A time for everything

Sometimes we may feel as if bad times have come upon us, when various circumstances and certain people come into our lives. However, what we do not realize is that what appear to us to be bad times can sometimes, according to the Lord, be good times. We are told that if we love God then all things will work together for good for us. Sometimes things are sent to try us and test us, and even to change us and our way of thinking about people. Just because they do not seem the kind of person we like, or their personality is not what we are familiar with it does not mean that they are not the best kind to be in our lives at a specific time. Ecclesiastes ch. 3 v.1 states that 'To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heavens', and I can look back over my life and see that this is very true. People who are very different from what I have been used to have been brought into my life several times, bringing me to face a challenge that will either change me or change that person.
Life is a journey, and it is on-going just as the Israelites journey was on-going through the wilderness towards the promised land.
The following are two poems which metaphorically speak about the trials in life.
The first one is called 'The Onion', and speaks of rejection being turned around to acceptance through seeing something, or someone,  that we did not want in our lives from a different perspective.

 The Onion                             

'How pleasant is our garden' the flowers said one day
while basking in the morning sun then they heard the gardener say

'I think I'll plant an onion to see if it will grow'

and looking round the garden sought a place for it to go.

 

 

 

 

 

'Oh no!' cried out the marigold 'Don't put Onion next to me. 'What about beside the pond or under that old tree?'

 

 

 

 

 

 

'And why then should I suffer?

replied the noble oak. 

'And neither do we want it here!'

the frogs began to croak.

And   so the gardener scratched his head and said 'What shall I do? somewhere within my garden must be a place for you.'

 The onion cried within his heart, the tears began to roll .  He prayed 'Lord, I'm created too, find a place for this poor soul.'

And then the gardener heaved a sigh and said 'The only thing is to put this onion by the fence, with the weeds that choke and sting.'

The onion was so happy, at last was found a place. The gardener went and brought his spade, the onion dried its face. How happy was the little plant once settled in the ground. He spread his roots and raised his head, began to look around. A sudden sound of crying began to reach his ears. 'Oh no, what now.' the onion said. 'Who's shedding all those tears?' But mingled with the crying 'Hip, hip, hooray' was heard. A sigh of hope, and maybe not rejection as he feared.?' 

The sobbing wasn't coming from the marigold or oak, but coming from the nasty weeds, the ones that sting and choke. By now the weeds were withering, the thistles gasped for breath, for the presence of the onion could only mean their death. The flowers now with shouts of glee to the onion did lean and bend, for what was seen as an enemy had now become their friend.   So if in your midst there's an 'onion', who sometimes makes you cry, put him amongst your thistles and weeds. Who knows......? Maybe they'll die.   

 

The second poem   is about  not  judging a situation or a person just by its 'prickly' side but seeing its beautiful and fruitful side also.  

 

The Bramble                                                                       

                                                                                                                                                                                  

 

Christmas blessings

I just want to share a couple of poems I wrote regarding the Lord and Christmas time.
The first is one I wrote when my husband and myself were living in a house back in Wales some years ago.  We had a little rescue cat that had been found in a stable, and she is mentioned also in this poem.

Christmas day - Late afternoon

It's Christmas day and it's late afternoon
I lie on my couch in my cosy back room
I look through the archway towards the French doors
out into the garden where black ragged claws
of firethorn branches are reaching high
with nail-like thorns into sullen sky
The Christmas tree stands in the darkening room
casting radiance and light into unlit gloom
Messiah is playing on classic CD
as a feeling of timelessness hangs over me
The kitten sleeps - found in a stable they said
was in a bad way - she was almost dead
but why is there here a sense of holiness
when all that I gaze upon speaks of lowliness
There's something else here in this down -to-earth place
there's a message of mercy - a message of grace
The lights, the stable, thorns, arch and Messiah
they all speak of something much greater, much higher
than this one day a year set aside to rejoice
to sing carols, send cards and do things of one's choice
For they suddenly speak not of worldly tradition
but of Son of God rescuing son of sedition

'For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.' John ch. 6 v.38

 The second poem is one that I wrote to put in a little card that I made. 

