What is Life ...

What is life?  What does it mean to exist and how do we define existence anyway?  All we know of our existence that is certain here is that it is coming to an end.  There are a finite number of years that any one of us will occupy on planet earth.  History and personal experience demonstrate this to us every day.  But if our mortality were finally conquered, if the end of our lives we all fear were made something of the past; would it cause us to answer the question “what is life” differently?  Were we to exist perpetually in the state we are in, how then would we measure existence?  Since we as a species have embraced evil, our perpetual existence would be one confined to the evil we commit and the results it generates.  If life were to be forever, but lost to the hope of redemption and recreation, would it still be something to be desired?

To define life as merely the state of existence we find ourselves in today lessens its value.  How many of us struggle with health problems that cause us discomfort throughout the day?  Bad vision, obesity, diabetes, heart weakness, even lack of physical coordination are traits which plague our existence.  Immortality without a correction to the deterioration of our bodies would be much less desired.  Surely we were not created to exist forever in a state of physical imperfection.  Those who have suffered accidents and now have reduced mobility would greatly prefer to have these limitations removed, than to have to continue with them in perpetuity.  Is eternal life bound to a wheelchair, compared with eternal life without the need of one, even something that can be compared?  And what of those with mental disabilities?  It is said when someone else is smarter than you, you do not know exactly how much smarter they are.  Surely a disparity of mental abilities between one person and another was nothing that was “meant” to be.  And those whose brains have been chemically altered, either by genetics or abuse, and find themselves subject to conditions like schizophrenia, bi-polar, post-traumatic stress, and psychosis would not wish to remain in these states ad-nausea.  Being mentally impaired without hope of final relief and reconstruction, instead compelled to remain in this condition forever is not an act of kindness, rather it is one of torture.  This begs the question, is death a temporary kindness we are granted until all these things can finally be removed from us, at His second coming.  Surely life must be more than merely our present conditions.

Our cycle of life too begs examination.  We are born.  In this state we are completely helpless, completely dependent, with minimal cognitive abilities and almost a complete lack of physical coordination.  As we grow our abilities increase.  As we exercise our minds and bodies we become able to accomplish greater and greater feats.  Our social interactions lead us to marry, procreate (continuing the cycle), and then to age greatly.  The older we become, our minds and bodies begin to suffer from aging.  Eventually we become unable to perform the physical achievements we were capable of in our youth.  Over time our mental abilities can become impaired.  Eventually the decay will overtake us, and should we be lucky enough, we will die of old age.  Where in this process can we say “life” begins?  Is the quality of our existence any less because we are no longer brand new at birth, or able to feed ourselves and go to our own bathrooms, or having just graduated from high school, or college.  Are our lives incomplete until we are married, have children, turn 40, 60, or 80?  At what age is the termination of our lives preferable to the continued existence of it?  Our society condemns suicide as we generally view the potential of a life as having greater value than its termination.  Yet our positions on suicide begin to muddle when a terminal illness is introduced, with pain that will only become greater over time, and death is a certainty anyway.  Confronted with this situation in others, we begin to have sympathy.  Confronted with this situation in ourselves it becomes an entirely different matter.  Surely our lives were not meant to be defined by its cycle.

But let us propose as Lucifer does, that we should be able to exist and live eternally, without any mental or physical impairments, in a state of physical perfection, with nothing inherited that might cause us difficulty.  Aged to the perfect age, whatever that may be, unbound to wheelchairs, daily regimens of pills, or even a pair of eye glasses or contacts.  At this point our existence would only be defined by our choices, instead of our conditions.  It was in this state that Adam and Eve were created.  They were unbound to physical or genetic limitations or predispositions.  They were free and absent any evil.  It was their choices that brought evil into their existence.  And with evil came pain.  Evil brought death.  Evil predated our original parent’s genesis; it began with the choices Lucifer made in heaven.  He explored the idea of serving himself, rather than others.  He became aware of his own beauty and instead of recognizing this as a gift, he came to think of it, in distinguishing terms to set himself apart from others, and eventually superior to others. 

Pride and self-interest, combined with a lack of trust in the counsel and warnings of God that pursuit of these ideas would bring about the definition of pain and death led to what we know of evil today.  It reached a point where war took place, the first war.  It was fought in heaven itself, between Christ and His loyal angels, against Lucifer and his followers.  It ended with Lucifer being cast out of heaven.  War is nearly the final result of the existence of evil.  The actual final result was the murder of God on a torturous cross of Calvary.  What began as mere pride and self-obsession ends in killing God.  Lucifer did not suffer from genetic decay or the negative predisposition of his progenitor.  Lucifer was not plagued with physical infirmity, disease, or mental disability.  He lives, or exists, only with his choices.  He proposes this is the only fair way to exist, and you should be able to join him in this state.  But his choices do affect his existence.  He is now incapable of joy as you would define it, love as you would define it, peace as you would define it.  Instead he takes delight in causing pain to others, death to others, suffering to others.  While he is not physically infirmed, he has no problem seeing to it that others are.  His mind has been irrevocably altered by his choices, to the point where killing Christ seems like a good idea.  To him the death of the source of love, looks preferable.  Even in a state of physical perfection, and without the predisposition of mental infirmities, this could not be defined as “life” anyone would want.

