Genesis 1:26-27 (Amplified) says, "God said, Let Us (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), make mankind in Our Image (after Our Likeness), and let them have complete authority over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, over all the (tame) beasts and over all the earth, and over everything that creeps upon the earth. So God created man in His Own Image, in the Image and Likeness of God He created him; male and female he created them."
God's Original Intention was to have a family to share His Love and fellowship with Him. Love requires being shared. Most of us can quote John 3:16, which says, "God so greatly Loved the world that He gave His Only Begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting Life." Love cannot simply be retained, growing and feeling like it's complete, without giving of itself. Love refused to be rejected and Love continued to seek the means and the answer to being made known, so the world would know Him in all that Love is.
Throughout the years, we've misunderstood the heart and will of God, so that even Love itself has been lost to some. We misunderstand God, by not understanding Love, which has resulted in all sorts of fables and foolish things among God's family. Long before there was a Jew or Gentile, there was family. It was only after Adam's fall, that God needed to seek someone to cut a covenant with, in order to regain entrance back into this earth, as the Father. God's family had been lost in the lies of His enemy and God's children had gone into captivity and bondage to satan, and required a Ransom from the Father.
The strength and Power of Love was displayed in the old covenant, when God continually delivered the people, but never like it's displayed in the new covenant of Grace. God's Love fought against captivity in awesome ways of deliverance in the old covenant, when He delivered the people from false gods, who promised everything, but couldn't deliver anything. The enemy's deception couldn't erase man's knowledge of "a god." Satan knew that mankind needed a god to worship and believe in, so he furnished false gods, which held the people in bondage and dead, even while they were living.
In order to bring family back to Himself, God's Love had to break into these lies of satan. God is Just and incapable of lying, so He needed to find a way to return His family to Himself, without breaking His Own Laws of the Kingdom, which upholds this entire universe. God couldn't just ignore what Adam had done and he couldn't go back to the earth, making another man. Man was now the product of sin and outside the family of Righteousness. God"s Love couldn't leave man in this state and separated from Himself.
We look at the old covenant, and view God as hard and demanding, when we should see Him as a diligent, Loving Father Who refused to leave His family in the state of sin and death. Some are finally beginning to see our relationship with the Father, as an act His of Love and Grace. Satan though, still manages to keep God's family divided today, through different means of deception. Some believe that "Grace," means "we can live any way we want and Grace will cover it." Others believe that "Grace" means we simply "Put up with whatever comes in our lives, because it's God's will for our lives." One group is deceived into sowing to the flesh and the other group is giving place to the enemy, through our hedonism.
Some are still trying to earn Grace, by doing good things, while others are accepting everything as being God's will. Both are wrong. Satan doesn't care which side you're on, so long as it's not in-line with the Truth. Do we live any way we want to, because of Grace? Do we have to work, in order to earn God's Grace? No. What are we to do, in order to walk in what God has called us to, today? We're to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and we shall be saved. Haven't we done this? Yes, to some degree, but not in the fullness of Love's Intent and Purpose.
The new covenant isn't a list of things we must and must not do, but things we need to know and not know. Adam didn't need to know the evil, but only the Good. God was to be his Teacher, instructing him in Wisdom and understanding, preventing him from ever knowing evil. Man had no need to seek any father, to be "like God," because he was already made in God's Image and Likeness.
Satan tries deceiving man, making him think that God is holding out on us, preventing us from having all there is to have and enjoy. He tries enticing man into his territory of sin, by promising things that God doesn't want us to enjoy, but he never tells us that he can only promise death and grief. We see God as a dictator over our lives, threatening terrible things if we don't do what He says. We should see Him as a Father, Who protects us from the lies that will destroy us.
God has never held anything back from us, including Himself as our Sacrifice. Many still think that walking with God is a hard road and difficult way, where we're afraid of stepping out-of-line and incurring His anger. This is man's understanding, without the understanding of Wisdom. God's anger doesn't bring forth the result of our disobedience, it's the result of the very thing He tried keeping us away from.
As Christians under Grace, we're still subject to the Law of Sin and of Death. We're free from spiritual death, through the newborn spirit that is of God, but sin will still bring forth premature death and disease in our physical body and take our physical life, way before it was our time. Many see this as God's anger, instead of seeing that Love was trying to direct us away from the enemy's traps. When a believer strays into sin, and perhaps dies or suffers physically and emotionally from that sin, we think God's punishing them, instead of seeing that person strayed from the path He has laid before them. Psalm 23, tells us, that, "God leads us in paths of Righteousness, for His Name's sake." God will never lead us into something that is outside His will for us. Sin is certainly never His will for us.
Family is the most important thing in God's heart and through Jesus, we are His family. We are heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus, as family. Everything God's heart held for His family at the beginning, is magnified through Jesus, into an even greater inheritance than at the first. God has provided everything we would ever need, in order to enjoy life on this earth, here and now. This was God's Plan for His family at the beginning, before He brought Life to us and it's His Plan for us now, according to Ephesians 2:10 (Amplified) which says, "For we are God's Own handiwork (His workmanship), recreated in Christ Jesus, born anew that we may do those good works which God predestined (planned beforehand), for us, taking paths which He prepared ahead of time that we should walk in them, living the good Life which He prearranged and made ready for us to live."
God's Plan for His family, is that we walk in the paths He prearranged and prepared ahead of time, and that we live the good Life. Adam chose his own path, but through Jesus, God has revealed the paths He Originally Intended for us beforehand. This wasn't an afterthought for His family, but His Own Plan for us, to live free before Him, in all His Blessing. God's Original Intention included provision for everything we'd ever need. God Planned for His children to grow before Him, in joy and peace and delight.
God has no need to create anything more for His family, because He has already made it ours, in Jesus. Through Jesus, we've been Redeemed and bought back from Adam's decision to walk in his own paths. Jesus has restored us to the Paths God prepared for us, at the beginning, for both here and hereafter. Adam's sin caused sin and death to be part of God's family, but they have been defeated when Jesus said, "It is finished," on Calvary's cross. Jesus became sin with our sin, was wounded for our transgressions, was beaten and striped with a whip for our healing, and was raised from the dead for our justification. Jesus made us to be the righteousness of God, with His Own Righteousness. The First Adam didn't do anything, that the Last Adam Jesus failed to have victory over, on our behalf.
There's nothing left for us to do, but only to believe on what He has already done. THIS IS GRACE. This isn't only for when we die and go to Heaven. We're to believe and walk in Grace here, like we're already in Heaven and as citizens of the Household of Father, like the Father always intended. We must understand what Jesus has already done on our behalf.
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