Wise men came

Come all who are heavy laden
come now and behold your king
come all who are sad and lonely
it's time to rejoice and sing
Come all who are weak and weary
lift up your heads and see
come all who are bound in fetters
this Saviour can set you free
This Jesus Who once was rejected
must now be received by all
for the Father has granted eternal life
to those who will answer His call
He comes to give life in abundance
a bearer of burdens is He
He's been born in a world
of rejection and strife
He's been born to bring pardon
and eternal life

 

May we all be wise and come to the One Who was born into this world to pay the price for our sins.

 

 

 

^' For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.'

John ch. 6 v.40

Who do we believe in

A couple of weeks ago I did not go to the church gathering that I am attending, I did not feel like going and was going through a bit of a trial with my bones, and I began to think  'Maybe I will come out of this church gathering and see if I can find a Pentecostal one nearby.'  I believe the reason I was thinking this was that I have seen a lack of the spiritual gifts operating in the churches, including the gifts of healing and miracles. Very soon after, I had a dream in which these words were spoken to me 'Do not say that you will come out', but not only were these words spoken to me, a picture of the words were in front of my eyes in the dream.  I knew it was speaking about me not coming out of the church at this moment, as God warns us in dreams.
 

Last Saturday I was not only suffering from pain in my bones, as I had done a lot of walking on the Thursday and Friday that week, but I stepped on something in the mat in the en suite in our bedroom that felt like a needle, and I could not walk on that foot.  My carnal mind told me that there was no way that I could go to church the next morning, and yet when I sought the Lord about it He had me open to Psalm 122 twice. This is a Psalm that has always spoken to me about going to a church gathering when I have asked about it, so I prayed to the Lord that if I was meant to go then He would enable me to.

I awoke the next morning with no problem in my foot and feeling well able to go to the church gathering, and wanting to do so.

I noticed on my bedside cabinet as I awoke that my husband had cleaned the bedroom furniture the day before because I was feeling weak.  He had jiggled the lamp and other things that I had there and one of the things that he had moved around was a little picture of a rose and a scripture on it. This was looking straight at me as I awoke.

  This is the picture that I have on my bedside cabinet, it is in a frame on there.  I knew immediately that I was to go to church, it had been enabled through His strength in my weakness, and it was meant to be.

This incident made me realize once again that the Word spoken to us will prove true if we just trust in the Lord, knowing that all things are possible with Him.

Fear and doubt can actually prevent us from trusting in what the Lord is saying, and cause us to trust in what the enemy is putting within our carnal minds. We must not forget that once we are born again and have become a child of God then we have the mind of Christ.

1 Corinthians ch. 2 vs. 14-16 states:-
But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.  But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one.   For “who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.'

This is absolutely true, and I finish this post with a prayer that I wrote many years ago and which is still my prayer today:-

 

 It broke all the rules

Lord make me like Mary, so quick to believe

when the angel foretold what would be

take doubt from my heart that my mind might perceive
what Your Spirit is able to see

Yes make me like Mary that I might receive

with a heart and a mind that are meek

unlike Zechariah who would not believe

and for months was unable to speak

 

Lord make me like Joseph who thinking it right

would quietly put Mary away

but when visited by an angel one night

straightway at her side he did stay

Yes make me like Joseph who simply obeyed

when instructed that night in a dream

to do what You ask Lord and not be afraid

how to others it might make me seem

 

Lord make me like Jesus - a babe in a womb

awaiting His birth in this world

though knowing one day He'd be sealed in that tomb

was obedient as God's plan unfurled

Yes make me like Jesus - a true child of God

Who came into this world to serve

and was born in a manger, where animals trod

not the palace that He did deserve

 

For God is not ordered by man's plan or choice

and it broke on that day all the rules

when He spoke to a maiden through angel's voice

in spite of religion and wisdom of fools

No God was not ordered by man's plan or choice

when He sent You Lord Jesus to earth

and through riddle and parable echoes His voice

as He brings His great Kingdom to birth.

 

When each part is working properly

Last Saturday I was in a ladies meeting at somebody's house and was given something to comment on that was talking about geese.  A post I had put up on my blog about three years ago came into my mind and I have decided to put it up again. Hope you enjoy reading.