No, scripture defines “life” differently.  In the gospel of John in chapter 17 and verse 3 we read Christ saying … “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”  Our God, our Savior, defines eternal life as “knowing the only true God” and in knowing “Jesus Christ” who the Father has sent.  In this definition, the number of years a person has existed are meaningless.  One could live 20 years, or 20,000, and still find they are not complete in their “knowledge” of God.  It is the process of coming to know God, that then defines what eternal “life” truly is.  It has nothing to do with our current state of existence.  It is not limited by our current physical impairments nor will it be altered by removing them.  We can begin to know God now, and continue to know Him, in heaven throughout eternity.  We begin to know our Father God, by seeking to know Jesus Christ, His Son, and tangible example in our world today.  In fact just a few chapters earlier in the gospel of John, in chapter 14 and verse 6 he records Christ saying … “no man comes to the Father, but by me.”  It is impossible to approach the throne of perfection without the intercessor of our Savior Jesus Christ.  Our minds, our choices, our physical limitations are all things that must be recreated by Christ in order for us to be in harmony with God.  Like Lucifer, our lives have been warped by our choices to embrace evil.  We do not see clearly.  We do not want the right things.  We think bad things are good ideas, until the disease of evil can be removed from our minds.  It is then we can begin to come to God and not find ourselves seeking for rocks to fall on us to shield us from His glory and perfection.  When brought into harmony with God by the saving work of Jesus Christ, we find ourselves at peace with God, and in sync with His desires, plans, and intentions.  But this work must be done in us, and by Christ.  We do not perform it ourselves, by the power of our wills, or by the number of our good deeds.  It is a work of recreation that only a creator God can and will do.  “Life” then is defined as the process of coming to know both Jesus Christ and His Father who sent Him.  Outside of this definition, existence is meaningless.

But if “life” is defined as coming to know God, what distinguishes my life from yours, or any other?  Is there a difference between us and does it have meaning?  First begin by accepting that time has no relevance in our general definition of life.  Christ spoke of “eternal” life, that is to say life without end.  The process of knowing God is gradual and unending, not immediate and definitive.  How could one possibly hope to know all there is to know about a God who is NOT stagnate.  Our God creates.  We are a living example of the fact that God’s love finds new ways to express itself.  Lucifer might have thought he knew everything there was to know about God, but our introduction to the universe, proved that theory wrong.  The existence of humanity stands as a reminder that our God creates.  As such we may come to know a definitive body of information on say for example our moon, or our solar system, or perhaps even our galaxy as taught by Christ Himself in the eons of time we spend together in heaven, but our vast accumulation of knowledge is a drop in the bucket of our universe at large.  Who knows how many other sentient species exist beyond the sight of our eyes, and how long it might take to come to know God better by understanding them all.  Just to understand our God through His creation of angels may take millennia.  To know God through the personal recollections of Moses could take years, and years for him to learn of God through my personal experiences.  Even if somehow we were to catch up our knowledge base with everything that exists today, perhaps as the angels have done, the idea that our God creates should give us pause that the process of knowing Him will ever reach a conclusion.  And perhaps vice versa?

How many of us think we truly “know” our spouse or significant other?  It seems that no matter how well we know them, or how long, people find a way to surprise us.  It is because as we grow, age, and have experiences that influence us.  We become altered by what we encounter.  It affects our thinking, our desires, and ultimately who we are.  Take for example the first encounter a young child may have with chocolate ice cream.  Prior to this first experience, a verbal description seems hardly adequate.  But upon tasting it for the first time, either a like or dislike is formed, and we decide whether we wish to repeat this experience or not.  Your spouse probably knows whether you like chocolate ice cream or not, but how many experiences are you yet to have where it comes to foods you have never tried?  And so how many more preferences might you develop over a 30 year period of time, let alone in the perfection of heaven over countless ages, with ingredients native to an entire universe to sample.  And this is just an example as it has to do with diet, a small facet of who we are.  The same holds true of poetry, art, music, and philosophy.  It holds true with how a person loves, each unique, each of value.  It holds true with talents and aptitudes.  Our uniqueness is born of a creator God who saw to it, that no two of us would ever be completely alike.  Even identical twins are distinguishable from each other, in looks though the differences may be slight, as well as in character where despite commonality, a unique person emerges.  Not only is this true in our age, but it stands true across the ages.  We are unique constructions from Adam till now, and for any generations that remain; each with unique traits, and physical appearances. 

