Sabbath Run Amok ...

Perhaps the most challenged Commandment of the Ten, and most challenging to keep, is the fourth one that ordained in stone what Adam and Eve were long ago familiar with.  The Sabbath is more than just a Commandment God gave to Moses on Sinai.  It is an institution established at the very creation of our world.  It is something God setup to mark the conclusion of His creation of this world, and His intent to fellowship with us His new creations.  It was setup before sin.  As was marriage and family, institutions God setup with no expiration date, or need to change them.  Sin did not alter what God setup, at least from God’s perspective.  But sin caused us to pollute what God setup and what He intended.  Both marriage and family as well as the Sabbath fellowship with God have suffered and decayed over the 6000+ years since they began.  But all of God’s institutions will be restored when we are taken home, purified from the effects of sin and evil, and restored to the plans God created that were not intended to expire in the first place.  But if you look around you today, you see the entire concept of the Sabbath as one of great controversy (not unlike what is happening with the state of marriage and family as well).  What God setup, Satan is intent on tearing down.

Between Adam and Noah institutions like the Sabbath were handed down Father to Son orally.  While this period lasted 2000 years, the generations that lived before the flood had long average ages so there were not actually that many of them between creation and the Flood.  From Noah to Abraham the same tradition of Father to Son were present, but men had even less desire to keep to a fellowship with God.  By the time Abraham arrives on the scene he is forced to ponder who God is, and because he is nearly the only one looking, he is the only one who finds our God.  Once again Father to Son is established.  But many years later Egyptian slavery nearly wipes out the traditions and Moses must establish a written tradition to commemorate the Sabbath in stone written by the very finger of God. 

When the children of Israel wander through the desert, they are given a living example of the freedom of Sabbath when manna comes in double portion on Fridays that will last through Sabbath, but on no other day does it behave so.  As the years go by the prophet Isaiah writes of celebrating the Sabbath (note the concept of celebration) in heaven for eternity.  Isaiah is given a glimpse at what God had in mind for the Sabbath as it was God’s day off with us (not the other way around).  We did nothing to make the Sabbath Holy, God did that with His particularly special presence.  We were supposed to remember that, and honor His time with our time, insuring we do not impend on anyone else’s time with our same God.  Yet instead of a celebration, the Sabbath became an institution of rules; of can’s, and cannot’s.

By the time church leadership was done with it, the Sabbath became an onerous, nearly unkeepable, fully depressing period of time, people were guilted into following each week.  The idea of time off with God was replaced with what you cannot do, a list so long it was way too hard to remember at all.  In our day Sabbath observance for those who believe the day has been changed to Sunday (though there is not a single example of this in scripture, or in the behavior and example of what Jesus did or said) consists of “going to church”.  Once church is complete, the day returns to the worshipper to do with as he sees fit.  When you ask folks who believe Sabbath is on Sunday how they celebrate it, the most common answer is “going to church”.  When you ask them what they do after that, the celebration breaks down fairly quickly to whatever routine tasks they do any other day.  But don’t jump on the criticism bandwagon too quickly just yet. 

For those folks who believe Sabbath is on Saturday as God originally created and intends for eternity; the answer to how they celebrate Sabbath is exactly the same.  Number one answer: they go to church.  When asked what they do after that, there are a few other activities that come up.  Potluck feasts, sundown worship sessions, and maybe some nature related activities when weather and location permit.  Sounds better in principle, but not that much in reality.  Most of these folks in reality spend Sabbath afternoons sleeping (cause there is not much else they are allowed to do).  In either case, you will hear a million different excuses about why Sabbath observance is not really needed anymore anyway other than to pay it the nominal attention of “going to church”.  After that it is up to the worshipper what they do on it, no matter what day they believe Sabbath is on.  A degeneration based on a rules philosophy and enforced by the enemy of God that would see the celebration of Sabbath with our God descend into something else entirely.  Namely routine.

Routines are something we humans cling to very tightly.  We use them to keep from “breaking” the Sabbath.  The Pharisees has the same concept more than 2000 years ago in the time of Christ.  But what you and I think is on the list of do’s and don’ts is not even how God thinks at all.  For Jesus the Sabbath is awesome because for at least one day in seven, we turn our eyes to Him.  He is always with us, but we so rarely turn our eyes away from what we normally do, and give Him any attention at all.  He set aside His time to be with us.  Just in doing that Jesus made Sabbath Holy.  His presence makes something Holy.  When Moses approached the burning bush, God asked him to remove his sandals because the place were he was standing was “Holy” ground.  That patch of land was not normally holy.  It was holy because God was there.  The same is true of Sabbath, it is Holy because Jesus is with us.  And in the time of Christ, this was never more true.  Jesus was there.  And when Jesus was there, the fellowship with God was really ALL that mattered.  The Pharisees (and most of us unfortunately) don’t even come close to this way of thinking.  We are looking for lists of restrictions, while God is looking to spend focused time, without the distractions of the norms of our lives.