I have a little gold book by the side of my computer, one of the diaries that I have written in.  I opened it and noticed that the page I had opened to had many of the things written in it that were in the article 'Rapture'.  So I have decided to put up this post, edited,  so that I can re tell in the present time what happened at that time. 


The church that I attended at the time I first wrote this post  is not the church that I attend now, and I have added a few photographs.


Rapture
Several years ago I had a dream in which I was looking at certain stars in the sky.  As I looked at them they appeared to grow in explosive glory, yet were not destroyed.  It was absolutely beautiful.  In the dream my husband was stood nearby and I asked him to look at the stars, but when he looked he saw them as normal stars.  Then some other people came along who were unbelievers, and I asked them to look at the same stars.  They too saw them as normal stars.  A short time after I had the dream I bought some new gold coloured curtains, and when I got them home and went to take them out of the packet I noticed they were called 'Rapture', and that the pattern on them was very much like the exploding stars that I had seen in my dream.  The word 'rapture' means 'to be carried to a state of extreme joy', and that was exactly the state I had been in, watching the stars in my dream. 
 

Soon  after, I went to the church that I was attending at the time and the pastor was saying that he and the family had visited a waterfall in a local park.  Then a lady spoke of waterfalls of wine, the pastor following on speaking of how new wine could not be put into old wineskins but had to be put into new wineskins.  I noticed that the lady who spoke on 'waterfalls of wine' had a dress on with an almost identical pattern to my curtains, only the background colour was brown instead of gold. 
 

I told my son, who had moved to the area recently, that the waterfalls were there, because he had said that when he moved down here from Scotland he wanted to visit many of the waterfalls in the area.  He said he knew of the waterfalls that the pastor had spoken about, and that they were partially man made.  Again I felt that something was being pointed out to me, that the waterfalls that were partially man made and the dress with the brown (representing earthly wisdom) background colour could be speaking spiritually of man's interference with God's word and the Holy Spirit in some way and that if it was, then the Lord would reveal more to me if I prayed and waited.
 

Some time after, I was reading 2 Kings chapter 2 where the men of the city were telling Elisha that the situation of the city of Jericho was pleasant but the water was bad and the land was unfruitful.  Elisha asked for a new bowl and put salt in it.  Then he went to the spring and threw salt in it, and the word of the Lord came to him to say that the water was made wholesome and that neither death nor miscarriage would come from it.

After I had read this I was thinking about sharing my thoughts with the pastor at the church, and I reached for my UCB daily reading book.  When I opened to the reading for the day it was saying that we all have gaps and that the best way to handle the weaknesses was to work together and it was encouraging us to work more together and not to be like  Diotrephes who not only refused to welcome the brethren, but also stopped those who wanted to welcome them.

 

I was about to put up on my front room wall a print of two geese painted originally in watercolour.   I was reminded of a book I have called 'Why geese fly farther than eagles'   The following is a paragraph from that book which reflects to me the way the body of Christ should function as stated in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 16 '....... joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and up builds itself in love.'

'When the head goose grabs the wind, air is displaced, which then rushes up to reclaim its space only to see the smiling face of the bird flying behind, whose wings just happen to be in the downward position - a very dangerous condition, which doesn't last for long, because the upward rush gives them a push, and they're right back up where they belong.  This goose then grabs the air again, causing another upward wind, which lifts the bird behind.  And so it goes on down the line.  So the head goose breaks the wind, and all the rest are carried by him, with very little effort, I've heard, on the part of any one bird.  When the head goose has had enough, he or she simply drops back and depends on another bird for strength when strength is what is lacked.

So that's how I found out how the goose can fly from up north to way down south and back again.  But she cannot do it alone, you see.  It's something that must be done in community.  These days it's a popular notion, and people swell with emotion and pride when they think of themselves on the eagle-side, solitary, self-sufficient, strong.  But we are what we are.  That's something we cannot choose.  Though many would wish to be seen as an eagle, I think God made most like the goose.'
 