Our uniqueness then is not random, but by design.  And if our uniqueness is by design, then purpose is implied as well.  Purpose that was uniquely intended for each of us, outside of the constructs and limitations of time as we know it; purpose intended not only for the life we know in this world, but for a life defined as getting to know God outside of the limitations we see in this one.  Each life has meaning.  Each life is unique, not just for here, but for all time.  As individuals we are created with singularity, where a unique existence was the plan all along.  God is not happy, that “many” seek Him out, and begin to learn of Him.  He would be happy only if “ALL” did so.  To lose even one lost sheep, or one lost soul, brings to Him a sadness only a creating God could fully appreciate.  To have to part with a child who refuses to ever come home again, to have to lose a child because to include him would mean he would cause harm to all your other children and himself, is to know a pain that only our God knows.  It is so with each one of us, who in our diseased state chooses to remain diseased with evil.  We are not casually discarded because His intent for us goes unmet in just this life.  No, His intentions for us extend well beyond this mortal existence, we were meant for something more that extends into eternity.  But too many refuse to ever see it.  They reject the notion they are diseased at all, thinking evil is but a simple choice that they could choose to forego (but never do).  They reject the idea that we need the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and His re-creative work within us; instead they think we can find “god” by any means of our choosing.  They reject the idea that the Bible was given to us for our redemption, picking and choosing what values they might accept in order to find “god”.  In so doing, they reject the method of our re-creation, and the knowledge of both Jesus Christ, and His Father who sent Him.  They remain diseased and lost, refusing the only viable escape from the disease and pain of evil.  And the universe will feel the void of their loss forever.

Think of it this way, many of us are musicians, and some composers.  Each new song written and performed brings a new joy for some.  While we may greatly appreciate a composer say Mozart for example, it does not preclude our appreciation for Beethoven, or Bach as well.  Our world would be a lesser place if Beethoven had never existed, or chosen to write his many symphonies and concertos.  Our world would not be at an end because of this loss, life would not cease to exist because of it, but there would be less beauty in it.  An appreciation of the works of just one man makes a difference to all.  Countless thousands, maybe millions, have enjoyed hearing his works.  We are better off because he lived, and wrote, and seemingly fulfilled his purpose here on earth.  Upon arriving in heaven, perhaps Beethoven was meant to write thousands more symphonies, perhaps one just for you.  Perhaps in the perfection of heaven, with his hearing restored to a level he may never have known, his compositions will become greater and greater such that symphony number 10,000 will make symphony number 9 look like a child’s nursery rhyme.  Imagine the loss to the universe at large because Beethoven chooses to reject his own salvation and remain diseased until his final cessation of existence.  How much better would the universe at large have been, blessed with his eternal fulfillment of his unique existence.  And it may still be so with Beethoven, only God knows.  But there are those of us who remain still in the valley of decision, who have not yet decided to accept the gift God offers us through His only Son.  It is we who remain the lost sheep.  It is we who the universe will miss, if we remain rejecting the only method of our redemption and restoration.  A loss that will go unfulfilled for all time.  It is why each of us is so important to God, because each of us is eternally unique.  Each of us was intended to get to know our God in a one-to-one manner as only each could.  All come through Christ, but all get to know Him individually, not as a corporate group, under a corporate umbrella.  He knows you as a distinct person, you will come to know Him in the same way.  And your unique perspective of God will be something to add to everyone else’s unique perspectives, making the picture more complete.

“Life” that is to say the only existence of worth, is defined in personally getting to know our Creator God without the constraints of time, or physical or mental limitations.  We begin our life here, in our present state, and we continue it in heaven in a more perfected state.  Our choices are eternally bent towards love of others instead of love of self, as we see demonstrated in our God Himself.  Our knowledge is never quite complete as we are always growing, and He will always be a Creator.  Our purpose is unique to each of us, always in fulfillment, always finding more to fulfill – a perfect state of bliss that never finds boredom, monotony, or lack of direction.  “Life” is not defined by our state of being within this world, but in the terms that have meaning well beyond it.  Therefore the momentary interruption of death carries no sting that lasts.  Death itself is a concept with a shelf life that will one day no longer be relevant.  Only those who refuse His gift will one day cease to exist forever, but those who begin a life here on earth, beginning to know Jesus Christ, and His Father, will see and experience an existence that is beyond our ability to describe.  Those who rest in the Lord will one day awaken as if only asleep for seconds, to a life, an existence that has no end, and a joy that is beyond all measure.  It is this we were intended for at our creation, and this that our Lord wants to begin re-creating in us today.  We have only to allow Him to begin the process of re-creation right here and right now.  It is life that awaits us.

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.

What is Companionship ...

In a search for the meaning of existence one must examine what might have been a reason behind, or the motivation to cause our genesis.  Why would an omnipotent God bring us into existence?  The reason of course cannot be found within us, but rather within He who we worship.  The first response, and it would seem to be consistent with scripture, is to say “love” was the reason.  But why must “love” find its object in us?  The angels predated our existence, some believe other created-sentient-life predated our existence noting that when cast out of heaven, Lucifer went to all other worlds before coming to this one (Job 1:6).  And since at Calvary where evil finally demonstrated just how far it would go (in killing the Creator) as opposed to just how far “love” would go (in dying for those who still called themselves His enemy); the remainder of the universe would have nothing more to do with Lucifer’s lies.   John refers to Satan in his book of Revelations 12:12 as being cast down and knowing “his time is short”.  Peter refers to Satan as a “roaring lion”, revealing his desperation in no longer having any valid argument against the love of God.  (1 Peter 5:8).   So given that other creations such as Angels existed before humanity, why did God create us as well?