And so conflict between the position of church leadership and our God was sure to reveal itself.  Luke recounts this conflict in the sixth chapter of his gospel letter to his friend about our beliefs and why we hold them.  Keep in mind Luke wrote his gospel long after these events occurred.  If there had ever been a change in the day from Saturday to Sunday, Luke could have easily noted that in his gospel.  He did not.  No change had occurred, nor should man presume he is able to change what God setup, and still call it Holy.  More like disaster.  But the conflict back in the days of Christ was not about which day Sabbath was on, but about what is “allowed” to do on the Sabbath at all.  Luke picks up in verse 1 saying … “And it came to pass on the second sabbath after the first, that he went through the corn fields; and his disciples plucked the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands. [verse 2] And certain of the Pharisees said unto them, Why do ye that which is not lawful to do on the sabbath days?”

A little irony for you, the church leaders telling the author and creator of the Sabbath, what He and His people can do on His day.  But the Pharisees had taken the example of the Israelites in the time of Moses where manna was given in double portion on Fridays and lasted without spoiling all the way through Saturday as a “law” that food preparation should be done the day before the Sabbath so that no cooking was ever done “on” Sabbath.  The idea of serving others on Sabbath never entered their minds.  The idea of loving others through service freely given never entered their minds.  The Pharisees had a very self-centric viewpoint of Sabbath.  The Sabbath is about me.  What I do.  What I cannot do.  Others are only incidental to my Sabbath.  I shall not employ them.  But other than that, they are irrelevant to “my” Sabbath.  The response of Jesus did not reprimand them for their desire to minimize food preparation to make the Sabbath even more free from distraction.  Instead Jesus points them to David (one of their heroes) and recalls an incident where David ate food prepared for priests alone, and gave it to his men as well.  It was not the act of David that was Ok.  It was the Lord over the rules who loved His servant and made an exception for David, as Jesus could make an exception for His disciples valuing fellowship and trust, more than strict rules that destroy fellowship altogether.

Luke continues in verse 3 saying … “And Jesus answering them said, Have ye not read so much as this, what David did, when himself was an hungred, and they which were with him; [verse 4] How he went into the house of God, and did take and eat the shewbread, and gave also to them that were with him; which it is not lawful to eat but for the priests alone? [verse 5] And he said unto them, That the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.”  Jesus identifies Himself as LORD of the Sabbath.  God created the Sabbath.  Therefore Jesus is also our Creator and God.  This example of the disciples feeding themselves (gleaning in a field) is not one to endorse theft, or eating out on Sabbath, or minimizing food preparation, or making your act of love serving others food on Sabbath.  This was about keeping your eye on the ball.  Being with Jesus is more important than ANY other distraction.  “How” you honor Jesus is not up for debate.  “That” you honor Jesus is the salient point.  If your idea of honoring time with Jesus is to force or hire others to serve you in order for you to be free (you forget that your love for those others should have left them free to honor our God as well).  Making the excuse that they would have working anyway whether you are there or not, is not making any statement about them, but it does make a statement about you, about how you think, and about how you value them, or love them.  Loving others drives a different way of thinking about the celebration of Sabbath.  Not about what you can and cannot do, but about how you can share the love of God, and thereby fellowship with Jesus even when Jesus cannot be seen today.

But the Pharisees had established routines far more extreme than this.  They had lost all value for others.  The care of the sick did not outweigh the obligation to do no work on the Sabbath.  Get that, people, less than rules.  The sharing of love was fully absent in that thinking.  But it was and is not absent in the thinking of our God.   Luke continues in verse 6 saying … “And it came to pass also on another sabbath, that he entered into the synagogue and taught: and there was a man whose right hand was withered. [verse 7] And the scribes and Pharisees watched him, whether he would heal on the sabbath day; that they might find an accusation against him. [verse 8] But he knew their thoughts, and said to the man which had the withered hand, Rise up, and stand forth in the midst. And he arose and stood forth. [verse 9] Then said Jesus unto them, I will ask you one thing; Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? to save life, or to destroy it? [verse 10] And looking round about upon them all, he said unto the man, Stretch forth thy hand. And he did so: and his hand was restored whole as the other. [verse 11] And they were filled with madness; and communed one with another what they might do to Jesus.”