That Sunday the pastor of the church that I attended was saying to my friend and myself that if anyone has anything they want to share during the service they have to speak to the appointed convener about it and he will decide whether it should be shared or not.  Does not 1 Corinthians ch. 14 v. 26 say 'What then shall we say, brothers and sisters? When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. Everything must be done so that the church may be built up.'  

A few Sundays previous it was preached in church that if people did not go to the doctors with certain sicknesses they would die. 
I had been trusting in the Lord solely for a particular healing  and when I got home that day I sought the Lord regarding what had been spoken in church and I opened my Bible to read.  On the page in front of me was a verse in Psalm 118 that I had underlined some time previous.  It reads ' I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord.'  I asked the Lord if He was speaking this word to me, closed my Bible, and opened to exactly the same page, with the same underlined verse speaking to me.

 

I have to ask, ' If I had asked the Lord this question in church that morning and opened my Bible to this verse twice, would I have been allowed to share this with the church or would the convener have thought that it went against what was being preached regarding 'going to the doctors or dying' and disallowed it, thereby denying this testimony which might have strengthened and encouraged somebody else ?'

 

Surely there can only be one convener in the church, the Holy Spirit, and are we guilty of trying to interfere with His work by bringing in our own rules instead of following the guidelines of the scriptures when we come together. Daniel ch. 2 v.44 reads:- 'And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.'  

 

We must not be afraid of a little 'salt' in case it might offend.  Jesus says that we, as believers, are the salt of the Earth:- “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavour, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.  (Matthew ch. 5 v. 13)
  

Why, in my dream, did not my husband or the unbelievers see the full glory of the stars in the heavens?  I could understand why the unbelievers did not see it, but my husband has been baptized and believes in Jesus.  Was he representing somebody who believes but can not see the full glory because he is guided largely by worldly wisdom and knowledge?   Jeremiah ch. 15 v. 16 reads:- 'Thy words were found, and I ate them; and Thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart; for I am called by Thy name, O Lord God of hosts.'   
Nehemiah  ch. 8 v. 10 contains the words 'the joy of the Lord is your strength.'

In order to be carried to that 'extreme state of joy',  the word of the Lord has to be our strength.  Then we shall be able to put off the old brown (earthly) wineskins and put on our new gold (Christ like )ones?

Let us make man in our image

The following is a re-post of something I wrote some years back which I feel to put up again:-

There are quite clearly two Adams spoken of in the Bible.  The first book of Corinthians, ch.15 v45  says ‘The first man Adam became a living being, the last Adam became a life-giving spirit .’  If we look in Genesis ch2 v7, we see that  this first man, Adam, was formed of dust from the ground  This  ‘man of dust’ was formed before any plant or herb had grown on the earth ( v5 ), even before the sun and the moon were created, which would have been on the second day, and is formed by God alone, Who places him in the garden of Eden.  The word ‘Adham’, used here, is the Hebrew for ‘man’, which sounds like, and may be derived from, the Hebrew word for ground ( Adhamah ).  This Adam disobeyed God, and was tempted to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil when his wife was persuaded to question God's word   when the serpent said 'Did God really say?', thereby coming to know good and evil.  God had told Adam that he could eat of any tree in the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and evil .  Because of this disobedience,  eternal life was denied him (Genesis ch 3 v. 22,) and he and his wife Eve were sent with several curses from the garden of Eden ( which means ‘delight’ ), and this emphasises the loss of relationship with God suffered by them through disobedience to Him through the questioning of His word, a choice made by them which took them away from the blessing of eternal life. They were sent out of the garden and denied access to the tree of life.

In Genesis ch.1 v, 26 God says ‘Let us make man in our image’. This takes place on the sixth day, and the word used in verse 27  for ‘man’ , ‘adam’, is a collective  referring to mankind, both male and female .