Perhaps what Lucifer has taught us best about the notion of love is that self-love, or love of self, is not truly love at all.  It degenerates.  It may begin with innocent sounding questions but it ends in murder and death even to the point of killing the Creator at Calvary.  To bottle up love and attempt to only reflect it inward on one’s self is to pervert the very concept of love and morph it into horrific other concepts like arrogance, pride, and greed on an insatiable level.  Channeling all of one’s energy on pursuits thought to bring self-fulfillment has the opposite result, creating only the very briefest moments of satisfaction followed by endless years of longing for more.  It is a never ending cycle that does not hesitate to kill to achieve its goals, but no matter what actions are taken, happiness cannot be found in the pursuit of self, only deeper levels of depravity and pain.  Death becomes a welcome relief to an existence so steeped in misery that joy is simply no longer possible.  This is where the seemingly innocuous evil Lucifer entertained has led him.  And along the way he was not content to experience these things alone.  For reasons that perhaps define evil and iniquity as a mystery, Lucifer, now Satan, sought to spread his notions, and his pain, as far as he was able.  Misery loves company, is not just an idol platitude or maxim, it is a truism reflected in our lives every day.

Yet where evil seeks out another to inflict its pain upon, love too seeks out another to bring happiness and joy to.  The contrast of a life spent in selfish pursuits and emptiness can be seen in the life spent in serving others and seeking only to bring others joy.  This is the example the Savior set for us.  Even steeped in the slavery of evil, with minds warped by generations of perversions and backed up by personal choices to deepen them still; the life of the Savior stands out as a clear example of what it truly means to “love”.  And for reasons, that perhaps too define love as a mystery, our God left his home, came and served us His enemies, and died to take our punishment upon Him that we might be saved through His sacrifice.  Christ too, was not satisfied to remain alone, or keep His enormous love bottled up within Him, instead He too sought to spread His love as far as He was able to anyone He could reach.  Misery may not be a welcome guest, but love certainly is.  The love of Christ became something tangible in the lives He touched, whether it came in the words of peace, redemption and hope; or whether it came in actions, or miracles.  Love emanated from the Savior in ways that simply could not be contained.  Love seeks an object to share with.

Perhaps this is why man came into existence.  Perhaps when God looks at the love He has for His Son, they sought to multiply that experience by creating humanity.  Perhaps we were the next extension of His family, His grandchildren so to speak, or perhaps His babies.  Regardless it seems clear we were not created to live in isolation from our God.  In Eden He walked in the evenings with Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:8).  Indeed the entire plan of redemption is centered around the idea of bringing us “home” to heaven, to “be with Him forever and ever” (1 Thessalonians 4:17).  God obviously desires to be with us, to be near us, to be our God and we to be His people.  The entire Bible is full of stories of the interactions between God and man, stories designed to teach us about who it is who brought us into existence, and what it means to love.  Part of love, is to find an object with which love can be shared or experienced.  Love cannot be found in isolation, it is not content there any more than is misery its counterpart.

When a parent is asked why they chose to have another child, it is rarely because they were unsatisfied with the first one they had.  Most of the time, parents choose to have more children because the love they experience with the first one brings such joy to their own lives they wish to experience it again and in greater measure.  As our children grow, and because we live in a world steeped in evil’s embrace, children sometimes make choices that hurt themselves and others.  As parents we long to prevent them from making these choices.  When they are young we are able to exert a measure of precaution, but the older our children become, the more able they are to make decisions that could deeply hurt themselves or others.  When they do, we long to ease their pain, and help them to avoid a similar fate from similar decisions that might otherwise be repeated.  As a species, we have been far from the perfection we were intended to be.  Born or created by a perfect parent God, we have been disobedient children who seem bent on clinging to the knives we cut ourselves with.  Our parent Father God tries so hard to remove the knife we cling to, heal our wounds, and show us how to live in a way that avoids the pain we inflict on ourselves and on others.  But we too often refuse Him.  Yet despite our refusals, He does not leave us in isolation.  He reveals Himself to us in prayer, in His word, in the life of His Son, and in unseen miracles that go by unnoticed by human eyes.  In short, despite our barrier of sin that cannot exist in His presence, He still looks to be with us.

When the burden of our disease is fully and finally lifted from us, when our surrender to His will is so complete that sin can touch us no more, we will be in complete harmony with love and we will be able to enter His presence without seeking our own destruction.  This is the day so many believers have spent their lives looking forward to.  It will be a great day to see His work in us completed, but it is no less a great day to see it begin here and now.  As we surrender our ideas of self-determination, self-control, and personal strength to achieve salvation – we find our victories over evil in both act and desire given to us as His gift of salvation has long promised to do.  As the evil cloud begins to break up, and the fog of our sins is removed from our eyes, we begin to see Him and His love more clearly.  We are better able to discern His presence in places we never noticed before.  For God can be seen in our world today.  One need only look at acts of selflessness on behalf of others to see a reflection of the God of our Universe.  The doctrine matters little, but the actions of selfless love are hallmarks of our God.  It matters little to the hungry whether they are fed by Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, or Adventists, only that they are finally able to eat.  The hungry do not care which day we worship on, how we pay our tithe, whether we sing in church with drums and electric guitars or not; they care about whether we brought enough food for all those in need to eat a full meal.  A God of love stands behind the actions of those who take the time to prepare the food, take it to a shelter, and perform the act of mercy in sharing what they have with those who have less.  A God of love is seen by those whose stomachs do not know the regularity of meals when they are fed by loving hands used in action.  Love is not found in isolation, it is found in companionship.