And here is where popularity goes right out the window.  Jesus healed on Sabbath because our God does not take the concept of Him taking a day off as meaning He abandons everything He does to keep us alive and well.  If God just stopped turning planets, sending rain, reminding you to breath – we all die in an instant.  That is not His idea of making a day Holy.  It is about spending time with us.  When we see the suffering, how can we just leave them in that condition, just because it is Sabbath – then call ourselves Sabbath observers.  Love does not take a day off.  Love is constant ever present.  But then Love does not ask for anything in return either.  Jesus did not demand payment for services rendered.  So many purported Sabbath keepers pick medical careers in order to be able to “work” on Sabbath.  And so they do.  They “work” in the service of healing, but share no love because they feel no love.  They get paid for services rendered because why wouldn’t they?  They get overtime and shift differentials and actually prefer to work on Sabbaths because it pays better.  And hey it is all legal – because of this story in the gospels.  But legal is not the goal – loving is.

How Jesus healed, was why Jesus ate with His disciples.  Because He loved them and us, and wants to share with us in the joy of fellowship.  His joy is not blind to our needs, but ever trying to meet our needs.  It is a reflection of His love for us.  Love does not demand payment.  Nor does love look for distractions from a time with God.  For those who heal, or serve others in any capacity on Sabbath, because it is a reflection of their love for others – no man should judge.  Many work on Sabbath serving communities, or nations, or the sick, or in critical functions like utilities – where if they should stop working many others would suffer or die.  These professions are honorable.  And if they serve from love, they honor the Sabbath of their God.  But if they merely serve for careers, thinking not about who they serve or why, and focusing more on the money it takes to support them, their debts, their families, than they do about sharing love.  Perhaps they should find different professions, or seek the Lord, to find different hearts in the same professions.  The Sabbath is not about what we can and cannot do.  It is about who we love, how we love, and how we honor God’s time with our own.

Putting away distractions we can do any other of the six days in our week, allows us to focus on Jesus even more on His day.  I can shop anytime.  But on His day, I want to do something for Him.  I can entertain myself anytime.  But on His day, I want my entertainment to bring me closer to Him, to give me another insight into Him, and to motivate me to do something for Him.  I work because I need to,  But on His day, I want to free myself from the concerns of my career.  I want to keep as many others as I can free from theirs as well, avoiding putting them in positions where they are required to serve me.  But none of this matters, if I forget who I love, how I love, and why His love can live in me in the first place.  My Creator is also my re-Creator.  His gift of the Sabbath to me, is more precious to me than gold.  And I only hope He will continue to help me find better ways to explore the celebration of His day, in this world, and in the next one.

 

What is Creation ...

There is a difference between true creation and mere innovation.  There is even a difference between invention and creation.  When humanity endeavors to express itself creatively, or wishes to invent something in order to make a task easier, in general these expressions utilize available knowledge and materials, building something new from the combinations at hand.  A musician for example generally uses instruments that already exist to “create” a series of new sounds that in combination form a new song, sometimes with new words that convey the thoughts and feelings of the composer.  As the new composition is unique, it is considered new.  A painter uses paints and a canvas that is generally available, rarely inventing a new one, putting them in a new form, perhaps using a new technique, that in combination form new art.  Similarly an engineer or inventor uses available items, and perhaps a new assembly technique to form a new invention.  All these methods generally build upon the knowledge we have amassed to date, add new elements from the mind of the creative, and form a new composition to present to the world.  Creation requires more than that.

True creation would for a musician imply the entirely new invention of a new musical instrument, not a derivative of brass, strings, percussion, or even synthesized sound, but something no one has ever heard; perhaps something no one conceived was even possible to accomplish.  Then based on the new instrument, the composer would develop a new series of sounds that would dazzle the ears and enlighten the mind, or better still, stimulate a part of the brain that had hitherto been unexplored causing a chemical reaction in the listeners that they had never experienced.  Few musicians aspire to this level of creative expression.  I imagine the first harp, the first song, and the first use of voices in singing rather than in merely communicating was the true “creation” of music in heaven.  Since its inception, other musical instruments or tools have been added to the repertoire, and voices have been honed according to pitch and tenor to form not only fantastic soloists but excellent combinations in choral form.  These innovations have radically improved music from one generation to the next, but in general they are variances on a theme, not true creation.  True creation began with nothing prior in existence and then emerged.