We are told that eternal life is not just to know God but to know God and His Son Jesus Christ, (John ch.17 v3 ), and Hebrews ch.1 v.2 tells us that God  made the worlds by Jesus.   We are also told in John ch.1 that Jesus is the word, and that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and that the Word was God.  From this we gather that the ‘ us ’ and the ‘our’, as in ‘Let us make man in our image,’ could well refer to God and Jesus .   God is Spirit, ( John ch. 4 v.24 ), and Jesus is the express image of God. (Hebrews ch. 1 v.3 ) so is this collective ‘man ‘, made in the image of God and Jesus Christ, the church , the spiritual man, the one spoken of by Paul in 1 Corinthians ch 15 v.49?    2 Corinthians ch. 3 v.18 says that we, the church, 'are being transformed into His image'.  These created beings were told to bear fruit and were sent out to  multiply, God referring  to everything He had made, including them, as being ‘very good’ (Genesis  ch.1 v.31 ).

God is  Spirit and until His Spirit is born in us we can not be like Him.  We are the ‘man of dust’, without hope and without God in the world (Ephesians ch.2 v.12 ), and bear the image of the man of dust until we are born again of God’s Holy Spirit.   Just like birds, who are first born into an egg and then have to break through that shell in order to fly, we have to break through the restrictive shell of our earthly sinful and disobedient to God nature, to be able to soar in Heavenly places with Christ Jesus.  This can only be achieved with the help of the Holy Spirit , made manifest through the diverse gifts within the body of Christ.  

Once we are born again and are in Christ Jesus and are actively walking in the Spirit, then we begin to become like Him.  We are encouraged by Paul in 1 Corinthians ch. 15 v. 49 to bear the image of the heavenly.  The first Adam became a living being.  We are not in the likeness of God as descendants of Adam because Adam sinned and all his descendants inherited his sinful nature, thereby becoming children of disobedience, all under God’s wrath, and ‘dead’ in our sins, (Ephesians ch.2 v.1.).  In 1 Corinthians ch.15 vs .45 - 49, we are told that there are two Adams, a physical which comes first and a spiritual which comes second.   We, as Christians are told that we shall bear the image of the first one and then encouraged to put on the image of the second one.  The second Adam, Jesus, was a life giving Spirit, and all who descend from him will be in His likeness and, because He is the express image of God, they will also possess the ability to be made in the likeness of God if they believe on Him., being obedient to Him.  We can only become sons of God through this life-giving Spirit.  Galatians ch.3 v.27 says ‘ For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith.  For as many of you as were baptised into Christ have put on Christ.’

‘ But as many as received Him, to them gave He  power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name, which were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God ’  John ch.1 vs. 12, 13.

Jesus is God’s only begotten Son and we can become part of the body of Christ, thereby  spiritually becoming God’s Son too.   Is this the transformation spoken of in Genesis ch1 v26 , and is  God  speaking to Jesus (for the Gospel of John ch1 v1,2 and 3 says ’In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made .’)?

Genesis ch.1 v. 16 speaks of two great lights created on the fourth day.  Although God had created light on the first day, the sun and the moon were not created until the fourth day, ‘ a greater light  to rule the day, and a lesser light to rule the night ’.  If we take the natural meaning, it speaks of the sun and the moon coming into our world on the fourth day.   However, the scriptures are discerned spiritually as well. 

Psalm ch.90 v.4 says that one thousand years in God’s sight are as a day gone by.  Psalm 19 speaks of the heavens declaring the glory of God, and speaks of the sun being as a bridegroom, and Jesus is called  the bridegroom, and also the light that has come into the world ( John ch. 3 v.19 ).   John ch.1 v.9 says The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world.  This was talking about Jesus at the time of John the Baptist, it was not talking of the natural‘ light’ that was already in the world, but the light that was coming into the world.

The sun gives light in the day, and while Jesus was in the world He was the light.    John ch.3 v 19a says, regarding Jesus and the work that He came to do  ‘ and this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, ’.   In John ch,9 v.4 He says, ‘ I must work the works of Him that sent me while it is day: the night comes when no man can work.' 

The second great light created on the fourth day was the moon, to give light in the night.   The moon is a simile of the church, ‘ to be established as a faithful witness (psalm 89 v.37 ) ’.  Jesus has commissioned the church to do the work He did on earth.  He said to His disciples ‘As my Father has sent me, even so I send you ’ ( John ch. 20 v.21 ).  We can do nothing without Him, the Holy Spirit has been sent to equip  us to do His work. Within the body of Christ is the ability, through the spiritual gifts, to do all the works that He did while He was in a physical body on Earth , both within the house of God and in the world.