It sometimes seems that every societal trend works against the will of heaven and that of love itself.  Whether it be the praise of a capitalist system that prizes self-determination based on the power of one’s own will; or the advancement of technology that allows us to sit in isolation in our homes only interacting with others through electronic mechanisms that keep others at a “safe” distance from us; every popular trend in our world seems determined to take us farther from our ability to personally share with someone else.  To meet income requirements in our homes, no longer can only one spouse work, it requires both – leaving children to be raised in daycare, school systems, and by “the community” at large.  To meet the demands of long working hours on little income, adults often decide to sleep in on days of worship, choosing to “attend” church online if at all, opting for the convenience of home access rather than the effort of going to the local sanctuary.  Charitable individuals are far more likely to make a donation in funds, rather than a commitment in personal time to achieve any goal for the benefit of others.  And in so doing, we deny ourselves the beauty and the blessing of companionship.

It is our deep and personal loss, when we lose precious time that cannot be replaced, in self-chosen isolation rather than in companionship with others.  Whether it be time with our spouse, our kids, our church, or with those in need – every moment we are able to spend in companionship is better than a moment spent alone.  Yet societal trends would keep us from this knowledge or belief.  Christ was always serving those with whom He came into contact.  His humanity, I’m sure, made Him feel tired and worn down just like we get.  But He renewed His strength every day at the divine fountain of His Father, as we too are able to do.  God does not ask us to solve the problems of world in our own strength, or because He is unable or unwilling to do so Himself.  Instead He invites us to participate in the work of serving others and in so doing learn what a sense of fulfillment can be found only in love that is reflected in action.  It is our blessing to join God in this work, not His.  It was for our benefit He extended this invitation, not His.  As we join with Him in serving, we find love, we find joy in companionship, we begin to understand the reason behind creation and the genesis of our species.  But this revelation cannot be found at home, alone, untouched by others.  It can only be found as we serve.  Whether it be our spouse, our kids, our church, or our community at large it is the interaction of service for someone else that is the beginning of our revelation into the love of God Himself.

In prison, one of the greatest punishments that can be inflicted is time in isolation.  Think of it, better to enjoy the company of other criminals, some of which may wish to do you harm, than to be alone “in the box”.  Long periods of isolation have resulted in insanity and in extreme cases suicide.  As is the image of our God, we were not created to be completely alone.  We may not all be social butterflies, but even the most devout introvert still craves the love of another, and must in order to achieve this, show love to another.  While our society may benefit from the advancement of technology, we must not let it lure us into less and less actual human contact for the sake of expediency or ease.  Rather we must exploit our tools and use them to free up our time in order that time spent together is more and more rewarding not less and less.  While a good work ethic is to be praised, let us not allow our government’s ideas of free enterprise cloud our vision that we are all interdependent and within the church we are all indispensable.  It is not our strength that brings us our spiritual victories, but our recognition that He alone is able to do this for us.  It is in our submission to Christ that we find real change, not in the politicians that run for office, or in the new policies we find at work.  Genuine transformation of character is found alone at the foot of the cross by the one who is willing to humble himself before His God and accept that which was intended to be given not earned.

In proximity with our God, is found peace.  The closer we get to God, the more peace that seems to flood our souls, our minds, and our beings.  We lose the agitation, and aggravations that plague us the closer we get to God.  In our companionship with God our own weaknesses seem to no longer apply.  Our strength is renewed by simply entering His presence.  Our worries and cares seem to melt away as we approach the Throne of Grace, on which He sits.  What is impossible for us, is child’s play for Him.  What is insurmountable for us, is done with ease on our behalf by He who is our Father God.  Surely the benefits to us found in companionship with God are too many to list.  But perhaps this is also the secret to the reason for our Genesis.  Perhaps it is God too, who finds fulfillment in spending His time with us.  Perhaps He too, so much more than we, looks forward to the time when our separation is ended, and our proximity can be as close as He wishes.  Perhaps the idea of a loving child curling up in the lap of a loving parent is not beyond the hopes of an omnipotent God, as He looks longingly at us.  The child finds comfort in the lap of his parent as he peacefully drifts off to sleep.  But the parent too finds joy in the expression of such trusting love.  Perhaps this is the joy of companionship we bring to our God on a scale defined by the numbers of each of us.  Perhaps only God could truly understand what this is like as He is our creator.  Regardless, it seems clear, we were and we remain destined to be together with Him.  What remains now is only our choice to that effect …

What is Perfection ...

