Look up to the high places where your help comes from. We do NOT have to live in the turmoil and disorder going on in the world. God knows the root and the cure for this world. He knows how to take us through in perfect peace to a changed world made new with peace and goodwill for mankind. God is preparing us to not only endure this season of turmoil but to be a part of bringing real righteousness, peace and joy to this new world. Praise God! We get to be a part of it!
Currently stress levels seem to have greatly increased across the world. Evil and drastic persecution of Christians has increased dramatically. Something akin to genocide is affecting many nations. War and terror seems closer than ever to many people. Corruption and abuse are being uncovered and exposed like never before. Political division and strife are a part of daily life. WHY? What is going on? Where did all this come from? Is there a hope for peace in the hearts of the masses of people?
The world longs for peace. Mankind searches and strives for a sense of inner satisfaction, fulfillment, security, completeness, joy, a sense of significance and a sense of being at rest.
For many people it seems that passing from this life into the afterlife of heaven is the only thing that will ever bring real peace. A popular sentiment for those who are passing away or have passed is, “Rest in Peace.” For many physical death seems to be the only real hope to escape the turmoil of man’s striving.
Even many believers continue to search for real peace in this life to little or no avail. Escaping this life in some form seems to be their only hope of finding a place of perfect rest in peace.
Every suicide attempt is an attempt to find true peace.
Every strife of man, from mild forms of competition to world wars, has its root in the natural human striving for the inner satisfaction of an unfulfilled lack or need in mankind.
Man structures his life and subsequently the world with the drive to attain a place of satisfied rest.
Religions are constructed from man’s effort to bring some amount of peace to the souls of the people, or at least the hope of peace someday in an afterlife.
Every drug addict or alcoholic got to where they are while searching for a temporary peace and moments of feeling euphoria in satisfied rest of freedom from the pain of life in a world of fear and strife.
The current fallen world is driven by competition.
The drive for supremacy over others is altogether for the purpose of temporarily filling the soul with a sense of being satisfied within, by the temporary glory of being the winner, of being number one. All competition is birthed from the inner lack of the true peace and rest of a satisfied soul. (Eccl 6:1-7).
Competitive striving for inner peace and seeking satisfaction for the dissatisfied souls of mankind leads to hell on this earth and threatens the destruction of the planet.
At the creation of man in Adam, God gave dominion or stewardship of the world to mankind. With the same irrevocable covenantal voice with which He created the world, God gave dominion or oversight of the world to mankind. (Gen 1:26-28).
The whole of creation on earth suffers because mankind strives in unrest and turmoil. Creation groans with the longing for peace of God’s order in mankind. (Rom 8:20-22).
God breathed His Spirit life into Adam, and man became a living Spirit being in an earthly body. The very breath of God was in mankind in Adam. (Gen 2:7).
Mankind in Adam was given a choice to choose to love and honor God and walk with God in loving obedience to Him or to turn from God to his own way apart from God. (Gen 2:15-17).
You know the story. Adam failed and all mankind was separated from the intimate communion with God. Peace was lost to mankind, and strife entered into man and the world. This is the source of strife and competition in the world. (Gen 3).
Christ Jesus came from heaven and became a man to redeem mankind back to His originally created state of Spirit beings, carriers of the breath or (Spirit) life of God in earthly bodies as redeemed human beings. God in us by Christ Jesus in the Holy Spirit is the source of real inner peace and subsequently peace to the world.
Peace for man and the world is in and through God in man by Christ Jesus in the Holy Spirit.
From Religion to Relationship
God did not create Adam in religion or to begin a religion on earth. Adam was created to personally relate to God as he walked with God in the Garden of Eden.
Adam was created in the image and likeness of God to be as one with God on earth and to tend the Garden and have dominion. (Gen 2:26-28).
Adam was to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth with the same order of life that was in the Garden of Eden. Adam’s first priority was to choose obedience to God.
The Temporary Religious Order
Only after the fall of Adam did religion become the way for mankind to show his devotion and obedience to God. The Jewish religion with its laws and atoning sacrificial offerings was a means for mankind to show their allegiance to God until full redemption came at the cross of Jesus the Son of God.
Mankind had only a mostly distant relationship through a priestly order of men who were set apart to do the work of the ministry and stand between the people and God. The people had inner peace as they kept the feasts and made the sacrificial offerings as prescribed.
All of the feasts and sacrifices were types and shadows of the coming of the Messiah Yeshua, the Savior and Lord to come. Christ Jesus the Messiah who was to come has come, and things are now greatly changed for mankind.
Relationship Restored in Christ Jesus
The way back to restored life as it was in the Garden of Eden is now available to us. It is possible to again become as it was with Adam in the Garden, we can now be fully cleansed and restored to relate directly with Father God in Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit. We can again walk with God in the garden of our lives in perfect peace.
Christ Jesus came to redeem and restore all that was lost in the fall of Adam. This includes the opening to the throne of God in a personal relationship with our Heavenly Father in heaven now abiding in Christ Jesus in our hearts and lives by the Holy Spirit of God Almighty.
Attaining and Appropriating the Works of Christ
Our part is to LOVE God with our whole hearts. This love is available by the Holy Spirit to all who will BELIEVE and TRUST their lives to Christ Jesus. (Mark 12:29-31).
Jesus did not come to establish the Christian Religion nor did He appoint any of His Apostles to establish religion. Jesus came to reestablish the intimate love relationship between man and Father God. This is the first step in reestablishing the kingdom of God on earth.
This is the source of peace in mankind and the world. Only in this intimate love relationship with God is there perfect peace and total satisfaction in this life. (Phil 4:4-9).
Religion once had its place, but as real relationship with God in Christ comes into the reality of our hearts and lives, we personally no longer need or want religion.
The true church must lose its religious framework to bring forth the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. The current systems of religion need to be laid down, and the new/old order of life that Jesus preached, taught, and demonstrated of personal LOVE relationship in the HOLY SPIRT must come forth to eventually bring forth peace on earth and good will toward man.
This is the great transition that has begun to transform the world. The words of Jesus to SEEK FIRST the kingdom of God and His righteousness are the key to peace in His people and then into the whole world. (Mat 6:33).
Yes, Jesus and His words are divisive as a two edged sword. (Mat 10:34-39). Yes, Jesus did come to bring a sword of division between light and darkness. Without His light, darkness is not even revealed. But when the light of God comes in Jesus, the darkness and all that is in it is exposed and threatened. (John 15:18-25).
All who are sitting in darkness can get up and come to the light of the pure holy love of God and be redeemed. However, those who will not will perish with the darkness. (Mat 4:16).
God is not willing that any should perish and mercifully and lovingly receives all who will turn to Him. (2 Pet 3:9). There is no pleasure in the perishing of the wicked. (Eze 33:11) But there is great joy in the redemption and restoration of this world of peace and joy in the kingdom of God as the Garden of Eden way of life.
Jesus did not come to provide for us to escape from a lost world. He came to redeem and empower you and me, His body on earth, to bring the whole earth, all things, into Christ Jesus. The kingdoms of this world must become the kingdom of our God in Christ Jesus, Lord of lords and King of kings. (Eph 1:10) (1 Cor 15:27-28) (Rev 19:16) Rev 11:15).
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. (John 14:27).
Ron McGatlin
www.openheaven.com
basileia@earthlink.net