Recovery part 2
Something was lost when Adam and Eve ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (the tree of death). And, in a word, it was life. The abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of God that is the relationship between Father and son. Because, at that point, Adam and Eve--humanity--began to hide from the presence of God. They ran FROM Him instead of running TO Him. Even though He wasn't mad at them, wasn't punishing them. When God swore to NEVER leave us nor forsake us, that was just Him telling us how things had always been and would always be. God never turned His back on us... we turned our backs on Him. Tried to go our own way. Look at Proverbs 14:12, "There is a way which semeth right unto a man, but the end therof are the ways of death." The fruit of the tree of death LOOKED good... but it couldn't produce anything but death. Which, to me, makes perfect sense. What else could you get from the tree of death... but death? Here's the thing though: God is life. He doesn't want death for us. Which, by the way, is why He warned Adam not to eat from that tree. He didn't say, "If you disobey me I'm going to kill you." He said, "If you eat from that tree--the tree of death--you will surely die." Which, again, of course! Obviously. But here's the good part. "This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself tthrough Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people's sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation" (2 Corinthians 5:17-19 NLT). We ran from Him. Hid from Him. And yet, He reconcilied us back to Himself. Showed us the way to live. Showed us what life IS. Showed us that by getting away with Him, walking with Him and working with Him... we can recover our lives. We can get back to where He always wanted us to be. Back to basics. Back to that relationship of love between God and man. Again--God never has and never will and never can stop loving us. What this reconciliation really is, is God showing us what that means. God showing us what His love is. The greatest love a man can have, right? Laying his life down for his friends. Giving everything you have and everything you are. That's love. And that's how God brings us back to where He always wanted us to be--He loves the hell out of us. He gives us everything He has and everything He is. He gives us the Kingdom. He gives us His Son. His Spirit. His light. His life. His love. And then, when we begin to understand that we are who we're supposed to be and we have what we're supposed to have... that's when we can go from even just being Kingdom consumers to Kingdom exporters! We can let what's inside come out, by knowing and believing that its in there! We can be who we were created to be by letting God love us and loving Him back by loving people. We can experience this abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love by letting Him live His own life in us, and through us, and as us! That's what it means to get away with Him. That's what it means to recover our lives. Not necessarily what we think we should have, or do, but what God KNOWS we need and what HE created us to do! It is the power of God in us that both will and do His good pleasure. It is the love in us that IS our life. To live is to love and to love is to live. You can't do one without the other and you can't have one without the other!