There are those in our world who discard the idea of an omnipotent God in favor of “scientific” theory and the natural evolution of time, events, and elements.  While we might be able to witness the adaptation of a species of plant life or animal life to find a way to coexist with its environment, the time constraints prohibit us from ever witnessing the transition of one species to another, particularly when we are discussing complex species such as mammals.  We can theorize that single celled organisms could eventually evolve into more complex forms of life, continuing to evolve until that level of complexity looks more like the life we see around us.  But these theories share a fundamental commonality with a belief in an omnipotent God whether they wish it or not; both rely on the existence of “something” beyond what we measure as space and time.  For believers this answer is God, for evolutionists this answer might be the hydrogen atom that gathered together to eventually form the big bang; regardless, “something” must have just always been.  For believers we accept that God invented life as we know it.  For evolutionists another problem exists in that to date, no combination of periodic table elements has ever produced a living organism of any kind.  So further speculation exists within the scientific community that certain gases could exist in certain conditions to form proteins that might somehow congeal into the first living organism, yet these hypotheses remain incomplete and thus far unable to be proven.  For life as we know it to have evolved from the nothingness of space and the combinations of the hydrogen atom (or God particle) that formed the big bang is perhaps a greater miracle than anything described in scripture.  Yet for some this line of reasoning is easier to accept than to have to believe we owe our existence to something greater than ourselves.

The first angel that came into existence did so, because our omnipotent God chose to express Himself creatively.  New sentient life was formed.  There were no-one else’s ideas to borrow upon for this inception.  There were no predated materials to use or amassed knowledge to vary once again.  It was genesis.  It was origin.  It was non-existent one moment, and then existent the next.  Perhaps the plans for what was to be included in the advent of angels took time beyond what we could measure.  Perhaps the development or plans to include senses occurred first; perhaps they were created and integrated into sentient life over time.  But think about the simple sense of smell for example.  Different material combinations of life and decay as we know it producing an odor that is invisible to the eyes, yet causes both pleasant and unpleasant reactions in our brains to the stimuli.  Indeed the loss of our ability to smell radically reduces our enjoyment of food, which in itself warrants a degree of scrutiny as a process that must at one point have been invented by God as well.  The sense of smell is not required for life to exist.  But it makes life better.  The same applies to sight, sound, touch, and taste.  While there are commonalities between life in the various species in our world, scripture teaches birds and fish predated animals, which predated man; commonality between them, but such a difference between a “living” tree, and a “living bird”, and a “living” man.  We believe the tree understands nothing, the bird understands little, and man is capable of understanding much.  But all were created from the mind of our God who understands everything.

And beyond that which we can reasonably measure are things created by God that we are only beginning to understand over time.  Concepts, like love, mercy, forgiveness – and their contrasting counterparts like selfishness, hate, pain, and death.  The knowledge of the latter was something we were not meant to know, as this knowledge could only be found in experience on our part.  Yet to define love escapes concrete terms.  There are many definitions, or forms of love.  Parental, fraternal, romantic to name a few; love is defined as more than just feeling, but in actions, deeds, and words as well.  Love seems impossible to measure fully though the living embodiment of love in the life of Christ serves as a testament to what love truly is.  Believers are aware that we do not deserve the gift our God chooses to give us.  We have done nothing to warrant eternal life or bliss of any kind, rather our deeds often cause pain to ourselves and to others.  If left to ourselves our existence would be nothing but a series of pain upon pain until death itself was the only release from the suffering we cause ourselves and others.  Life itself is not worth living absent love in all of its forms.  Yet love is not required under theories of evolution, yet ever present under beliefs in a loving God.

It appears that our ability to be “original” or to pro-create is another reflection of being created in the image of our God.  Each of us has a unique combination of skills, aptitudes, interests, and abilities that when applied can produce new variations or combinations that are unique to our expressions to the world.  This too, the desire and ability to vary and invent, seems to be something instilled within us by our truly creative God.  It appears our God does appreciate individuality and uniqueness in the life He creates.  We each have unique DNA, unique retinal scans, and unique fingerprints to name a few.  While God created mankind, He did not simply create a master model such as Adam, with many cloned duplicates.  Instead we are created male and female, and each of us with unique purpose, and unique individuality.  We all function the same, eat the same, sleep, love, etc., yet we remain distinct from each other.  Even the animal life reflects this distinction.  We love our pets, yet no two of them have ever been exact replicas of each other, in looks, personality, etc.. – each of them is unique as well. 

