Sleepwalking part 2
A lot of interesting stuff happened in the Bible when people were sleeping. Most critical to our discussion is found in Genesis chapter 15. God is making a covenant with Abraham. But in Genesis 15:12 (NLT) we see that, "As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a terrifying darkness came down over him." A deep sleep. The same thing that God caused Adam to pass into in the garden of Eden. Interesting. And then, as we fast forward to verse 17 we see that, "After the sun went down and darkness fell, Abram saw a smoking firepot and a flaming torch pass between the halves of the carcasses." This covenant that God made "with" Abraham... was actually made with God... and Himself. He is the consuming fire. He is the flaming torch. And that's not a bad thing, that's a good thing. Because if God is holding up both sides of the agreement, then the agreement can't fail. It's not depending on us. But we ARE included in it. Now let's look at the New Covenant. "For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more" (Hebrews 8:10-12). God included us in this New Covenant (even though we were sound asleep) by giving us Spirit. His Son. By giving us the light of the world, and revealing to us that we ARE the light of the world. Not by punishing us, or trying to scare us straight, but by forgiving us. Forgiving and forgetting. Wiping the slate clean. Taking sin out of the equation. Taking unbelief out of the equation by giving us something (someONE, Jesus, love) to believe in. By conforming us to the image of His Son. You know, the image we were created in in the first place. The image that we longed for because we didn't understand that we already had it. That we already WERE it. We were sleepwalking through life. Accepting what the world had to offer even as we wished for something better. A more excellent way. I see this so clearly in the writings of David. Look at Psalm 51:10, "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me." And this from the man who was after God's own heart. It's almost as if he KNOWS the truth, but can't quite believe it. He needs to UNDERSTAND what he knows. And that's where the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth that leads and guides us into all truth, comes in. He testifies of our true identity by testifying of Jesus. Telling us what's RIGHT with us instead of what's wrong with us. Waking us up to who we really are so we can stop trying to be someone we're not. It's not, "Stop sinning and then you'll wake up." It's, "Awake to righteousness--your true identity as the righteousness of God in Christ--and you WILL sin not!" Jesus came to wake us from sleep, and bring us into this New Covenant. Out of the bondage of sin and death, and into the Promised Land of rest that flows with milk and honey; righteousness and revelation!