If You Want to Know when the World Will End, Ask #God

Church this week was really great as usual. However, Pastor had been discussing moving mountains in our lives all month. On Sunday he told us in order to move mountains in our lives, we have to read the Bible. Jesus' way is so simple and his burden is light. Why didn't I think of that? Anyway I read last month, the Book of Revelation and it was both frightening and informative. I can see God's point of view. We are made in the image of the Creator. Why not require of the ones you have created to behave in a respectable manner--especially if you know certain behaviors and activities will cause harm?

Well, after reading Revelation and seeing how God has been telling mankind to turn from our sins and pray since forever, literally, I had no direction on where else to read in the Bible. I started at the beginning with Genesis. Now this is not my first time reading the Bible but that was so long ago. I'm like most church goers--I read the Bible sporadically but sporadic will not move mountains.

A mountain, Pastor explained, is any obstacle you want to overcome. Usually it is sexual immorality, poverty, hardheartedness, hatred, depression etc. Of course people who are in the midst of a storm will go to the Bible and pray but what about after God has brought you through your storm?

This is where I come in. So since I want to move mountains in my life, I started reading Genesis. I was blown away at all of the knowledge in the first few verses. It is like God is right there talking to you.

I learned that we, mankind, are like those above in heaven in image. The only thing is that we don't live forever on earth as we were kicked out of the Garden of Eden before that can happen and for that reason. When Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we were the most like God and inhabitants of heaven. The Bible says, " Let us make man in our image, in our likeness." Which tells me there are a bunch of creations in heaven but that God is the only Un-Created being.

See, the Bible is pretty deep. I also learned the Garden is in the East on purpose. Not the east side of town but the Middle East and Africa--east of wherever God was at the time, really.

Mankind is supposed to subdue the earth and rule it, not the other way around. God put every kind of tree in the Garden and with the exception of one, mankind was free to eat from all of them. Now these trees were in existence before Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden and for a period of time, Adam was alone (and not eating from the tree) but God said that He saw that it was not good. That means God was observing Adam and communing freely with him.

So they went about finding a "helper" for Adam. God had him name every living thing in the Garden--every one! From this process, God wished for Adam to find a helpmate so I guess it could be a bird or animal that Adam could command and communicate with but I also think there were other living creatures that walked about but were not mankind. Apparently, God would have had Adam choose from one of them as a helper. It was Adam's call. At any rate, none of the living things created by God worked out as a helpmate so God put Adam to sleep and took a rib from him and made Eve.

Women are once removed from man--who was created first and in the image and likeness of God. Women were created for the purpose of helping men. However, before Adam could even name Eve "woman," she came into agreement with a walking, talking Satan in the form of the Serpent. He got Eve to take from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. She was presented with it's fruit, assessed, liked what she saw, "it was pleasing to the eye" and took of it. She then told Adam the same lie Satan told her and he did it too. (I don't look at food that way but I guess there were lots of different things in the Garden and not all of it was "pleasing to the eye".)

When God came a looking for them one day, they hid. God was taking a walk in the Garden in the "cool of the day," actually looking for Adam and Eve. (You cannot hide from God) When he found them, he knew they had taken from the forbidden tree because they sewed fig leaves together to hide their naughty parts. Notice they did not hide their whole bodies, just the naughty bits. How did they know to hide those parts of their body?

Personally, I think they had been using them. I think that the word "tree" is symbolic for a group of living beings and not food. Whatever they did the point is that they disobeyed God and came into agreement with Satan--God's enemy. (How would you like it if your kids or friends did that to you over and over again until the end of time?) Seriously.
They were all punished as they all passed the buck. Adam said Eve told him it was cool to do and Eve said the Serpent lied to her and the Serpent was cut down to sliding on its belly. Apparently it had been walking and talking and communicating some kind of way.

Adam's punishment was that he would have to toil or work to get anything in life. Eve had her labor pains greatly increased and the Devil from that day on would be an enemy to her offspring and they would fight and harm each other. The Serpent would strike the heel of man and man would crush the head of the Serpent. Also that she would desire her husband and her husband would rule over her. (So I guess none of the helpers really wanted to kick it with Adam and wandered off doing whatever or outright refused to help him until God commanded it.) It was after all of this Adam called Eve, "woman."

Wow. All of that knowledge in a few paragraphs.

Well, God sewed the pair some animal skins together for clothing and kicked them out of the Garden. See how God gave them some real clothes for all of their body and not just the naughty parts? I think there were some issues Adam had with God. I also think woman's relationship to man is a mirror for man's relationship to the Creator. I think God wanted Adam to ask Him for help for issues and concerns and seek His Face and commune with Him more than Adam did. This is a common theme that exists in the Bible to this very day. God seeks a relationship with us and some of us have refused or limited God's influence--as if He doesn't know anything about humans.

God left us the Bible and it has endured. He said the whole thing is good for teaching and it opens a path in your heart and mind to cultivate a Garden for Him and you. He sent us Jesus so that he would not have to destroy us. Jesus went through what He did because it was His Father's will and He and the Father are One. God just wants to love us and He wants us to love one another. (Sometimes its difficult but we still have to do it.) But we won't talk with Him. Why?

See, this is why God invented shame. We feel bad when we don't do what God expects us to do. Go to church and read your Bible so when the end of the world really does come (like a thief in the night) you will be ready.