It is important to understand that our God is more than love, and more than omnipotent, and more than simply the being we worship.  It is important to know that our God creates.  He did not begin creating with us, as angels predate us, it is almost a certainty that other sentient life may exist prior to us as well.  Therefore it seems reasonable that when evil has ended, humanity has gone home to be with our God, and the eons of time begin to pass; the process of creation may begin anew.  But for now, in this world, in our time, in our lives – creation or perhaps better stated re-creation is something all of us require.  Knowing that God is able to create and re-create is critical to our present and our future.  For our embrace of evil has warped the designs of God at our inception.  We have perverted the perfect designs of our origin and those effects have only intensified over time.  Thus it is with evil; it always begins small, and grows slowly and insidiously until it is beyond comprehension.  It is so with us.  The disease affects more than actions, it infects our motives, and our thinking – blinding us to truth, causing us to desire our condition and reject help or relief.  Evil is a slavery unto itself, which binds the heart and mind until the hands and feet comply with regularity.

If we are to escape our condition, it will require God to re-create within us, what we have given away by choice and repetition.  We need new hearts, new minds, and new motives.  We need a restoration of even the desire to be better than we are.  Our faith itself must be planted within us as it is no longer native to our thinking or desires.  God must be the author of our faith, lest we never find even the possibility of belief to come to us naturally.  Our natural inclinations are not towards perfection or heaven, they are away from them.  We, like the tempter who first ensnared us, seek first things to please ourselves, not others.  Our pursuit of self leads us away from God, away from love, away from life, and towards pain and death.  We are powerless to turn away, or even slow the process.  We are addicted.  Only God can break this cycle.  Only a God who is able to remove and recreate what must be removed and recreated within us can restore us to the design He originally intended for us.  If our God is not a creator, then our destiny is assured destruction.  If our God did not create our world as scripture outlines in the first few chapters of Genesis, if instead He only seeded life as a process and let evolution takes its course, then our only relief will come at the grave, and our lives are completely devoid of meaning.  Those believers who would pick and choose which parts of scripture they choose to believe in or take literally, rob our God of His ability to save us from ourselves through the miracle of re-creation.  It is our only hope of deliverance from the condition in which we find ourselves.

Re-creation will reach its fulfillment one day in an instant, but it begins in the here and now.  We will not reach heaven, only then to decide we wish to change, only then to decide we accept the gift of regeneration and change God wishes to impart to us.  Those decisions to change begin here, they begin now.  Lest we accept the deluded ideas that our evil condition is preferable and we can “wait” to find the change God offers, consider for a moment the picture described in Revelation of the lost souls who at the end of all time fall to their knees acknowledging the Creator as worthy, then rise only to try to slay Him and take the city by force.  Death is their only release, as even then, they do NOT choose to change, but wish to kill instead.  No, if we are to avoid being in this crowd of the unrepentant even in the face of the end of all things, we must begin in the here and now, by accepting the gift of salvation our God offers.  It is not the lake of fire God is saving us from, it is the desire to jump in that lake.  It is not the final and full release that death alone can bring to the unrepentant soul, it is the ability to learn how to live in the here and now and avoid pain entirely that God wishes to give us.  God wishes to give us life.  It is our disease that impairs our judgment and makes us wish to avoid this gift or put it off into the future.  It is warped thinking that prefers self-mutilation to healing and recovery.  And it is only by intervention from our God, that we are even able to make a clear decision in order to be healed and re-created.

But what a difference in the life of one who will submit and accept what he is offered by our God of creation and love.  Joy begins immediately.  Peace that cannot be touched by the world, or even by disease and death, peace that cannot be understood outside of a life in the process of re-creation begins in the here and the now.  Re-creation brings a relief from pain.  The world around us may not be any different, our circumstances may not change at all, in fact they may get worse, but what is altered within us is fundamental change for the better.  Without the shackles of our slavery to evil, we are able to finally begin to understand the blessing of service to others.  We are able to begin to learn what it means to love.  We begin to understand that the expression of selfless love to another is the height of joy within ourselves.  These concepts are foreign to the enslaved mind.  Effort for others looks like work, and unpleasant tasks to the mind of one outside the process of re-creation.  We may perform our “good deeds” to satisfy the twinges of guilt our conscience brings us, but take no genuine joy in what we do.  Outside the process of re-creation, there is not a real change in “who” we are.  Our general desires and thinking remain the same, regardless of our actions.  This is why re-creation is so important.  It is beyond a modification to our behavior, it is a renovation to our thinking.

