Insufficiency of
time:
In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God
in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was
made that has been made. John 1:1
I suppose it's
important to have a beginning even though we believe that God is without
beginning. It's nearly impossible for humans to free-associate a
'beginning-less' situation, though it's not so hard for us to think in terms of
'endless' one. This is because our animal nature takes nearly all things as
permanent and therefore 'endless'.
Nothing lasts forever
in this physical realm, all things pass away.
Still, we want to
think that because Genesis tells us "In the beginning" that there was
a beginning that was at a time to which we can count. We can comprehend it if
we can assign a number to it. We can be comfortable with it if we can match it
somehow to what we have learned or experienced. But it's not important that
Moses wrote about the creation as a literal six day event. What is important is
that Moses wrote about creation in the correct chronological order! If it took
60 bazillion years to accomplish through some sort of metamorphosis ... it's
more compelling to me than if it occurred in six days while Moses was watching
it.
"But do not
forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand
years, and a thousand years are like a day." 2 Peter 3:8
While I don't
agree with Darwin's
theory, I do think some natural selection takes place. One race is no better
than another is; but if natural selection didn't occur inter racial marriages
would have been more prevalent and the races would have long since blended into
one single color Similarly, one type of animal is no better than another. Some
cellular structures are compatible and some are not. None of this excludes
God's intervention in creation. On the contrary it speaks to an ever more
complicated design.
For long
centuries, God perfected the animal form which was to become the vehicle of
humanity and the image of himself. The creature may have existed in this state
for ages before it became man: it may even have been clever enough to make
things which a modern archeologist would accept as proof of its humanity. But
it was only and animal because all its physical and psychical were directed to
purely material and natural ends. Then, in the fullness of time, God caused to
descend on this organism, a kind of consciousness that could say "I"
and "me", which could look on itself as an object, which knew God and
could make judgments. But sooner or later they fell. Someone or something
whispered they could become Gods ... they wanted some corner in the universe
that they could say "This is ours not yours". But there is no such
corner. C.S. Lewis
For example, most
scientists believe that man began in Africa.
There, around two hundred thousand years ago, (they claim) a type of Adam and
Eve stumbled out of the jungle and began the race of human primates we call
homo-sapiens. I'm sorry ... I don't believe that. If the animal that is man,
the human-primate, had its start in a single place it was probably in what is
now China.
As the populations grew beyond the ability of the land to provide sustenance
these human primates spread to Mesopotamia, the Americas,
Africa, Australia,
and other places nearly simultaneously. Human primates are herding animals.
Logic dictates that they must have originated where the largest populations of
them exist. The rest of the human-primates are cast-offs. This pattern is true
if you believe in 'Intelligent Design', evolution, or a short term creation. It
would certainly hold true in a model of God creating a planet! The human
primate didn't evolve by accidental fitness selection; it was by the design,
process, and command of God.
All the plants on
earth didn't start in a single sprig; they started at the command of God. All
the myriad of birds didn't start from a single egg; they started at the command
of God. [Yes, I think birds are dinosaurs.] I don't see how all the thousands
species of animals currently on Earth evolved from a single bit of primordial
sludge!
Insufficiency of
evolutionary models:
Interestingly,
all the theories and all the beliefs of how God created the Heavens and Earth
are meaningless, as it applies to us. The duration of the creation of the
animal carcass of man is inconsequential in relation to the story of creation
when you see that the first book of the Bible, the first book of Moses, teaches
us the true secret of humanity. The Genesis record of the creation of
"man" has two parts. The first creation of "man" is where
God created "man" in his image.
"So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." Genesis 1:27
What is the image
of God? How can it be that "male and female" are created as one?
Jesus taught us
about this. It was a recurrent theme in his teachings.
"God is spirit and his worshipers must
worship in spirit and in truth." John 4:24
"You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. But about the resurrection of the dead-have you not read what God said to you, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead but of the living."
Matthew 22:29
Genesis records a
second record of the creation of "man." It's found in Genesis the
second chapter. This is where the human animal (primate) body was created that
God made to house the "man" he had created (in his own image) in
chapter one. I don't think it's an accentuation of the first creation of man,
there is no indication that Moses was inspired to write about any segment of
the creation event twice. So the second record is exactly what it appears to
be, a second creation event.