Could one define perfection as the complete acquisition of everything one desires?  Or rather is the pursuit of what is desired considered perfection?  Even under these possible definitions, perfection is elusive at best, impossible at worst, and its attainment seems always just out of reach.  Given the state of the world around us, we hardly consider the attainment of perfection as plausible and consequently each of us learns to settle for a degree of mediocrity we are comfortable with.  We do not expect perfection in our relationships as we know we bring none to the table.  We do not measure ourselves against the standards of spiritual perfection, as for so long we have made abysmal failures of that quest.  So perhaps it is difficult for a finite mind to imagine a perfection it has never seen.  It must be a matter of imagination as none of us seems to be able to personally attest to having witnessed perfection in any area of our lives.  But despite our lack of personal experience perfection is held out to us as a reality.  The marketing machine on 5^th avenue attempts to color our ideas of perfection with imagery designed to sell products.  And scripture details a time before time when perfection was the norm of the day.  So if perfection does exist, what is it?  How do we measure it?  How will we know when we have achieved it?

Scripture says when God looked at the newly created world … “He saw that it was good” (Gen 1:31).  By contrast when scripture describes God it says … “as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matt 5:48).  When the perfect God of creation looked upon the work of His hands, He saw that it was very good.  But Moses did not describe the wondrous beauty of Eden as being perfect, only that it was very good.  Perhaps perfection would have required the absence of potential for evil.  Perhaps since Adam and Eve had not made a final choice either for obedience or not, perfection was elusive in our first garden home.  But then on closer examination, despite all the glorious language describing the beauty of heaven, the city of our God, it too does not often if ever get described as perfect.  The term perfect does appear many times in scripture but seems to always be applied as a characteristic for us as people – either striving for perfection in how we live, or being made perfect by our Lord Jesus Christ.  It does not seem to be used to describe inanimate objects.  Perhaps this is because perfection cannot be found in or around our settings, our possessions, or our environments.  It may be that perfection itself is something that cannot be achieved in our surroundings as no matter how wonderful they may be, they could always be improved in some manner.

When God looked at His creation of this world, He spent time (6 days) in the infinite details of plant life, rocks, trees, seas, lakes, and all the living beings that would live in the nature He created including us.  But having created them, and having had Adam give names to all the animals, the remainder of His attention in our Genesis turns to the things God values most – namely us.  Perhaps this is because even God looks at the universe He has made, and can imagine new ways to see it improved.  Perhaps His own ideas of perfection include constant innovation and Genesis-style creation.  But regardless of His opinions of the environments He is able to create, where God centers His attention, His time, and His value is in the origination of man He intended to spend eternity with.  We were intended to be the perfect creation, His crowning achievement, patterned after His image and set just a little below the angels, it was to be us who would offer the universe an even clearer picture of what love is – and perhaps in so doing, offer a better picture of what perfection is.  This model however would stand in stark contrast to the idealization of “things” and would find fulfillment only in the actualization of “love”.

Our constant failures, inherent short comings, and repeated losses have trained us to become comfortable with mediocrity.  Compromise is the rule of our day, whether we curb our desires to what we believe to be attainable, or sacrifice our values to attain something we desire just a bit more than we value our ethics, compromise is our mantra.  For generations after the fall of mankind this was so, no less in our own day.  Therefore when something identified to be perfect comes along; it causes us to see our own imperfections in its reflection.  The law of God was such a thing.  The Ten Commandments given at Mount Sinai carved by the finger of God Himself in the stones of the cliffs and handed to Moses to take to His people were perfect.  “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul” proclaimed David as He pondered God’s revelation of love in his Psalms (19:7).  God’s law was a beginning revelation of the nature of His love.  Well beyond merely a list of do’s and don’ts His precepts were summarized by Christ as loving God first, with all our hearts, minds, and souls, and our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-40).  Christ did not focus on the particular points of the law; instead He focused on the motives behind it, something His contemporaries seemed to have lost sight of.

Perfect love revealed by God in His law, and by Christ in His life, reveals to us our own failures by contrast.  We see in the deeds that contradict the prescriptions outlined in His commandments that love of others does not always govern our motives and behaviors.  The law points out to us when self-love is responsible for what we do, more than self-less-love that the law proscribes.  When we examine the deeds, words, and motives of Christ, we see perfect compliance to not only what the law proscribes but to the motives that were its underpinning.  To attempt to discard the law, to state that grace has somehow overcome the law and made it of no effect, is to attempt to remove love as having meaning from the character of God.  Since God is love, this is simply impossible.  The freedom our God gives us is actually defined in His laws.  Consider for a moment what the law forbids; murder, lying, adultery, lust, dishonor to our parents, the pursuit of other gods, devaluing our God in vanity, discrediting His acts of creation, etc..  All of the things God’s law proscribes against limit our own self-interests that would come at the expense of another.  God’s law protects the rights of another person from us damaging them by our actions.  In essence, God’s law limits evil.  It does not however as Christ pointed out in His very words, put a cap on how much one can express love to God, or limit the expression love to someone else.  We are “free” to love others as much as we want, free without limits, free without proscriptions.  Christ Himself demonstrates just how far love will go as He offers His own life in exchange for ours.  Christ shows to love another is the nature of perfection.  His law shows to love self, is the nature of evil.