If we are to learn to walk streets of gold, but value proximity to God higher than any form of dazzling architecture and perfect environmental conditions, our change must begin here.  If it is the great pearly gates we admire, the crowns of jewels we crave, and life absent disease and pain – we are still looking through warped glasses.  The things of value in the kingdom of God are only the people there, the life there, the Creator God who is there – the stuff is of little value.  Our abilities are not enhanced in heaven in order to make us “super sinners”.  We are not there to make us better adulterers who are now an order of magnitude healthier and more attractive.  The desire to betray, the desire to acquire, the desire to indulge, will have been removed from us – or we will find ourselves outside city gates waiting a death sentence we long to embrace.  Rapes, lust, and murder lay outside of heaven not within it.  The citizens of heaven live to serve.  They live to please another.  They live to bring joy to another without a single thought of themselves in the process. They give freely, willingly, and with great joy at the ability to give.  These are not natural inclinations in us today, but they can begin to be.  Not through the power of our will, but the acceptance of His ability and desire to re-create us anew.  Rebirth is something that can begin here and see its fulfillment at His second coming.  It does not start there, it ends there.  It reaches fulfillment there, but begins right here and right now.  This is why creation, and re-creation, are so critical to our salvation, both here and for eternity.  Let us choose to embrace it immediately and with vigor.

Food, Health & Poison ...

Sensory organs; the ability to experience life in ways that defy explanation for those without a reference, it is how we live, it is what we are. Imagine trying to describe the brilliance of color, texture, and lighting to someone who has been blind from birth. Without any sort of reference to go by, the sensation of sight seems like an impossibility, yet most of us see. Imagine your world in total silence, no more the flowing ambient sounds of a park at sunset, or a chorus of Handel’s Messiah sung by a brilliant choir. To describe sound without a reference is again very difficult. To smell, to taste, and to touch – a life deprived of these sensations seems a poor life indeed. It is said new born babies will literally die if they are denied tactile contact with another person for too long after entering the world. Why would these abilities be such a tangible part of our existence, if we were merely the product of random chance or evolution? And why stop there? Why not evolve the ability to break laws of physics? It makes so much more sense that we were created with abilities that mirror the God of creation who invented them.

Yet for every gift of sensation we have been given from God, His enemy Satan has a way of us misusing them to our detriment. We focus our attention on the things that would harm us, and harm us they do. We choose to seek out images that feed our lust, until we are slave to lust. We listen to rhythms and beats and words that degrade, until we can repeat them from memory and recite them at will. We eat things and drink things that slowly deteriorate our bodies, adding excess weight, tearing down our foundation of health. We seek to touch what we should not, and we become immune to the pleas of a conscience instilled by God. The devil uses our gifts, and turns our focus on excessive usage of each of them, to the point of our doom and self-destruction. These tricks are called “sins of the flesh”. Is it any wonder, the first temptation in the Garden was based on seeing, touching, and eating what we should not? Seems after 6,000 years we wander right back up to the fast-food counter and repeat the process of self-destruction again and again despite our knowledge of the impending results.

Yet despite our misuse of His gifts, the end of our existence will be as the beginning was. For in the Garden of Eden, there was a tree of life. This tree yielded a different fruit every month, and its produce literally extended life in all who ate of it. Because the fruit was so effective, it had to be guarded after the fall of man, so that none would continue to eat of it, and extend the life of sin indefinitely. An angel was sent with a flaming sword, until the garden itself was transplanted to heaven immediately preceding the flood of Noah’s day. When we return to Heaven, John describes seeing the tree of life once again. John also sees a river of life that flows from the throne of God Himself. This fruit and water will once again be our eternally sustaining bond with God. Of course once we enter Heaven, we will never again wish to choose a path of sin, for knowing how bad sin is, we will want no part of it ever again. So we will be free once again to eat of the tree of life.

Thus the practice of eating meals and drinking for sustenance was established in perfection PRIOR to sin. And while sin may have used this vehicle to enter our world, it does not eradicate our created instinct to eat and drink to survive, even after hell itself has passed away. Of course, like Adam and Eve in the Garden, what they ate had no waste byproducts. It was turned completely into the energy their bodies required. Vitamins, Minerals, and energy were the result of digestion. No need for bathrooms, or waste disposal systems to filter poisons from our bodies. There were no poisons to dissipate, or dissolve. Our perfection included the ability to taste, food that God considered “good”, and a conversion process that had no waste at all.

We have lived under the curse of sin for more than 6000 years now, and still we think we imagine, and we try to create. We put new combinations of elements together in new ways, looking for better foods, or fuels, or materials from which to build. We aggregate our knowledge and attempt to expand it despite the limited usage of our brains. Imagine what perfect health and conditions would do to increase these abilities. Imagine just what the lack of pollutants could accomplish in improving our lives and surroundings. Imagine clear air, clean water, and sun filtered through the ozone the way it was intended. I submit the improvement in our conditions alone would enable us to achieve greater accomplishments than we can even imagine today.