"The LORD
God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life, and the man became a living being."
Genesis 2:7
Genesis 2:7
Compare this to
what Jesus taught us.
"Destroy
this temple, and I will raise it again in three days." The Jews replied,
"It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to
raise it in three days?" But the temple he had spoken of was his body.
After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said.
Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. John 2:19
"For while
we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be
unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal
may be swallowed up by life." 2 Corinthians 5
If we weren't
children of God we'd just be animals and really no different from apes. Said
differently, if we have no spirit generated by God we truly are just advanced
primates. We're not apes; we are spirits, in a symbiotic relationship with a
complex material body for the purposes of God.
There is only one
God. Only one Father. Only one body. Only one faith. Only one spirit. Over all,
through all, and in all. Eph. 4:4-6
Our heavenly
Father isn't an animal and he didn't create children different from himself.
The Bible tells us (and we know from science) that the fruit is of the same
species as the plant on which it grows and that animals are born of the same
species as their parents. Everything God created brought forth after its own
kind! (Gen. 1:11-12, 1:21-22, 1:24-25) The most important of these was the
verse in Genesis when God created man in his own image. This doesn't indicate
that the human primate is the same species as God!
Insufficiency of
logic:
As such our
perception of God [being animal] became technological. We began to think there
was a magical formula we could use to get God to do things for us. God's
thoughts [being spiritual] are much higher than our animal intellect can ever
hope to comprehend. He hasn't changed, he is not responding to our spells when
he showers us with his blessings.
Imagine driving
in your car with your dog. Even with its head stuck out the window of your car,
that dog has no comprehension of the speed (though it loves the wind). The dog
thinks it's standing still ... its not running ... so it's standing still. Have
you never seen a dog 'step off' a moving vehicle? This is because the dog can't
comprehend the machinery of man.
Trying to
comprehend God by human-primate observation is similar to this. Unless you
grasp the spiritual aspect you can't grasp the concept. Likewise, applying
belief to acquisition is fruitless.
As the heavens
are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts
than your thoughts. As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not
return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that
it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes
out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I
desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. Isaiah 55:9-11
Insufficiency of
imagination:
Here is a baby
who covers its eyes playing peek-a-boo. "Where's mommy?" The child
uncovers its eyes and mommy sings, "There she is!" This game was
invented to teach the baby that inability to see mommy is not equal to mommy
being gone. In the early infancy babies equate the inability to see mommy to
mommy's complete absence. So by playing peek-a-boo baby can imagine mommy is
gone and re-appearing at will.
Similarly, human
primates created an imaginary 'box'. Into that box we imagine we are able to
put our Father. Then we imagine that by virtue of our own will we can
arbitrarily send the box off into the far reaches of outer space, because
direct knowledge of God and relationship with him is frightening. Adam, and
every other human primate since Adam, rejects unity with God as a personal
Father by believing the original lie that we can have something, anything, that
is ours exclusively not his. But in the same manner as the baby covering its
eyes doesn't make mommy disappear, so also imagining God is not present is
irrational.
The original lie
of Lucifer is that we can somehow evolve to become equal to God. We still cling
to this corner in the universe that we can say is ours not God's. Recall how
God walked and talked with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? It was after
Adam disobeyed (or truly disbelieved God's word) that he began to hide. Human
primates have been hiding ever since. We are still hiding today. In our secret
most being there are things we don't want anyone else to know and we think we
are keeping them secret from God too. There are things we hide from everyone
... sometimes even from ourselves.
Insufficiency of
the secret:
There is a great
need, it seems, to have something private, something unknown by anyone,
something exclusively ours, but there is no such a place or thing. Using your
faith to accomplish success works, but using faith for the accomplishment
earthly success fails to create completeness of character that true
relationship with God brings. Only by addressing your spiritual 'man', only by
seeking first the Kingdom
of God, do we attain
complete success.
Your belief
doesn't cause a thing to be true. Believing you can evolve to be equal with God
doesn't enable your evolution to that level. Likewise believing alone will not
change a situation because "faith without works is dead."
God's creativity
is limitless, so is his awareness of all the needs, desires, and beliefs of
everyone. He already knows what you need before you ask him for it. Next time
something happens "just in the nick of time," inspect it thoroughly
and see everything God had to put into place for that occurrence. How long
before you even knew you had a need did God begin to put the response into
action?
