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, 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, Who is Love, created man, in order to have someone to share His Love, His Wisdom and His creativity with. Adam didn't have fear, doubt, or any sense that God would fail, in what He created Adam to be. Adam put no thought to God's being unable to fulfill His Promises and Blessing for him. God was Adam and Eve's Father and showed them everything He had created for them. They fellow-shipped with and were taught by the Father.
Adam had no idea about the provision the animals on earth were given. Adam grew in knowledge and understanding, as the Father taught him about authority and dominion he'd been given. Adam began to become more like his Father, as the Father showed him around the earth and the Garden He had prepared for him to live in. The Father raised Adam up in Wisdom, about his ruling authority. Genesis 2:19 (Amplified) says, "And out of the ground the Lord God formed every living creature of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them; and whatever Adam called every living creature, that was its name."
The Father enjoyed and introduced His newborn son and family to the newness and beauty of creation. Just like we enjoy teaching our children to color, draw, and read, the Father delighted in His son and His son's quest to learn. Adam and Eve's capabilities were unlimited and were capable of knowing all the Father had to teach them, because they were created in God's Image and Likeness.
There was only one rule for Adam and Eve to follow, in the vastness of God's creation and that was not eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and evil. Adam knew the good that God showed him and had nothing to gain from knowing the evil. God need His son to trust in what He told him. Many don't believe that we have free will and that everything that happens is, "God's will for them." If Adam didn't have his own free will, then God wouldn't have forbidden him to eat of the Tree of Knowledge. Adam was allowed to choose for himself, whether to eat of the Tree.
If Adam trusted his Father's advice and His Word, then he would never have partaken from the Tree. The first thing satan did, was to make Adam doubt the Father's Love and His Word. Adam's faith or trust, became doubt and death. This is the very thing that satan continues to do, even today. He makes us doubt God's Word and His Love. The more the enemy can teach us to doubt, the more liberty had gains over God's family.
The enemy is "more subtle than any other beasts of the field" and began teaching mankind to doubt God's Love and His Word. We've been taught that, "You can never know what God might do," or "It may not be God's will." We've been taught that "God allows things to come upon us, in order to teach us something," leaving us to doubt and mistrust God. The only "rights" the enemy has over us, are those we give him by our lack of trust and understanding of who we really are in Christ Jesus.
Jesus has restored and redeemed everything that Adam lost in the Garden, by His Sacrifice. The only thing satan has left to use against us, is the same deception he used against Adam and Eve. Satan's method of deception has worked for millennia, so why would he stop doing it? After all, the old saying goes, "If it ain't broke, then don't fix it." Satan continues using this deception against us, today, just like he did with Adam. Satan asked Adam and Eve, "Yea! did God say." In other words, he asked them, "Are you sure what God said is True?"
The only defense the enemy now possesses is deception, and he's the master of deception. Throughout the years, he has trained our senses to doubt God's Promises. The one Promise we trust is that we will go to Heaven after we die. We mostly distrust and doubt God's other Promises. We've placed more trust in what others say, than we do in God's Word. Our faith is based on the testimonies of what others did or didn't receive.
Your faith in God, is the only thing that can either make or break God's Promises to you. It's so important that we develop our faith in Him and not in someone else. If prayer didn't work for another believer, then that doesn't mean it won't work for you. You can't be sure what that person was believing or not believing. The only thing we can be sure of, is believing in God's Word. We know some in the Church who speak in tongues, while others do not. They didn't believe in the Gift of Tongues, but that doesn't mean that we didn't receive the Promise of that Gift.
We can't base our walk with the Father on someone else's faith. We must base our walk with Him, on our own faith. Numbers 13 tells us about two million people who trusted in the faith of others and they died in the Wilderness, because they didn't believe God's Promise for them to enter the Promised Land. Could those who listened to the words of unbelief, have entered into the Land with Joshua and Caleb? Of course they could, but they chose not to believe and put their faith in what God said. His Word was for all of Israel, not just for Joshua and Caleb.
Today, we're bombarded with many different teachings, from many different sources. It's up to every individual to know God's Word and to know and walk with the Lord, for him/herself. These teachings derive from saved people, but they have been deceived. They teach and preach from the things they learned from the carnal minds of men and not from God. If the teachers have been deceived, then they're probably teaching from that deception and those they're teaching too, will probably not have a successful walk with God.
We must never take what is being said, without going to God's Word and listening to His Holy Spirit. When a seed is sown in your heart, then it's not easily removed. Jesus gave "The Parable of the Sower," in Mark 4. He said that, "The enemy comes immediately to take away the seed that was sown in their heart." The enemy does this using many different methods, but his purpose is always to steal God's Word from their hearts. Jesus said, "If you abide in Me and My Word abides in you, you will know the Truth and the Truth will make you free." Satan doesn't want us to be set free from his grasp, so he tries making sure God's Word doesn't abide in us. Satan can't keep us from abiding in Jesus, but he can prevent God's Word from abiding in us, by force if need be.
It's not a matter of doing, so much as it is believing. Jesus has already done what was needed to be done. We're only required to believing what He has already done. This requires us to spend time in God's Word, His Presence and listening to His Voice. It seems like everyone can read the same Word, but end up with many different concepts of what it said. God didn't speak in many concepts, but with one and only one Truth. The heavens and earth aren't governed by many concepts, but by the Truth and God's Word. God's Truth never changes, despite what we think or don't think about it.
What we believe in our heart, will produce what God says about us; not what others think and believe. We're all God's children and He has given us all the same Promises. All who are born-again in Christ Jesus, will share the same destination when we die and leave this earth, but we don't all share the same concepts about Truth. We probably all agree that God's Word is Truth, but we don't all believe that it's for us while we're here on earth. What God does for one, He will and wishes to do, for all. Receiving is up to every individual, but it's already ours in Christ Jesus. If a Christian gets sick, then that doesn't mean that "healing has passed away," but that the Truth has been clouded from them, by the deceiver. I know people who are sick, but that doesn't mean that Jesus doesn't heal any longer. We don't believe that salvation doesn't work any longer, simply because there are unsaved people around us. It all comes by our faith in the Finished Works of Jesus, our Savior and Lord.
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