Jim's Corner

By Jim Wright
Copyright©1999

In the beginning, God created heaven and earth. Life came from God. Life was good. But betrayal came at the highest level, from the angels, created beings close to God. Made perfectly, raised in the best community of heaven, treated with love and respect, provided with every thing they needed, angels failed to respond to God with perfect, unselfish love. Anything less than perfect love toward God is perverse, self-centered, and tends to grow into it's own imitation of love apart from God. So sin was conceived in heaven and the disease, that uneasiness, that inability to look God in the face with perfect, selfless devotion, began. That was the birth of death. Mysteriously, in that death was also mercy. For there was put a flaming sword to guard against mankind eating from the tree of life and living eternally with the guilt of sin on our conscience. There had to be a possibility of death among us for there to be a hope of the resurrection and new life.

When God created the visible world that we know, He gave us a record of Who did this wondrous thing. He did it. God Almighty is the maker of heaven and earth. Today, men ardently seek to know how He did it. God never told us the mechanics of His art, He simply made sure that we had a record of Who did it. God made heaven and earth, and all that is in it. God made the angels and God made man.

Outside of the Genesis story, we read how Satan, a created spiritual being, sought his own glory. Not the creator, he was an imitator of God. Not content to freely reflect the glory of God, Satan wanted to have his stamp on his words and his own personal influence. He thought his life was his own. He was the selfish child who did not say, "Thank You" to God for painlessness, freedom and the provision of his every need. He became proud, and wanted others to thank him. He called to creation with the desire to hear others say "Thank you" to him alone, and not "Thank God."

The Garden of Eden shows symmetry as healing flows from the center of God. Sickness pools up in the center of self. Satan's selfishness was the scum pond from which the vain idea of evolution sprang. Looking into the "How" of creation, that fallen angel sought to take glory from the "Who" of creation. But his gross, hideous weight of selfishness was like putting an anchor onto the ankle of a dove. Satan, that flying angelic creature from the perfect Genesis family, the perfect neighborhood, the perfect environment and perfect education, clung to himself and crashed in shame.

Now you know both Who created you and who caused there to be a separation from God. Sin is separation from God. There was a distance, a gulf, a chasm wider and deeper than the Grand Canyon caused by Satan's act of selfishness. Apart from God's healing heart were the possibilities of being cursed with pain, stress, and circumstances beyond one's control.

Turning from that pit, let us enter into the Garden of Eden, the center of creation, the place where God Who made us first showed that He loved us. Before man began, God loved us. He loved us so much that He built the greatest playground ever conceived for His children. Tall trees to climb in, long vines to swing on, tall, soft, green grass in which to run and gentle rivers in which to swim. He put clear water with the dark earth to make the clay from which we were formed. You might say that we were born swimming out of darkness toward the light.

In that paradise, we walked bare footed. We talked with giraffes and watched the deer and the antelope play. Dogs played catch with pomegranates and bright birds caught blue berries in mid air from the hands of Adam and Eve. There were no picnics canceled because of rain. There was swimming and fishing allowed. There was not a sign saying, "No trespassing." God gave one restriction to Adam and Adam was charged to pass on that one instruction to his wife and children.

From the bitter, Satanic source of selfishness in heaven fell one bad seed. That seed caused one, single bad fruit to spring up in all of creation. Inside the flesh of that unnatural fruit was found the will to know oneself apart from God. Genesis calls that tree the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This is the desire to know ourselves apart from God. This is the desire to know the "How" of creation apart from the "Who" of creation. This is the desire to know the details of energy, substance, matter and man independent from the eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, loving, sustaining, wondrous, awesome Father God Who alone is forever to be glorified. This knowledge of good and evil starts with the idea of me and mine as distinct from you and yours. Its source is neither territoriality nor private property, but individuality. Today we hear people sing "I Gotta Be Me" and "My Way," but when we understand how we were made to live, we see these notions as nothing less than the spirit of antichrist. We are called to be unique, but not separate; freely responsive, not overly burdened by responsibility. We may speak His truth without worry.