As an example,
you find yourself at a red traffic signal; you want the light to be green. Is
your will more important than all those other people who want their signal to
be green as well? Similarly, we are required in some cases to believe for a
long time while all the opposing forces come into alignment so that our
blessing isn't a negative to someone else. If we never approach the light to
await the green whether green occurs or not is immaterial because faith without
works is dead.
Your unbelief
doesn't cause it to be untrue. Similarly, not believing God actually performed
creation doesn't make God an imaginary being created by primitive humans who
worshiped fire. Your not believing in a living God has no affect on God. Not
being at the light ready for it to turn green doesn't mean it will never turn
green.
There is a
graphic and tragic example of this on the television news as I write this
paragraph. In San Francisco
a boy was killed by a tiger that leapt from its containment area. I'm not
judging or accepting that what I've heard is true, but I've heard the boy was
taunting the cat. Surely he didn't believe the cat could get out of the
enclosure. No one believed the three hundred fifty pound cat could jump that
high or that far. Their unbelief had no affect on the tiger. Similarly,
believing that God doesn't exist has no affect on God's existence.
Insufficiency of
behavior:
Romans 11:32
reads that (you need to read all of Romans) God bound all humans to sin so that
he could show mercy to all humans. Our Father in his infinite love for us sent
another to redeem us from that sin. Because of this, we cannot say "I
earned it!" or "God owes me!" There is only one way that God
allows the bondage of sin (that he bound humans in) to be removed and that is
through Jesus. This Jesus was the second Adam who did obey and conquered death
and breathed into us the living spirit the second time!
We can't be good
enough to earn our place with God. God will not allow it.
If we want to be
with God we must accept the way he provided. We cannot take credit away from
him. He will not allow us to place ourselves on an equal footing with him. No
artifice of our own ingenuity can be used as a way to heaven. If you don't like
that, get over it!
I had a dog for
years. She was the best dog you ever saw. Her name was Arrow. I sincerely
believe that dog loved me. I think she was sent by God to be there is some very
trying times. But when she died, she died a dog. No matter how much she loved
me, no matter how well she behaved or obeyed my commands she could not live
eternally as a human. In the same manner, there is no human primate way to
reach eternal life.
Insufficiency of
blaming God:
I was raised in a
'Christian' Communist Cult called the 'Move'; in abject poverty, denied
education beyond the eighth grade and made to work as a slave for the 'elders'
of the Cult. At the point where I finally was old enough to leave this
environment I was still too young to be wise enough to know that adults were
simply taller and older and that didn't mean they were correct. Upon leaving I
turned my back on God because there was no place in my mind for God if he was
what I was taught in the cult. It took me a few years to finally realize that
God wasn't the cause of the cult; it wasn't his fault even if he did allow it
to exist. All things work for good, even the things we think are severe.
I had to learn
that environment had shaped who I was, but it wasn't wise to allow this and I
didn't have to remain in the pit. Because I literally came from nothing, and
nowhere, I can write this book with some authority. My experience may help
others climb from their past too.
Sufficiency of
the Redeemer:
Man was created
as a spirit, in the image of God. Then God, our Father, created the material body
in which that spirit could reside. He "breathed" into the nostrils of
the human primate he had just created the "breath of life." Not the
breath of physical life; this breath is the Spirit of our Father. He moved the
spirit being (created in his image) into the human primate! Interestingly, the
term 'breathed into him [the breath of life]'; is used only once more in the
Bible. It's used in those last days of Jesus (after the resurrection) when he
breathed on the disciples and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit." (John
20:22)
Jesus truly is
the redeemer, or reviver, of the human spirit. The primate lost contact with
the Spirit of God in what we refer to as 'the fall of man' when Adam disobeyed
the command of God and then tried to hide it. As soon as Adam ate the banana,
his spiritual awareness became focused on the 'secret corner' he suddenly
needed to protect. He killed his link to God. That link went inactive, within
him. He became afraid, defensive, and physical. His inability to communicate
with God was not because God didn't want to communicate but because his link
had been revoked. The 'secret corner' he thought was his; the corner he
'needed' to protect from God; the corner he thought he could keep from God,
prevented his communication with God.