Just as the moon has no light of it’s own, but can only reflect the light of the sun on the world at night, so we have no light of our own to shed on the world while it lies in darkness. We must reflect the light which comes from our Lord Jesus,    ( hence  ‘no man can work ’)   The church is the spiritual body of Jesus Christ which has been forming for nearly two thousand years, or two days  in God’s time.  Jesus said in  Luke ch. 13 v. 32,   ‘ Today and tomorrow I do cures, on the third day I will be perfected. ’  Is He talking God’s time, has He been doing  ‘ cures ’ for two thousand years, and are we in the sixth day when the full measure of Christ’s body on earth will be reached, ( Jesus’ body being perfected ), being told to multiply and subdue the earth through His Spirit. ? Have the last two thousand years been used to form the ‘ man made in God and Jesus’ image’,  the collective, spiritual one spoken of in 1 Corinthians ch.15, and is this spiritual, collective one about to be perfected in Jesus ?  Romans ch.6vs3-5 says ‘ Do you not know that all of us who have been baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into His death?  We were buried with Him therefore, by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from death by the Glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.  For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.’

 

As far as time is concerned many people may say that we have gone past the  six thousand years, but whose calendar do we go by?  The Jews have a different calendar to us, the Mayans a different one again.  Also the Genesis day starts in the evening.

The earth lay in darkness cold as a tomb
there was no warmth or light

It lay without life like the barren womb
of a woman alone in the night

...... It waited for Jesus

Once again the Earth waits as in days of old

Again there is darkness, again it is cold

But now there’s a moon to reflect the sun

To announce the return of God’s Holy One

To tell of salvation from sin and death

By receiving God’s Spirit .... His life-giving breath

God has given Jesus a name above every other name, ' for you have exalted above all things your name and your word ',Psalm 138 v.2b.     The king James version puts it  'for thou hast magnified Thy Word above all Thy name' , and I believe this is what the Father did, gave Jesus the authority to even blank out the curse that God had put on mankind by becoming the spotless lamb without blemish required as a sacrifice to do this.  ( Jesus means ‘ Yahweh saves ’), and because of this He is able to save mankind from the spiritual death inherited as a result of the sin of Adam.   Lazarus, Mary and Martha’s brother was dead for four days before Jesus raised him from the dead.  The name ‘ Lazarus ’ means ‘ whom God helps ’, and this is exactly what God did to mankind after they had been spiritually dead in their sins for four spiritual days, (four thousand years ) .   He made a way for all of mankind to regain the spiritual life they had lost through Adam by sending Jesus, to whom He has given all authority, even authority over death itself.   In Luke ch.9 vs. 28 -36, when Jesus was talking on top of the mountain with Moses and Elijah, Peter wanted to make booths for the two of them and one for Jesus.  However, as he said this a cloud came and overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud saying ‘This is my Son, my Chosen, listen to him’ and the other two disappeared, leaving Jesus alone.  The law and the prophets no longer carried the divine authority, only Jesus did.   When Jesus was born as the Son of man and the Son of God it was the end of mankind having the curse of the fleshly inheritance of the first Adam.  Joseph did not father the child Jesus, the Holy Spirit did.   Man was once again given the opportunity of eating from the tree of life ( Jesus, the Word of God ).  

Jesus said to Martha, when she confessed belief in the resurrection on the last day, ‘I am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in me, though he die yet shall he live ’( John ch.. 11 v.25 ).   Paul was confirming the creating of this new spiritual being in 1 Corinthians ch.15 v.22 by saying ‘For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive ’.  We are collectively the body of the new Adam spoken of in Genesis ch. 1 v.26   ( the life giving spirit ), in Christ Jesus, when we believe in Him, Jesus being the head.   Philippians ch.2 v.9 tells us that 'God has highly exalted Jesus and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.'  God is spirit and must be worshipped in spirit and in truth. 