From the gnarled root of that bitter tree slithered one single, sly snake. God's lone adversary is the animal that thinks it has a life apart from God. Every animal, humans especially, who think that they have a life apart from God are His enemies. These are the children of blindness who think their source is from the dark earth, born independent of pure water, not inhaling the breath of God. We were born inhaling the breath of God so that we may exhale His praise. That is the purpose of life.

So the serpent beguiled Eve. That snake's venom is willing guile, the desire to deceive. The serpent was more subtle and crafty than any beast of the field. What was the devil's deception? That man would desire to know himself apart from God. Good and evil can only be known if there is a separation from goodness, and God is only good. God's enemy had to separate us from our single-minded devotion to He Who alone is good. This distraction was required for us to even think about evil. Contrary to the themes of self-help books, self knowledge, apart from God, is the source of all evil. Sin is the fruit from the root of self. The serpent's offer was to make us wise like God, but we already had all the benefits of wisdom in the bosom of our Father. Our enemy sold us what we already owned. He is a liar and the father of it.

God created bodies that heal themselves. We are built with an immune system that proves He wants us healthy. Likewise, we have a spiritual immune system in each other. When one becomes poisoned by self, another in our community may wash away that sickness by the river of life. The river of life is the water of God's word.

Look with me at that moment in the garden where Eve was beguiled and where Adam sinned. Yes, Eve listened to the serpent. Her infection started not with the pulp of an apple but with the pulp fiction that the serpent spewed into her ears. She was sick with error. But, saints, Adam had the antidote. What would have happened if Adam had washed her with the water of God's word? He could have spoken God's word over her because he had only the knowledge of good, and healing flows from the goodness of God. Had he spoken out what he was born to do, repeating God's instruction, he could have innocently spoken God's word and interceded for his wife. But he turned away from the Creator to his fellow creature, and there was a tragic agreement made. Adam agreed with Eve that he would drown himself in the limpid pools that were her eyes. Am I speaking against love? Far be it, for God is love. But may none of us be deceived into thinking that our own love of another is somehow noble. God is love and if He is not honored and welcome in every moment of every relationship, then we will feel naked, like we have something to hide, no different from Adam and Eve.

Young women, you do not want to marry a man that turns away from God. If he will not face God, he can not pray against death on behalf of you and your children. Young men, the instant you put the comfort of your creature companion above your Creator, you are guilty of idolatry and a poison to your family tree. May God have mercy on us all.

For centuries, people have taught that sin is engendered by the flesh. Yet God made our flesh and everything He created is good. Your origin is good. There is hope for all of us. Original sin has been mistakenly taught as inevitable guilt, shaming men and women from their birth. The guilt of sin is the poison fruit of our own separate identities. This sickness is not what God would have us understand. He wants you whole and healed, victorious and childlike. He loved us before we were born and He loves us no less today. While we were yet sinners Christ died for us. One died for all, therefore, all died. The problem is not with our bodies, but with our hearts. We were never meant to think so highly of ourselves. Therefore, we must die to ourselves.

Because of Adam's sin, we die. But in the possibility of our death is also the possibility of our resurrection, our transformation. Our mortality can die this minute when we hear what the Word of the Lord says to His beloved. Look into the eyes of the Lord your God. Seek His face. Have the courage to look expectantly on the face of Jesus. Open your heart to wait on Him. Poise, breathlessly awaiting Him. He walks in the garden, you know. He has clothed you. You are not naked. He loves you. Do not be ashamed. Hold open your heart and let Him heal you of death. With the death of your self, comes the eternal life of His love. He only wants to heal you. He only wants to hold you in reunion. He is sorry you were taken from Him at birth and offers you healing love in His tender arms. Wait breathlessly on Him.

Turn unto Him, heart to heart, and once again know that He is good. Let the washing of water by His word baptize you with Him and be dead to sin and self. Like the potter forms the clay into a vessel of honor, allow Him to reshape you. Just as Christ our Creator breathed life into the first man of the earth, so at Pentecost He breathed life into his new creation, the Church. Church, receive the breath of eternal life and let there be a death of death itself. May the Spirit of God rise up within you just as God's life rose up within Christ Jesus and raised Him from the grave. Let there be an end to the curse. Let the life of God be in your breath and may your speech be healing to your family, healing to the nations, and healing to the earth. Thank you, Jesus.

Amen.