Our “human” limitations and history of failure to achieve perfect compliance to the law of God have caused us to believe it is an impossible standard.  We aspire to act as Christ acted, but find our implementation far from what He achieved.  So even within our churches and our Christian ideologies we begin to seek for excuses as to why we do what we do.  We offer reasoning that since we are unable to “keep” the laws of God, He must not have intended for us to do so.  Our ideas of spiritual perfection have been tainted with the reality of our expression.  Too often our failures and manifestations of self-love over self-less-love color our very ideas of what perfection should be.  As we lose sight of even the possibility of perfection, we lose the desire to be perfect.  We begin to think that God will “wink” at our imperfections.  We think His forgiveness will cover our actions, no matter how intentional, or repeated they are.  This is the thinking that springs from tainted minds, looking through tainted realities, at a future we can no longer imagine.  But it is not the reality God offers.  His ideas of perfection for us, can no longer originate within us.  Adam and Eve lost us this birthright at our origin, and in choosing to embrace evil began a legacy of inability on our part to achieve the high standard of love our God would outline in stone, and live in the flesh of His Son.  Instead we would require a Savior to save us from ourselves and our self-love.  We would require outside intervention, from a God of creation, who could re-create us from the inside out.  We would need not only a rebirth, but a continual reengineering of our daily lives until He returned and would be able to finish the work He started within us.

It would take more than 6 days to recreate a damaged human heart and psyche.  Not because God has limitations in His own abilities to create, but because the clay of our hearts and minds He is forced to work with now is so steeped in evil and selfishness it rebels against His work of recreation every time it has a chance.  Our greatest hope now lies in our pursuit of total submission, not total conquest.  Everything we have been taught in a society of self-reliance, and self-help, stands in stark contrast to the gift of salvation from self our God offers.  We are not to seek perfection in the strength of our characters and actions, but rather on our knees in submission to the only savior who is able and eager to remove from us what we cannot remove from ourselves.  It is in perfect surrender that we will finally find perfection achieved.  It is because we can only be made perfect, through the act of recreation, the discarding of all that is evil, and remaking of all that is love.  In this alone to we find hope.  In this alone is the grace of His forgiveness coupled with a change we so desperately need in our day to day expression of His ideals.  It is through our salvation from self-love that we find natural and perfect obedience to a law that is steeped in love itself.  And through the salvation from slavery to self, we finally see the freedom He truly offers us.  A life lived beyond the basics proscribed by His law, a life that is free to explore the infinite expressions of what love to another is all about.

Our interactions when fully surrendered to the process of His recreation of love within us, are no longer focused on what we cannot do to another person – but on what we might do to bring someone else joy, peace, life, and fulfillment.  Merely not killing, not coveting, not lying, and not defiling are way too small concerns for a life that is remade in the image God intended.  Instead, the quest becomes one of how to make the life of another wonderful, fantastic, and so much better, despite the circumstances we find ourselves in.  The life of Christ was set in difficult times where hard physical work was required to survive, when political turmoil threatened your very existence, where taxation was unjust and crippling, where the poor had great need and little help, where the spiritual leaders of the day had perverted a religion of love to one of aggrandizement at the expense of illiterate.  But Christ did not use the hardships of His day and circumstances as an excuse to love less, to do less, to show us less what He only “intended” to do.  Instead His actions were not bound by His environment.  Indeed no-one and nothing could prevent Him from showing us the love He came to show.  He was always tender, merciful, and redemptive to everyone He met.  He sought out the poor and downtrodden, He went to them not requiring them to find Him.  Where He met with the religious leaders of His day, He tried to teach them how far they had strayed from the God of love behind their laws and more importantly their traditions (which had no actual divine origins). 

The Pharisees and Sadducees of His day could not even agree on all points of religious doctrine, arguing over the resurrection.  They had taken the laws of Moses given beyond the Ten Commandments, which were given in a time in Israel just out of slavery, and extended their limitations even farther.  Instead of recognizing the progress that living a self-less kind of love will do to a person, they focused only the “justice” aspects of punishment that unrepentant evil would deserve.  They ignored all the proscriptions for mercy found within these same laws for anyone willing to seek forgiveness, and instead only focused on the penalties that would come to those who did not value forgiveness.  The religious leaders in the days of Christ made the laws of Moses seem the same as the laws of the Ten Commandments, even though the entire sanctuary services would find their fulfillment in the coming of the Messiah.  They equated all laws as being everlasting, all punishments as mandatory regardless of the pursuit of forgiveness, and thus all responsibility for achieving perfection would be left to the strength of the penitent.  This is what Christ would strive to correct, from the three days He spent in the temple when we was lost to Mary and Joseph on His twelfth birthday, to His endorsement of the ministry of John the Baptist, to His counsels on His travels throughout the countryside.  Christ outlined to Nicodemus, one of these leaders, the true nature of salvation – a rebirth to spiritual perfection that ONLY the Messiah could bring.  Perfection would not be found in the leadership of His religion, but in submission to the God of His religion.  Christ did reach a few of the religious leaders of His day, but too many were more comfortable with ideas of self-reliance that had led to such vast personal gain.