Using a modern
example, an infected computer is prevented from spreading a virus by the
revoking its ability to access to the network. Similarly, the human primate's
protected secret corner prevents him from communicating with God. The irony of
this is that such a corner doesn't exist, and the effort to keep it private is
the ultimate definition of sin. As time passed and human primates became more
dependent on their physical solutions all spiritual contact with our Father was
lost. In men's primate mind the Father became an imperial god. Spiritually dead
human primates relegated our Father to a far away and distant kingdom. In
effect men created god! Does this mean we cast God out or that he doesn't exist
so we sculpted Him in "our own image"? Was God created by the rich
few to control the masses? No! This means we created a belief, a delusion in
our own animal intellect that God was somewhere and something else. But,
calling a dog's tail a leg doesn't give the dog five legs, the tail is still a
tail.
Just because we
believe God is far away and unapproachable doesn't make it so. When we think
only as human primates we are incapable of understanding God. This is because
all of our human primate's thoughts are based on a single basic animal
instinct: SURVIVE. All animal thought is rooted in that one thought. All other
animal thoughts spring only from that one thought.
Sufficiency of
Grace:
No matter how
creation happened, if it took six hours, six days or six b'zillion years ...
one day there was a human primate, whom God made to house the "man"
created in his image. That human primate indwelled by a child of God, became
self aware and sinned by creating a secret space in which he thought he
eliminated God's spirit. Through that man's lineage Jesus came to the world,
the son of God, and Mary.
The highest
reality that exists is this:
Jesus is the way,
the truth and the life.
No one comes to
the Father except by Him.
Sure, the
'secret' is that you can use your faith to think your way to success. Faith
does bring universal results. God is a good God; He sends rain on the just and
the unjust; He makes the sun rise on the good and the evil. Likewise, the law
of faith applies if you believe in Jesus or not. You can use the law of
attraction to generate the world you want. But you will be missing the most
important part of your life if you don't accept into your very soul the highest
spiritual reality there is. Your human primate animal carcass is the house, the
place where your God breathed spirit dwells and if you tap into that power, if
you believe, God Himself gives you the power to become a child of God! His
spirit quickens you and brings your spirit to life, and that life is abundant
and eternal. Jesus prepared the way. Though it's difficult, you need to follow
him.
"You don't
have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body."
C.S. Lewis
Summary:
As you begin this
journey realize you aren't simply an evolved animal but a spirit being housed
in a specifically designed animal housing. This realization is important
because if there is no power higher than the animal house in which you dwell
there is no hope that you can accomplish anything more than nesting, breeding,
feeding, dying, and rotting. You may be able to build the most elaborate nest
anyone has ever seen but it will be nothing more than a nest. Your money will
rot in the bank and your name and face will be forgotten as the sands of time
wear it away.
In ancient times
God created man. Man, like a child trying to understand, but God in measure was
much too grand, for man's animal reason to comprehend. Evil was sufficient; it
has said, "There is no God; God is dead." Millennia passed; man's
memories don't last. Reason and logic each demand, "Where's the evidence
of God's hand?" Then man's science saw God's acts, only in spirit, that's
a fact! "Energy," man called it. "It's all pervasive, permeates
all things, and eternally exists; 'Nature evolved everything with it.'"
... Still, calling a dog's tail a leg doesn't give the dog five legs.
Change your
perception of who you are:
Before you
implement change it is important to understand where you are and who you are.
Think for a few minutes about these things. Ask yourself, "Who am I?"
Don't look at what you do for a living. The answer isn't how poor or rich you
are or even what country you are in. These are all external things. You are a
child of the living God! Who are you and what do you want? Who do you want to
be? You didn't come to be who you are by chance. Energy and evolution didn't
conspire to spew you from the primordial sludge as if you were some bit of
rejected flotsam.
Now we know that
if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an
eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing
to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will
not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened,
because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly
dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is God who
has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit,
guaranteeing what is to come. 2 Corinthians 5:1-5
God's promise:
God loves you - you're his child. How great is the love the Father has lavished
on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! 1
John 3:1
Success Key: You
are a spirit that has a body, act like it. You're a child of God and he loves
you.
Sing out: So
often times it happens that we live our lives in chains, and we never even know
we have the key. The Eagles
This is the first
in a series of articles that together form "The Gospel According to
Timothy".