There is, in Jesus, a divine forgiveness which keeps no record of the death producing sins, which was not there in the old covenant between mankind and God, ( ‘ Let it be known to you therefore brethren that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by Him everyone that believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses. [ Acts ch. 13 vs. 38, 39 ] ) and gives access to eternal life which had  previously been denied us.( Genesis ch.3 vs 22-24.).   Once we believe in Jesus and have become part of His body He, being the head,  instructs us to remove the grave clothes from dead mankind with the commission He gives to His disciples in Matthew ch.28 vs. 19 and 20  ‘ Go therefore and make disciples  of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father  and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age .’ 

It is God Himself who has made Jesus Lord, and in Him alone is the ‘life’ that is eternal.  He is the manna  from heaven, the  bread of the face, the ‘word of God ’, the  door to the sheepfold , the  mediator between man and God,  and the only means by which man may be reconciled back to God.  There is no other name under Heaven by which we might be saved.   He is the tree of life that Adam and Eve could not eat from because of their disobedience, the fruit of which enables mankind to know God and have eternal life.    The‘ Word’, which is Jesus, has the power to create.  It was there in the beginning, when God used it to speak the world into existence, and was there when God said ‘Let us make (create) man (the word used is mankind in the original text) in our image. ’.  God and  His only begotten Son Jesus, the Word of God, who was with Him in the beginning (John ch.1 v1),  and who was taken up into heaven to sit at the right hand of God after His time on earth ( Mark ch. 16 v.19), are making mankind ( formed from dust), in their image, speaking of our spiritual re-creation which God is doing through Jesus, ( curing us from our disobedient nature ) and has been doing for two thousand years since the Spirit was given, to those that believe, after Jesus was crucified, (for the Spirit was not given until after Jesus was crucified).  We are a new creation in Christ Jesus.

In Acts ch.2 v.36 we are told that God has made Jesus both Lord and Christ, and in John ch.3 v.16 we are told that God has allowed Jesus to be crucified for our sins because He loves us and does not want us to perish but have everlasting life.  Eternal life cannot be attained without Jesus, otherwise Adam and all mankind would have automatically received it 

The time allotted by God for Jesus to save is a time of grace, when the door is open to us.  It has been granted to  us to eat of the tree of life, a thing previously denied us all by God because we were under the curse of death, inherited  through Adam’s sin.(Ephesians ch.2 v.5 says we were dead in our sins )  The right to eat of this tree has not been earned by us but by Jesus, through His crucifixion.  It is a gift!

Son of the Father

The ultimate sacrifice of all time took place when Jesus was chosen to be crucified and Barabbas was set free.  Jesus represented the lamb without blemish that, in the priestly rituals of the old testament, was used as an offering to ward off the punishment due to the Israelites for disobeying God, while Barabbas represented disobedient mankind, being a son of Adam by nature. 

The name Barabbas  means ‘son of the father,’ and his crime was sedition, which is ‘conduct tending to promote treason or rebellion against a governing authority’.   Adam’s original disobedience in the garden of Eden  was  exactly that, and the governing authority that he was rebelling against was God.  His act caused all of mankind to inherit the sin of rebellion against the governing authority of God.  

It is not coincidence that the one who was set free from being put to death at Calvary was named Barabbas.  He represented fallen mankind, the children of Adam.   On that day  the Son of the heavenly Father was releasing the son of the earthly father from spiritual death and opening the way to eternal life to all of mankind.   1 Corinthians ch. 15 v 49 says , we have borne the image of the man of dust and we are destined to bear the image of the man of the Spirit.  As God Himself is  Spirit, (2 Corinthians ch.3 v.17 ) so too the new image is a spiritual one.  We are made alive together with Christ, being saved by grace, and are raised up with Him, and made to sit with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

If we turn the word ‘ evil ‘ around we get the word ‘ live ‘.  If we turn the Hebrew word for evil, Ra, around, we get Er, which means waken.   Verse 18 of 1 Corinthians ch.15 speaks of  ' those who have fallen asleep in Christ ' When we are in Christ we have turned around from evil, and shall waken one day ( on the third spiritual day after Jesus came to earth, at the end of the sixth day according to 'one day being as a thousand years ) to a life of no death, no tears, no sorrow.  How wonderful is our God!  

And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood there is no remission. It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.  Hebrews Ch. vs.22,23