The Tree of Life
Mankind’s discipleship with Christ started in the Garden of Eden (Eden means pleasure or delight) and they had to eat from the “Tree of Life” and not from the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil” to remain and grow in a state of pleasure or delight (Genesis 2:8-17) which is the heavenly atmosphere (Kingdom of God) within the heart of man. They did not have the indwelling Holy Spirit as they had not yet separated themselves from God through pride resulting in unbelief, and therefore their human spirit was not yet subdued by the soul and therefore were in communion with God. We subdue our spirit when we repeatedly allow our soul, which is influenced by our five senses, to make carnal decisions regardless of what the spirit is telling or prompting us to do. In other words, we know intuitively what is right, but the desires for independence, power, lust, greed, reward, fame, and wealth overpower our intuition and therefore our spirit. This is commonly known as the hardening or searing of the conscience (1 Timothy4:1-2) after repeatedly disregarding the prompting of the spirit, and as a result, faith in God dwindles. This means that God (Holy Spirit) communicated with man audibly or through their spirit (Genesis 3:8), and shed love in their hearts by His presence in the garden (Romans 5:5). We can then say that Eden is synonymous with the Kingdom of God which is the internal heavenly atmosphere of the believer, but it is also synonymous with the Kingdom of Heaven which is the external or the collective heavenly atmosphere of believers in the physical Heaven and Earth, or garden of Eden in Adam and Eve’s case. The heavenly atmosphere (Kingdom of Heaven) of the Garden of Eden is manifest from the third heaven (Holy Spirit) that brings “pleasure” or “delight” or “Eden” to those immersed in it because they ate from the Tree of Life.
That’s why Adam and Eve were in Eden or in “delight” or in “pleasure” as they fed their soul and hearts with God’s love, knowledge, and wisdom thereby growing the Kingdom of God within them, where love, peace, joy, etc, began to reign. The rivers and land in Eden represented the abundance of God as is expected when the Kingdom of Heaven via the Holy Spirit is manifested in any area. It is no different today where we are delighted or pleased in the Holy Spirit who retransforms us into the image and likeness of God as we participate in God’s will thereby increasing the Kingdom of God within us, i.e.: love, peace, joy, etc. We also experience the Kingdom of Heaven (heavenly atmosphere) created by the Holy Spirit around us when we are congregated in church or at home. i.e.: we are in Eden.
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The Tree of Life represents Christ
The Tree of Life represents Christ where His presence and Words bring delight to the hearer because the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, righteousness, etc, that comes from God’s presence and teaching, see Galatians 5:22-23 for the fruit of the spirit. The Word of God uses trees to represent soulish or spiritual people, such as: 1) the fig tree that Jesus cursed represented the religious leaders because they produced no spiritual fruit for the nation (Mark 11:12-25), 2) the vine represents Israel as per Hosea 10:1 and other scriptures which God eventually burnt using Babylon and then the Romans for their idolatory, 3) tall cedar tree represented the king of Egypt who got destroyed in Ezekiel 31:1-12. Jesus also uses trees to represent spiritually good or carnally evil people where a good tree cannot produce bad fruit and vice versa, Matthew 7:15-20. The eating of the fruit is thus representative of listening or hearing the words of God (tree of life) that produce righteousness, love, joy, and peace, leading to life, or hearing our own soulish words (tree of knowledge) based on carnal desires through pride and self-righteousness, thereby producing laws that are not always in conformance with God’s standards resulting in controversy, strife, hate, jealousy, division (Galatians 5-:19-21), and the eventual plethora of religions leading to death, (1 Corinthians 15:56).
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Heaven is not an observable location
Adam and Eve were in the Kingdom of God and of Heaven, however, these kingdoms are not visible geographical locations on Earth or in the cosmos but a condition of the heavenly atmosphere in our hearts and the physical environment (physical Heaven and Earth, or Eden in this case) with regard to love, joy, peace, and righteousness, see Romans 14:17. Jesus also states emphatically that the kingdom of God is not observable but is within us, see Luke 17:20-21. This means that the human spirit that God placed in mankind is essentially the Kingdom of Heaven, but the Word of God refers to it as the Kingdom of God, i.e.: the Kingdom of Heaven within man is termed the “Kingdom of God” because the purpose is to change mankind’s thoughts and hearts to be and act like God, where the Kingdom of Heaven is for a collection or group of believers that operate within the Kingdon of Heaven.