Is it any different for us today?  Our society values self-reliance, a good personal work ethic, and has little sympathy for the downtrodden and unfortunate we come across.  These values invade our Christian ideologies until we begin to believe that our salvation is our own responsibility, and that those who suffer in life do so for transgressing the will of God.  Like the Pharisees of old, we see those who are poor as being “responsible” for their own conditions either through being lazy and unmotivated, or from committing various acts of evil.  It even goes so far as to see diseases like Aids and STDs as punishments from God, instead of the natural consequences of sexual promiscuity.  Earthquakes and natural disasters get tagged as “acts of God” instead of merely natural phenomenon influenced by how we treat our planet.  In short even those of Christian ideology of today choose to focus on the punishment of unrepentant evil, rather than on the true transformation, and rebirth Christ would offer to all who will seek Him.  Salvation is not only for the rich, or for the poor, but for any who would wish to have a better life here and now.  Salvation from self-love was not supposed to be something that waited to only find fulfillment in heaven, but rather as a process that begins here and now, and reaches its maturity in the heaven we seek.  Christ said … “the Kingdom of God is come”.  Obviously He was not referring to streets of Gold, and pearly gates of His city.  He was referring to the establishment of His kingdom in the hearts and minds of mankind.  He was referring to wonderful gift of recreation He would offer us.  A beginning to the achievement of perfection was to be His gift.  We could not earn it.  We would not deserve it.  But we could finally attain it, by merely accepting it.

The religious leaders of His day rejected Christ because they did not want to remove the quest for perfection from their own hands and place it humbly in the hands of our God.  They wanted rather to believe they were good, and worthy to be saved, from the great deeds they did; not be forced to admit their hearts had not been truly changed.  They were still slaves to self-love.  They were still addicts to self-serving, even if it came at the expense of another.  Today, we cling to a similar ideology that states we find our salvation in the strength of our characters, or we negate its need clinging to the idea that forgiveness is offered even before we need it for the deeds we are about to commit.  It robs us of the power of our religion, and makes Christianity a joke to those who witness us committing the same acts, at the same frequency, as those who do not claim Christ as their savior.  If Christianity can only offer forgiveness for wrong doing it is indeed a poor religion.  Muslims share this ability, as do our Jewish brothers.  All three religions share the ideology of the great forgiveness of our God.  Christianity distinguishes itself in that Christ, being the son of God, offers us more than mere forgiveness, He offers us reform.  A true change in not only what we do, but in how we think; this is the gift of Christ to us.  He re-creates us anew, and re-establishes perfection within us as we surrender to Him.  It is NOT our own perfection that is created in us, but His perfection that reflected through us.  We become vessels of perfection, not fountains of it.  And when we finally reach our heavenly home, it is this work of creating perfection within us that is finally and fully completed – not started, and then ended.  It starts today.

In this sense, we need not run from the standards of Gods law as being unachievable.  Instead we can recognize our inability, and rest knowing that He will remake us until we find harmony with His laws our natural state of being.  We need not seek to delay our freedom from slavery to self, in order to continue committing acts of evil that hurt us and everyone around us.  Instead we can seek His salvation from evil and the pain it causes immediately, and begin a life of reformation today, powered by Him, and founded in our submission to Him.  As we surrender, our ideas of perfection are restored to what He intended.  The taints of our evil, and our genetics, are undone by the power of a regenerative God, who is able to create in us a clean heart, and a clean mind.  As the influences of evil are removed, our ideas of perfection become greater and more noble.  We begin to see what is truly possible, unbound by mediocrity we have come to accept.  We realize that we wish no more a compromise with evil, but its complete and utter destruction within us.  Perfection is so much more than we had hoped.  Perfection is so much better than anything we could have experienced.  And it is indeed plausible, possible, and part of our reality as we embrace our surrender to our Messiah of Love.  Christ offers what no other deity has ever purported to do, to reach within us (His enemies) while we are yet His enemies, and change the very nature of who we are, freeing us from evil, as His gift to us, if we but accept it.  It is the acceptance that we could not achieve this ourselves that is required of us.  It is the recognition of our dependence that is the beginning of the road to perfection.  And it is the embrace of His gift that can then transform our lives from the mediocrity of evil, to the infinite that perfection has to offer.

To begin to see perfection, to understand it, we must move past our “human” limitations.  To delve into what is by nature infinite; we must allow our creator, to remove what binds us and taints us.  We must let Him change the very nature of “how” we think.  Unbound by our past and our perspectives, we can begin to see perfection for what it truly is.  We can begin to appreciate it.  And through our submission to Christ, we can begin to see its potential within us.  Perfection then becomes more than an aspiration we can barely hope to achieve, but a daily reality that can be reflected in how we love another.  Our relationships will dramatically improve as we have something of His to bring to the table.  Our perspectives and priorities of what is truly important will alter as we forsake the pursuit of Madison Avenue suggestions of acquisition, and begin the pursuit of character transformation Christ alone can bring.  We can finally and fully embrace the Kingdom of God in the here and now, restoring the power of Christianity which is based in the power of love to others.  We can show to the world a reason to see this ideology as being superior to others.  Not because we are superior, but because we reflect a superior love through us.  In our weakness, in our surrender, we come to find that which is infinite, that which is perfect, the God of love within us.