Now imagine what using 100% of our brain functionality might enable us to do; perfect recall for instance. Where now, the ability to perfectly recall experiences is more of a curse than a blessing due to the prevalence of evil in our world, in a world where only joy exists, perfect recall will be wonderful. But imagine what an IQ of 2000 might do, where today the higher IQ’s are measure above 150. Where now we deduce based on the best recollection of facts at our disposal, there we could deduce from brain cells without decay, or degradation. It is hard for a junkie to imagine the life of Bill Gates. The junkie has a much different perspective, from living in horror for a long period of time. While Christ can turn around a life like this, He is seldom permitted to do so, and it is why addicts more often than not, die from their condition. Sure, Bill Gates could become an addict, but the salient question would be “why”. He does not need drugs to avoid his problems, and his life affords him better perspective on solving any problem that comes his way. So we too, may not be able to imagine just how good, good will be, but to the best of our imaginations, this is what Heaven will be like.

Adam and Eve knew only this life of perfection prior to sin. They lived in a beautiful world, custom crafted by God to be their home. They had the beauty of marriage, the rest of the Sabbath, the company of God taking walks together in the evenings. They had a bountiful plethora of fruits and foods to eat, animals who sought their affections, clean water and clear air. They had 100% of their new minds to absorb the truths they were taught. They had all of this. And we will have all of these gifts once again restored to us. After time has no more meaning, all these conditions will be restored to us. We will live again as they lived at first, returned to our state of perfection. We know what they did not. We inherited the curse of knowledge of good and of evil. It did not make us like God in any other way than we have come to see how bad, bad can be, played out in our own lives. God knew it would lead to this and tried His best to help us avoid this fate. But we chose not to. It is our choice to throw away perfection that must be examined.

Home Sweet Home ...

Country folk understand. City folk are a product of the advancement of society, with our advanced technology and capabilities we are offered more time for other pursuits. We are free to gather in cities, socialize, and perform other work oriented functions that we would never have time to do if each man was personally responsible for putting food on the table each day. Our first home then, was not a city, it was a garden. But like all good things, even the garden did not spring into existence as a completed entity. It took preparation. It took planning. It took effort ,,, God’s.

“The earth was without form and void, and darkness covered the face of the earth.” These words penned by Moses in his first book of Genesis describe our earth, before it was known as earth. Moses would have little understanding of modern astronomy or astrophysics, but his wording seems to describe our home as a random asteroid traveling through space. Moses’ words “Let there be light, and there was light” could have as easily been describing the big bang, as the creation of Sun and Moon are uniquely specified later. So whether creation covers only our Solar system, or the Milky Way itself, or traces its origins all the way back to the Big Bang is up for speculation. What is clear; is that the relevant processes that apply to life in this world as we know it, took only six days for God to complete.

Each day seems to focus on the creation of the building blocks central to what we have come to know as our planet. First our universe, galaxy, or solar system (depending on your point of view), then our planet rock itself, then an atmosphere, followed by our Sun, moon, and stars. The separation of water into clouds and lakes, allows for plant life to begin, watered each morning by the dew. After plants come birds and fish and bugs I imagine. Then the animals, and finally man himself. The things we depend on created in the order that we would need them, and each meeting the approving eye of God Himself. It is believed that Christ was our creator, and the nod of approval was from His Father during this process.

How God creates remains a mystery. Our finite minds struggle to understand the rules of physics, while our God writes them as He sees fit. To believe human wisdom has become sufficient to debate God, or argue the merits of the account creation is nothing more than to adopt Satan’s first lie. Evolutionists do NOT have proof that their “theories” are true any more than a Creationist can physically demonstrate the existence of God. Evolutionists rely upon what we know of science, and believe that science is in conflict with God. This is arrogance on their part. Science cannot be in conflict with its creator, only our understanding is what is lacking.

Lest any scientific mind wish to start spouting the empirical “truths” of the science of evolution; let them begin by concretely identifying gravity. If what we thought once to be mass, we now discover only to be new forms of energy, perhaps we do not know as much as would like to believe. If our scientific data were complete, it would prove the existence of God. But this is not His wish. We must learn to rely on His wisdom instead of our own. This fundamental choice was what led to the downfall of Lucifer and the discovery of evil. Man must learn to believe in spite of what he perceives as proof.

