Approaching Eternity

   The longing to find eternity is a common thread woven throughout human history. The motivation for this search has been just about every human desire and emotion; some noble and some evil. In most cases it is the pursuit of the purpose of life that pulls us into this cosmic journey. This search has led some to honestly seek to know the Eternal God on God’s terms - and to submit to a creator’s position above all creation. Others have sought to carve out their own destiny and attempt to overthrow their Maker while crowning themselves god of their world.
   However, the Eternal God who created the heavens and the earth, the giver and sustainer of life who granted us the very longing to connect with the eternal, is not capable of sharing majesty with human ideas or created things. No created man has ever been to the beginning of time or seen the end of days. No created man has ever hung a star in the sky or held back the winds. No created man will ever judge God or the works God has done.
   Yet for some reason we deny the glory owed the one who does these things. We worship stars, animals, stones, or people – all created – and all which perish. We praise ourselves for discovering pieces of truth or accomplishing things which are all bound by laws greater than us. We look for reasons to believe that something other than an all-powerful God who exists as a single standard of truth rules the world around us; deceived into thinking if we believe that then we can hide from God’s justice. If we can believe in a god - or many gods - that are less than all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present, uncreated, and eternal then we can believe that “God” is whatever we want it to be. We seem to believe that makes us god of our own world. And yet, no man can cheat his own death. Life and death are only in the hands of the one, true God.
   The conscience we carry is a testament to these truths. What a person can try to deny about the creation around them that screams of the magnificence of its Maker, they cannot deny about the call to love and justice that comes from within. Though some have been hardened by their own darkness and rage against these ideals, humanity is crying out for a savior in symphony with all of creation. That savior has come. And he has come to give you life.

What A Gift

Genesis

"But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." -Gen 6:8

Most of us carry the scars of some kind of violation: betrayal or rejection, abuse or neglect. Maybe the saddest thing about it is that the wounds that affect us the most are usually from people we care about, or at least want to care about. Can you even measure that hurt? It can be so pervasive, so invasive of our lives by messing with our hopes and dreams and expectations that it becomes hard to even see the future as possibly being brighter.

As I read from Genesis Chapter 6, where it says something like, God saw that all He had created was corrupt and that all of the thoughts and intentions of man were evil, so He was sorry He had created man on the earth and decided to wipe the slate clean, I found myself asking this question: Can you imagine being so disappointed and disgusted with your own child that you could want to literally destroy them and all that they love? I imagine the parents of a rapist or murderer. Even in that situation I could never picture myself loving my children any less, but maybe out of obligation to God - for justice and the sake of the world around me - I could see myself so troubled in my soul that I regretted their birth and wished I could take it back.

Genesis 6 tells us that is where God was in the days of Noah. I cannot imagine those feelings. But I think I can understand how it happens. You've literally poured yourself out to create a life that has your very nature. Every bit of who you are and all you have ever worked for goes into putting your babies in the best position to succeed. God gives them Eden. He walks with them. They throw it all away and within a few generations are bent hard toward their own wickedness and destruction. What could hurt more? I am reminded of the disciples. They walked with Jesus for three years and sat at His feet - saw the miracles firsthand - and still they denied Him, scattered, and went back to their old lives when they left. I could draw a hundred illustrations from my own life of how I have done the same.

But verse 8 tells of the God I have come to know. It tells the same story from the days of Noah that Jesus' death on a cross tells thousands of years later. It tells of exactly how God reached into my broken life and released me from the bondage of addiction, the guilt of sin, and the shame of failure...Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. 

I have found grace in the eyes of the Lord. 

All the world has found grace in the eyes of the Lord. In Noah's day, grace came in the form of a divinely commissioned ark and the promise of peace toward men that God offered Noah after the flood. Today, Grace is offered to us personally by the hands of Jesus the Christ, a man with the full power of God who chose to endure all of the wounds of this life and then die for us so we could live free of guilt and eternally with God.

It would not have been hard for God to have reset the game when He saw that all of creation had turned evil. I mean, God spoke and creation began. But God's power is tied to His heart. His heart is for His children, even in our worst and most depraved condition. His heart is to search men for just an inkling of faith and desire for Him and to respond with the kind of grace that can save all of creation. His grace reaches out to us, His grace heals us, His grace sets us free. His grace hung on a cross and bled out, went to the grave, and then into the fire of Hell on our behalf. His grace suffered our punishment and then His power conquered death in Hell as Jesus rose to eternal life in Heaven.