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The veil represents the separation between man and God
When mankind lost faith in God through pride due to deception (Genesis 3:1-7), therefore separating themselves from God after taking it upon themselves to understand good from evil, they subdued their spirit as their soul took over and veered away from God’s path of truth, peace, love, and joy, and cut themselves off from God’s life force. This separation between man and God is represented by the veil (curtain) separating the Most Holy place from the Holy place. Together, the Most Holy place and the Holy place represent the inner man (Ephesians 3:16) where the former represents the spirit of man and the latter represents the soul of man. It is our inner man (spirit and soul) that goes to God or eternal judgment upon death. The inner man is not only related to the human spirit, because the human spirit which is from God does not change as God is the same forever (Malachi 3:6 & Hebrews 13:8) and thus needs no strengthening as per (Ephesians 3:16), therefore it is the soul that needs the strengthening. Please note that when we are born again and our spirit is regenerated, it is not because the spirit is corrupt or sinful, but rather, that the spirit has become dormant because of the vexing of the soul, which eventually subdues the spirit, and thus needs to be regenerated to once again prompt the soul. When we establish that we can do something without God, we automatically become proud of our abilities and independence, and thus devise laws to establish some form of order in our lives, or for society at large, and the laws devised by mankind generally divert from God’s standards which were placed in the ark of the covenant representing man’s conscience in the heart. The heart of man includes the conscience touching the soul represented by the staves for carrying the ark that touched the dividing veil to the Holy place which represents the soul. In the Old Testament they could not worship in spirit and truth because the veil was in place and therefore only the conscience was accessible as the staves always touched the veil. Only the high priest and prophets whom God placed His spirit upon and within on a temporary basis could worship in spirit and truth as represented by the altar of incense within the veil. Knowing good and evil was never God’s intention for mankind as reflected by God telling them not to eat from the fruit of the tree of knowledge because God wanted communion with mankind, not separation, and to give them guidance for a prosperous life because oh He know how.
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Reconciling mankind
God used animal sacrifices to reconcile man back to God, but these were not sufficient as the blood of animals cannot take away sind and clear man’s conscience, however, Jesus was the final sacrifice to redeem man but our human spirit needs to be regenerated or born again to see and enter the Kingdom of God as per John 3:1-5. The Holy Spirit is necessary for this regeneration, for the renewing of man’s soul via the Word, and to seal our human spirit from getting subdued once again, see Ephesians 1:13. When we are “born again” we receive the indwelling Holy Spirit commonly referred to as the Christ (anointing), then, when we receive the Holy Spirit upon us we are ready for service to God. This is indicative of Jesus’s life who was born with the indwelling spirit (Luke 1:39-45) to mold His character, and then received the Spirit upon Him through John’s baptism (John 1:31-33) when he was ready for service, which was at the age of 30 according to the law.
The tree of knowledge of Good and Evil
The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil represents mankind deciding on what’s good and what’s evil and thus determining their own soulish laws which are normally based on the desires of the flesh and which trigger fruits (works) of the flesh such as pride, rebellion, strife, and idolatry, see Galatians 5-19-21. Leaving God out of the relationship removes us from the source of life, blessings, and knowledge of God and therefore triggers the beginnings of death as our thoughts increasingly diverge from His thoughts and a different spirit reigns in our lives. Words are spirit and life or death, therefore God’s Word brings life and that which is not God’s Word brings death. I do not mean that if we say something, we are suddenly going to live or die because we have no power to manifest words, though God has given us the authority to speak in conformance with His Word over situations and bring about change in people’s lives through faith in His Word, however, this can only happen with a pure heart based only on God’s Word which also helps to encourage people. Imagine people speaking words and they get manifested based on their desires, the world would be chaotic because people have different ideals and practices and would thus work against each other instead of for the good of society as a whole. What I do mean is that we direct our lives based on what we believe, and thus if we believe in the Word of God and His goodness and do it, our lives will start to prosper as we become more positive about life and because God gives us favor as we show interest in learning the Word of God, whereas if we believe that everything around us is evil and act accordingly with hate, jealousy, etc, we direct our lives down a very negative road, and because God is not in it, we are on the road of despair which leads to death.
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God is not the author of death
God did not create Adam and Eve to die but to live and be transformed or metamorphosed into an incorruptible spiritual glorious body. This transformation or metamorphosis of the body seems to be God’s reward for those who have met the standard of faith to be chosen into His kingdom, however, when sin was born, mankind lost that ability and passed it on down the generations (Romans 5:12) because God did not want mankind to live forever in sin and thus have no relationship with mankind. We must therefore plug ourselves, and stay plugged by faith, into the source of life which is done by relationship and obedience to God and His Word, see (Hebrews 11:6) so that we can be transformed at the reappearance of Jesus Christ, though we do not know the timing of this event. I believe that the level of faith and service to God in this physical life plays a role in the level of responsibility we begin with when we inherit the kingdom of God/Heaven in the next life.