When you consider the details of our biology, and the relative biology of this planet, God’s creative work is a wonder to behold. Think of the sheer complexity of the human body, interdependent complex systems created simultaneously (proof in itself that evolution cannot account for our species), with sensory systems to feel, smell, taste; as well as emotional responses to interpret joy, love, affection, and peace. None of these abilities strictly required for evolution, yet each immeasurably adds to the “quality” of our lives. The smell of roses, the taste of cheese, the feel of moss between your toes in a slow moving cold stream; each of these sensations unique and indispensible to making life the adventure we all crave. All created for man to experience, and become part of who we are. All of these gifts to us from our creator.

And our first home was more than work of art in a painting in the Sistine Chapel. It was a living, breathing, 3D, sensory overloaded reality that enveloped every neuron in our brains. I imagine it to be a conglomeration of cultural expressions themed in areas, like an oriental rock garden, an English flower garden, a forested area with clearly traveled trails laid out, a tropical area with boardwalks over swampy terrain. And our first occupation was to “keep” this garden or rather stated “tend” to it. It was after all the last item prepared for man, to be his first home, his first paradise set aside for him by God Himself. I imagine the sights, sounds, and smells of his garden home to be a symphony of beauty. The vibrant colors, and life created not to ever know death but to bloom and bud eternally. This would be our perfect getaway. From here we would study and learn more of God, our world, and the conflict that raged around us.

Man was given dominion over the world around him by God. It was God’s intent that we care for the life he created. God caused each of the species of animals to come before Adam for him to name them all. This to me is an interesting idea. Why name something that is unimportant? Why name something that is nothing more than a “dumb” animal? Perhaps the life around us, is more “aware” than we give it credit. Perhaps again our scientific knowledge is too limited to understand the language of birds, the song of whales, the barks of dogs, and the purring of cats. We only seem to detect emotional intentions of our furry friends, but is this a limitation of their smaller brain functions, or a lack of our own to interpret the full volume of communication they intend?

I own two Akita puppies, a purebred brother and sister just turning 13 months old. They are playful, huge, and loving. They are fiercely protective of me and what they perceive to be their home territory. The mailman who continues to violate the sanctity of “their” mailbox gets a full measure of their attention each day. Yet communication is not always so overt. There are times when they simply come to my feet lay down next to me, and attempt to touch some part of me in the process. When it is time to go outside to use the potty, the female puppy will gently nip at my hand and begin to pace back and forth. It is her way of not soiling “our” home while letting me know she needs to get into the backyard to make a deposit. It is a routine she created, and I have been able to interpret. My former Akita who died of old age 2 years ago, used to shake his chains and make his collar jingle when he needed to go outside. He too developed this routine, and I was able to interpret; this after 6000 years of sin and degradation to my mind and theirs. I wonder what Adam might have been able to relay to his furry friends under the blanket of perfection.

I wonder how much the animals may have vied for Adam’s attention. My dogs love to play with me, it is the height of happy-time for them, and apart from exhausting me, a wonderful time for me as well. I can only imagine what it must have been like for Adam to have playful monkeys, affectionate lions, curious wolf packs, and lumbering grizzlies to entertain. I wonder if Adam worked with elephants to move heavy lumber, or played fetch with falcons as they learned to fly. The animals were all vegetarians, eating the bounty that was available to them all around. They did not prey on each other. They did not fear each other. They understood the dominion of man was meant for him to be their caretaker. Man would watch over them, and they would look at him as a form of father provider figure. There was no hunting, or intent to harm, on our part or theirs.

It is the introduction of evil that has made death a reality in our world. It is the introduction of evil that changed the perfect harmony of vegetarian animals into the dichotomy of hunters and prey. It is not the demands of survival, but the introduction of evil that is responsible for destroying perfection. And this means only the extinction of evil can ever see this disharmony removed from our world. Because of creation, animals had fear of man after the fall. They knew him to be superior, and decided to mostly avoid man as a result. Animals vastly outnumbered man, and had they “evolved” alongside of him, they would have considered man nothing more than tasty prey. Our species as envisioned by evolutionists would have been largely defenseless against great creatures like the saber tooth tiger and such. We would have been hunted to extinction quickly if this “theory” had merit. Rather, the fear of man, largely restrained animals from attempting to attack the top of the food chain.

Man was not created to remain sedate and idle with nothing to occupy his mind or hands. So our home was made to be a thing that required constant care and maintenance. Our first job was to be assigned the work of ever maintaining a living growing homestead. But amidst the work of the garden, and the company of lesser creatures, man noticed something. All the animal kingdom had been created in pairs, male and female, except for man. Each animal had a loving mate to share time, and make a family with except man. And upon noticing this absence, Adam realized he was still alone and became lonely. God saw this as well, and decided to remedy the situation for him …