Return to Eden, Part 4

Return to Eden, Part 4

           When God made man in the beginning, he was made in the likeness and image of Himself.  The old saying we use about being the “the spitting image” of someone actually began from the Word concerning our Heavenly Father and you- we had become the “spirit and image” of Him. 

When the Father set about the way to bring his children home, it wasn’t just to go to Heaven when you die, but to walk with Him as he did with Adam and Jesus in the Spirit.  We have for so long kept our Father at arms length by always being conscious of our own unrighteousness instead of receiving the righteousness that He has provided for us.  Many of the children of God have returned to some degree back to him, but only as far as the “gate of the garden.”  Being conscious of our sin has kept us from enjoying unbroken fellowship, and kept the Father from fellowship with his family.  

Somehow, we have not been able to fully understand what lengths the Father has gone to in order to bring us back home.  My children have unbroken fellowship with me, but that doesn’t mean they do no wrong, only that they are still my children and nothing is going to separate that fellowship. 

As we grew up together, we shared everything in our home.  They never had to beg for what they needed because their father provided it for them out of love.  Everything I’ve done was for my children and their mother.  I didn’t go to work every morning because I loved my job- I went to work because I loved my family

They took on some of my manners and habits- they grew into the “spirit and image” of their daddy.  My oldest son was called Jim Jr. - not only was he named after me, but he looked like me and he walked and talked like me.  He is not me, but he is just like me. 

In Psalm 8: K.J.V. the palmist asks a question that men have been asking for years.  VS.4 “What is man, that thou art mindful of him?”  The next verse in Psalm 8:5 K.J.V. is one that has been misunderstood for years.  It states that you were “made a little lower than the angels.”  In the Strongs Concordance, the word angel is translated “Elohim” or God.  It stands to reason that if we were created in His likeness and image as it says in Genesis 1:26-27, we must in essence be like Him.  We are not lower than the angels- Hebrew 1:14 Amp. states that they- “the angels”- are spirits sent to minister for and to us as the heirs of Salvation.

The Father wants his family back and is going to have it.  Eden has been opened to us since the resurrection, but we have been reluctant to enter in.  The same thing that Adam felt when he had done wrong- this sense of guilt, the stain of sin, the condemnation of our own conscious- has left us impotent and outside the gate of Eden.  In the 10^th chapter of the book of Hebrews (read this in the amplified), the Holy Spirit wrote about those who could not enter in because of a sin consciousness.  VS. 22 Heb. 10 Amp. “our hearts purified from a guilty (evil) conscience and our body cleansed with pure water.” When he speaks of this cleansing, it is not the ritualistic cleansing done before, but the cleansing of that has been made for us by “the washing of water by the Word”- Eph. 5:25-26-27 Amp.  “The word of God will cleanse your consciousness from all guilt and shame if you will believe what Jesus has done” Romans 8:1-3 Amp.

If we believe in what Jesus did on the cross and allow that truth to live in us, we can walk and live our lives here free from the lie of the enemy.  Romans 8:6 Amp. “The mind of the Spirit is life and (soul) peace. Now and forever.”

Now we can see and understand what the Holy Spirit wrote in Eph. 2:6-10 Amp. VS. 10. “paths that God laid out for us to walk in, into the good life he prearranged and made ready for us.” Genesis 2:7,8,9 Amp.

This garden, this presence, this place of every good and pleasant thing, this Eden, was the good life he prearranged for us and is bringing us back to.