered, and science will never stem the tide but
there is an anointing Jesus received which was promised hundreds of years
before he came to the earth by the Prophet Isaiah. Isaiah 61:1 The Spirit
of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good
tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to
proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that
are bound. To proclaim the time of our acceptance of the
LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God against the Seed of the
serpent and to comfort all that mourn.
This is our calling beloved and our equipment to accomplish the will and purpose of God, to see every knee bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ IS LORD to the glory of God. The word of the Lord spoken in Creation is still just as powerful today as it was then, to see everything that would oppose us or seek to limit us in our expression of Christ defeated and put under our feet. He took us into death in himself to destroy its power for ever, rising again on the third day triumphant over sin, death and the grave taking us with him. He did this so that we could in turn declare to the world that we are now part of that one who walked out of the tomb saying, I am he that liveth and was dead, and now I am alive for evermore and I hold in my hand the keys of the grave and death. This is not something we must hope for sometime in the future but is NOW OUR PRESENT REALITY IF WE CAN BELIEVE.