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Pride always deceives mankind
Adam and Eve chose to listen (eat) to the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil when they were deceived by the serpent which represents Satan or evil/witchcraft/occult (Genesis 3:1-7). This means that they thought they could be like God by knowing good from evil, just as we do today due to pride and ego with dire consequences across cultures or religions which lead to strife. Today, we have what we call the “elite” trying to create a universal religion that all people can accept, however, redacting concepts of various religions, and using Artificial Intelligence, into one acceptable sealed and signed religion, does not mean that it is what God intended, but rather, what man intends God to be. This scenario is currently being worked on behind the scenes and is naive, ridiculous, and dangerous because it throws us back to the Dark Ages, as men sit in the temple of their bodies as if they were God (2 Thessalonians 2:1-4), and therefore corrupts the heavenly atmosphere of our Heaven and Earth by attracting all sorts of evil spirits.
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Man cannot standardize laws because we are all different and self-centered
Ultimately, to know good and evil is to know and understand laws that govern what is right and what is wrong, similar to the written laws that God gave Moses, but mankind can never come to the full truth of right and wrong because we all have preferences on living standards and conditions generating a plethora of religions and cults, and thus God’s Word is imperative as a standard for global cohesive and peaceful living. Their eating (hearing) of the Tree of Knowledge opened their eyes to what God already knew and so they acquired a likeness to God regarding the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 3:22), however, this was not a likeness that God desired for mankind to have, because it was the beginning of pride resulting in sin due to lack of faith in God, and thus they separated themselves from God due to guilt which is why they hid themselves, (Genesis 3:8-20). God’s intention or desire was for man to live purely by God’s direction by following His Word out of love, and not to delve into man’s perceived selective rights and wrongs which generate division, personal pride, and preferential ideals that do not conform to God’s standards.
Laws do not change the heart
God never wanted to give humanity laws that conjure all sorts of pride and intrigue, but rather to listen and be guided by His Spirit in love, as children should also in likewise manner obey their parents. This is proven by the fact that the first written laws were given to Moses over 2,000 years later, and only because they were a disobedient bunch, as we all are at some point. If God wanted humanity to obey written laws He would have given them from the outset, but God wanted us to discern His ways through His voice or the human spirit that He placed in us, which means He wanted a relationship with us. Even in the desert, Moses was only given written laws when the children of Israel proved their lack of faith in God through disobedience.
Written laws have no power to change people’s hearts, and therefore character, because there is no spirit (the source of power) behind the written text, however, laws inflict fear of reprisal or punishment and guilt, which forces people to obey but never truly transforms their hearts into becoming spiritual peace-loving individuals, because only God’s Spirit has that power. Laws actually render people legalistic and judgmental of others as they do Satan’s work as accusers or adversaries, whilst ignoring their own faults. The WOG is clear in that our righteousness is as filthy rags. so who are we to point a finger when we do the same? If anyone thinks that they do not sin or try to reflect their good deeds outwardly and feign righteousness, then understand that you sin because you call God a liar as per 1 John 1:8-10. Everyone sins, so let’s get off our high horse and become real. God has planned it so that the world will imprison those who sin against society, therefore believers need to understand that they are also under the world’s laws and therefore justice is done that way. Therefore if a Christian sins through weakness, give them grace, just as you have received grace from God for your sin. God does not want to force obedience through laws but rather to foster willing obedience through knowledge, understanding, and love, because love is doing no wrong (Romans 13:10). It is only because of rebellion that God forced laws onto mankind.
When children are rebellious, we give them laws/rules to obey, and if they continue being rebellious we send them on their way to sort themselves out. It is like handing them over to Satan to destroy the flesh so that they can become more responsible and change their ways through finding truth and discipline. Paul used this same tactic for the church of Corinth, see 1 Corinthians 5:4-5. Laws make us aware of evil and were never God’s intention for mankind. Had Adam and Eve sinned unintentionally or in innocence but kept faith in God, they would merely have been redirected/taught by God’s Spirit but continued living in God’s life force, because God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, Hebrews 13:8, ie: God always showed grace under different dispensations, namely; in the garden of Eden, with establishing the patriarchs, with the law of Moses to protect them from themselves, and with the appearing of Jesus Christ, and finally, with the opening of the gospel of grace to Paul.
