Thursday, December 28, 2006

practicing the presence...pt.1

First, the fall.

At creation, man is not innocent, sinless – he is mostly ignorant to these things. His one purpose in this is to know God. He does not know good or evil, right or wrong – just the Creator. He is commanded to look over the garden, and not to eat of that tree. The line is drawn – know me, not that fruit – not the taste, feel, or the knowledge of the things that go with it. The knowledge of good and evil. Satan steps up to the plate, push comes to shove, and Eve eats. Then Adam. At this point something important has happened – they “understand”, they “know” good and evil. They are not longer undivided in word or thought – they now have become the “decideders” of their fate. They have separated themselves through disobedience. They now know shame – they are branded by it’s very curse – they know nakedness, they have to take on the burden of this knowledge. God is no longer to sole provider – they must fend for themselves, for with the loss of the relationship is the loss of the membership. And without membership, there goes the privileges. God curses them, and then with the leaving of the Garden, the road begins back home.

Back to knowing just Him. To being free from shame, from needing to make this thing go, from weighing morals. Everything from that point till Revelation is to have us know (being literally intimate with the fact) that He is the Lord. Again. To love Him with all our hearts, minds, strength, mind, being, life, words, thoughts, even our very breath. We called back to a single-minded obedience, one that does not look to the right or the left – one that sees the narrow road – that sees Him as He leads us to a death to self through His example on the cross. He not only has made the rules, but provides the means to make it through.

This is the whole of our story - to get back home, to a righteousness that is dependent on Him alone. To a place where our daily bread is at His table, He is our only shield and bulwark, and we know Him alone.

more in pt. 2

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