Unmasking a Church in Denial by Ross Shultz - HTML preview

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Adam, wife, and that seducing thing

 

In the beginning of man being made in the image of God, we  have been given an allegoric picture from Genesis about how man  fell from his perfect union with the Father of creation. We can see  that Adam walked with God, and their harmony was as if the two  were connected as one. Adam and his wife had free reign over the  world that was call ‘The Garden of Eden’, and he was to tend it, and  that harmony enabled him to have dominion over all of God’s  creation. There was but one rule: Do not pick or eat of the fruit of  the tree of knowledge of ‘good and evil’’, for in the day that you do,  you will surely die.

 

 This tree was filled with the knowledge that man can behold, but  should not, it would teach us ‘good’, therefore showing us evil in  that same process. Jesus said; can a tree produce both good and  evil fruit? Although the answer was not given by Him, it was also  very obvious that the same tree couldn’t produce both good and  corrupt fruit. And since there is none Good but our Father in  Heaven, any knowledge that could be had from this forbidden tree  had to be far from ‘good’; they, both fruit, were mingled into the  same thing.

 

 When the Eve of Adam, that is his soul, his wife, was seduced by  the serpent of the tree of knowledge, she also gave to her husband,  and he did also eat. They then realized they were naked, exposed at  every level, and thus thought they were to hide from God; they now  felt the first emotions of guilt and shame, and they were afraid.  Through their now new knowledge, their first act was to be crafty  and hid from God; that didn’t work. The shame of their  disobedience drove them to cover their nakedness; that didn’t work.  Now that their eyes were open, and the vastness of their new  knowledge, they both began to see the darkness of their lost  relationship; for both were driven from the Garden, thus left to their  own skills; for their united relationship had been broken because of  the hunger for knowledge, and believing the lie that the serpent had  spoken. It was a trade-off. They traded their relationship with God,  for the ‘supposing of knowledge’ that this world could offer. Man  was now on his own, he now had to till the ground, make his own  living the best he knew, by what this earth had to offer, and by the  new found knowledge that he was seduced into by this cleaver so- called serpent.

 

 Now we could dig deep into the truer meaning of the story and  parable of Adam, his wife, and that seducing, crafty serpent, but  what I wanted us to see is that Adam, (mankind), traded, thru his  desire for independence, a relationship with the Father of creation  where at all times he would walk with God; and even at the  beginning he realized what his independence cost him. What a  tremendous trade-off. For when Adam chose to eat of the fruit  from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, he then chose his  independence; his desire to make it on his own. And that is exactly  what each of us does today, we either choose to walk within our  own knowledge, and by the works of our hands, or, we can choose  to walk in a complete relationship with the Father. His Love will  never be taken from us, this we are assured, but to walk with Him,  and depending on Him, is quite a different matter, for God is Spirit,  and the carnal man must lay down his flesh before he can be  reunited.

 

 Many are called, but few are chosen. For God has called many  into a relationship with Himself, and the Life that is available to all;  but only a few are chosen to have their life from the beginning, laid  out by God; and from their beginning, without their personal  acceptance to be used by God for an ordained purpose. Such as  John the Baptist, He didn’t choose the ‘way of his life’; it was chosen  for him by God. Neither did Moses hear a call, his life was picked for  him before birth, and the apostle Paul also, so was King David; but  many, such as Peter heard the call from Christ, and followed Him.  Yes we are a chosen generation, a peculiar people, and a royal  priesthood, and some are chosen, but many are called into this  wonderful and fulfilling relationship with the Father. So do we walk  in the footsteps of our fathers, or come walking with Christ as the   Spirit leads? Traditions are for the world, a beautiful thing, but  Christ came to break those traditions of men; will we follow those  same man-made regulations of an institutionalized structure that  has brought but few to the Kingdom, or can we stand, not against,  but for the unregulated outpouring of God’s Spirit?

 

 So was Adam called or chosen? We know this; that Adam chose  to walk in his own independence, when he already had an  established relationship and walk with God. And the story of Adam,  his wife, and the cunning serpent of the mind, was given to us ; not  as a history lesson, but to show that each of us today are still  making that choice. The Garden of Eden was most likely a real place  in that special place of man, but this I’m assured; that same garden  is alive and well inside of each and every person living today, and we  also are given that choice of living independently with our self- taught skills and knowledge, or we can choose a life of dependency  on the only God that truly knows what True Life is.

 

 The first Adam tried to hide the shame of his nakedness because  of their guilt by their cunning skills under the trees of the Garden,  but the second Adam, which is Christ Jesus, exposed his nakedness  on the cross to show that there is no guilt, nor is there shame for  those who believe in what he was doing; exchanging His life for  ours. For when man hung (so to speak) Jesus on the cross to shame  Him, there was no shame in Him. The resurrection gave us the Life  that the tree of knowledge, by the selfish act of our earth man, gave  away; Jesus now holds the keys to the Kingdom of God, and since  we’re joint heirs with Him, we also hold those same keys; it’s all in  our heart.

 

 The story of the first man, his wife, and the seducing spirit of  knowledge, is far more in-depth than the few words that I have  written, but we can see that many-a-volumes could be explained in  our life today through this same story; it was written about us.