The problem with Adam and Eve’s sin is that it separated them from God due to pride in their own ability, and hence, their faith in God was broken. Even Moses, the meekest man on Earth, who struck the rock out of anger because of Israel’s unbelief, was prohibited from entering the kingdom of Israel, which represented the kingdom of Heaven because he disobeyed God. Lack of faith in God and His Word is the sin that brings death because we pluck ourselves out of the flow of God’s life force, blessings, and knowledge of God, see 1 John 5-16-18.
Sin was first experienced in heaven
God knew that the serpent (representing a fallen angel as I do not believe that Satan can make snakes talk) who rebelled against God would be trying to manipulate mankind into disobeying God because the rebel angel wanted to be like the “Most High” and have dominion over human beings, and possibly everything else, see Ezekiel 28-1-19. This passage is about the king of Tyre, however, the spirit working behind the king’s pride was the same spirit (cherub) that fell from heaven. This indicates that whether one is an angel or a man, disobedience is always possible, even when man inherits the kingdom of God/Heaven. No wonder Revelation 20:7-10 speaks about God letting Satan loose after the Millenial reign, i.e.: it indicates that God will test those in the new Heaven and Earth. Once the angel had rebelled, God had to warn mankind about the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil because He knew that the fallen angel would entice mankind to open their eyes and become like God in the same prideful manner that resulted in his fallen state. I am not saying that Adam and Eve and their descendants would not disobey God because of life’s challenges, because it is extremely likely that they would over time.
Pride is our downfall and it also applies to angels. An angel who was proud of being a light bringer, probably one of the main angels, allowed jealousy or pride to consume him and rebel against God. My belief is that this happened when God first created man to gradually become like angels, and this fallen angel was probably jealous of their potential of becoming even greater than angels, or merely proud of his personal status, or both, and has ever since tried to control mankind for His own visions of grandeur. That’s why the lineage of God’s sons, including Abel, the patriarchs, Moses, the prophets, Jesus, etc, were all persecuted or killed by this fallen angel and his demonic followers:
- Abel was killed because he was close to God and Satan did not want Abel’s seed to continue because he knew that this lineage would bruise his head at some point, Genesis 3:14-15. Seth was then born to continue the lineage.
- Moses was meant to die with all the other Israelite newborn boys but God had a plan for his safety. Again Satan was behind the king of Egypt’s decision to try and stamp out God’s Messiah by killing all Jewish babies because he did not know when the Messiah would appear.
- The prophets were mostly killed to prevent people from knowing God’s prophetic Word, or one of them could have been the Messiah in Satan’s mind.
- Like Moses, children in Bethlem were killed to potentially destroy Jesus the Messiah, but God had a plan for His safety. Moses prefigured Jesus Christ for the salvation of God’s people.
God’s people who are “born again” cannot be possessed by Satan because we belong to the Holy Spirit that dwells in us, but we can be oppressed by Satan in parts of the flesh and soul. Satan and his demons therefore use people to target believers through lies, strife, pride, or other feelings and emotions to disrupt a godly way of life so that he and his demons can turn people away from God as a result of deceit, fear, or mental/physical illnesses. It is not rocket science to understand that transgenderism, abortion, LGBTQ, mixed marriages, etc, are all the work of evil spirits working behind certain cults, individuals, or woke people to corrupt God’s ways and thus reduce the population based on Malthusian doctrines that instill the fear of over-population and not enough resources, merely because they do not understand that God can give mankind the technology to produce enough for all. Satan generally uses people (believers and unbelievers) around us to do his bidding, whether they are aware of it or not, and those who know his bidding do not know what Satan has in store for them, and their destination is not good. The Satanist who tried to destroy me died a very unpleasant death recently, where all his organs failed. Satan takes no prisoners and has no sympathy or compassion whatsoever for any of His followers. When he does not need you, he removes you.