And gracefully, He saved a seat in Heaven for me.

Wartime All The Time

Genesis 

Curtain up. Open Act 1. Enter God. Enter Holy Spirit. Enter His Word. Creation has begun and the wonder of God is expressing itself in the first and most basic character trait God gave humanity in common with Him - creation itself. He longs to produce. He longs to reproduce. He is a father, a lover, and He wants to see Himself - all of His life and perfection - passed on, carried out, and realized through children who He gave the freedom to reject it. It's beautiful. But it's tragic. The power and freedom we have been granted inevitably results in a momentous failure. And here is where I find myself fixed on this particular walk through Genesis...

I am drawn to the series of verses about Satan's temptation of Adam and Eve. I have read them a hundred times, but never quite seen them this way. In Chapter 3, verse 6, something jumped off the page. "...when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate..." 

There are so many dynamics at play in the exchange between the woman and the serpent when you read the Genesis 3 account. Satan planted a lie about the nature of God being good. He insinuated that God held something back in commanding Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Huge questions of the holiness of God, the nature and origin of sin, predestination, the point of creation, and just about every spiritual topic ensue. But I am arrested by that one verse above and what it tells me about where ground zero actually lies in this cataclysmic disaster... 

It wasn't the strength of the serpent's lie that victimized the woman and the man. It wasn't a distance they felt from God after Satan suggested God hadn't been totally honest when He said not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It was her flesh that failed. Eve was made of flesh. In order to live on the Earth God had created for them, Adam and Eve had to be properly outfitted. You don't go to the moon without a space suit. You don't take your rotting body into Heaven. So its flesh (salt water + earth) that we get to house the soul and spirit.

And that's just it. Our flesh isn't heavenly. It wasn't back in The Garden either. Its just that way back then, God had placed his created son and daughter in a position where obeying and honoring God (by listening to the Spirit over the flesh) were much easier because sin hadn't yet corrupted them by killing them spiritually. They were filled and surrounded by the Spirit of God. Their spiritwas alive and had ABSOLUTE DOMINION over the flesh...But nonetheless, Adam and Eve ate. 

They had to feed their flesh. They were commissioned to "go forth and multiply" which meant they had sex and I'm betting that it felt good. The verse tell us that Eve decided to eat of the forbidden fruit when she "saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and...desirable to make one wise." Her flesh was stimulated.

Galatians 5:17 tells us that the Spirit of God living in us is in conflict with the flesh. I don't believe this is a minor skirmish. This is War. From the beginning Satan sought to use the world around us by engaging our flesh to pull us away from God; he pulls no punches. He uses the very longings of our bodies to overwhelm us and crowd out the sound of our Spirit. He did it to the woman and the man, and they walked with the presence of God daily in an Earth that hadn't yet been twisted and perverted by the decay of sin. It worked. But it worked because God allowed it to be possible in granting us free will. And again there's the key: No matter how much authority, how much anointing, how much education, experience, or how perfect you may become in your walk with God, the flesh is there.

And its calling.

But so is your Spirit.

Incline your ear. Step on the serpent. Win the War.

If the allure of an apple was enough to trigger a lust for food and beauty and power (or wisdom) that was worth dishonoring their best friend and disobeying the God of creation, then who are we to believe that a little of this or a little of that has no power over us. Yeah, whatever stupid little thing you just thought of in your life that you never address because its not that bad probably is just the kind of IED needed to destroy your whole mission. Don't worry, I've got some bombs to fall on too...

Intro To Shuffle Step

Welcome to my journey.

These are the highlights of a cover to cover reading of the Bible. I am nothing special and I bring nothing more to the table than any one else can. I love God. I love Jesus. I love the Holy Spirit. I love the Bible because it is the single greatest tangible gift God has given men and every time I open it I see the wonder of a God who constantly shows sacrificial love for the people He created - and it blows me away.

There is much I have lost in this short life, and many things which have stung me. I am human. But it is that humanity that always seems to showcase how incredible God is. How not human He is. I am thrilled to share some of my Shuffle Steps through the penultimate literary account of both history and the future ever written; the story of perfection penned by an awesome God.

-John Garrett

Touching Nations Today, Inc.
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