More recently, Satan works through certain people and science to destroy those who believe in Jesus Christ as God our Saviour. I have no doubt that some mRNA and genetic vaccines today are created to destroy God’s creation of humanity as we know it. Do those creating the vaccines know this? I do not think so because Satan never reveals his true plans, even to those who worship him. We must understand that there is no redemption for those who are not created in God’s image, therefore any change to our human genetics may put us outside the bounds of God’s originally designed creation thus disqualifying us from redemption. Demons that walk the earth, which I have seen with my own eyes when God opened them for about 3 years, are disembodied spirits that cannot receive another body as they were a hybrid between mankind and fallen angels that left their habitation (Jude 1:6-7). They married daughters of men and through fornication produced hybrids (Genesis 6:1-5). Leaving their habitation means that they left their spiritual bodies to become similar to mankind because they were attracted to the daughters of men. We also know that angels have similar bodies to mankind, though spiritual, through the encounters of Abraham and God’s angels (Genesis 18). I believe that this is Satan’s goal because he has little time left and realizes he cannot force everyone to reject God but can change their original design, which makes them his unsuspecting followers. No wonder COVID was a farce of insurmountable proportions where the vaccine was a curtain raiser to get people used to vaccine mandates, lockdowns, etc., for future manipulation, i.e.: to enslave people so as to subdue God’s people into unknowingly submit to Satan. Do not be surprised when a new pandemic, worse than COVID-19 with more rigorous DNA or RNA modifying properties, arises. One wonders why they included the year in the naming of the vaccine. It is very likely that they know about a similar COVID-19 virus coming at a later date, or even a different virus. I also believe that they will come up with a scheme for masks, isolation, and vaccines for climate change. I believe however that true believers in Christ will not be affected by any vaccine as God will protect them.
Some people say that the fallen angel was Lucifer because he was the most beautiful of angels and Lucifer means the “light bringer”, “morning star”, or “day star”, but I believe that that name is more of a title for their state of being because anyone that shines God’s light through faithfulness to God is a light bringer. Even a human being can be a “light bringer/daystar” as per 2 Peter 1:19. Of course, some will be better light bringers than others but that is where pride takes over because we tend to think we are more deserving and favored, or better than others. Therefore the first sin was in the heavenly realm before mankind was coerced into disobeying God through pride, and pride is the original sin that made angels fall even before mankind.
I will go as far as saying that even the name of Satan is not his real name because Satan means accuser or adversary. Once again I see a title for a state of being, instead of a name, nevertheless, I shall call him Satan. The clue is in the fact that He was termed Lucifer in heaven and changed to Satan once he became the adversary. Why? Because those are not his names, why change a name whether he does good or evil based on the very aspects of his nature at different times?
There was grace in the Garden of Eden
Today, God calls everyone regardless of their sin and whether they believe in Him or not, however, in the Garden of Eden the only sin that could bring death was not believing in God or His Word, any other sin was forgivable. Adam and Eve were naked and had no shame because they had no knowledge of evil or lust in this case. We always refer to this sin as physical nakedness (no clothes) but I believe it also refers to other sins that they committed through their innocence. God is fair and just and will not condemn someone who has no knowledge of evil.
Look at God’s grace with Cain who slew his own brother even after being warned that he would sin if he did not control his jealousy and anger. Did not God, give him grace? Of course, though Cain was sent out of the community, I guess for protection, and God also prospered him. If that is not grace, then what is it? God also preferred Jacob over Essau, but he also made Essau prosper. It is definitely not law and condemnation, and it was Jesus who brought back the grace to humanity so that we can fulfill the law through love which requires a change of heart through the Holy Spirit. The law was added in Moses’s time because of disobedience so that guilt would enter mankind and make him refrain from sin to temporarily protect man from Satan and his devices until faith through Jesus came, but the law was never meant to control human beings indefinitely as laws have no power to change hearts, only the Spirit of God has that power through love, see Romans 8:1-8.
Our choices
As mentioned previously, God placed two trees in the Garden of Eden. These particular trees were not physical trees that produced edible fruit like the others amongst them but were:
- Christ – represented by the Tree of Life in Eden. Eden means “delight” because they delighted in the Word and presence of God before pride diverted their faith from God’s Word to their own understanding of right and wrong. It is noteworthy to understand that they still believed in God but not His Word, therefore to fall from grace comes not only through not believing in God but also having no faith in what God says. The re-introduction of the Tree of Life for reconciling humanity back to God through Jesus’s death on a tree, where Jesus was the presence and the Word of God, depicts a similar picture as the Tree of Life in Eden, except that in the latter, the seed had to die for many disciples to be born. The Tabernacle of Moses or the Temple of Solomon with their laws was also a type of Christ, though inanimate, and was merely a tutor for disobedient or faithless people until the faith came. God always intended to replace the law with grace, because the law was there to curb sin through guilt, but at the same time guilt and condemnation preserved God’s people otherwise sin would run rampant.
- The soul and flesh of man and his carnal desires are represented by the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil where the good is no different from the evil because man tries to appear good outwardly, but inwardly the heart is full of deceit and selfishness. We could say that good and evil are merely two facets of the same coin.
From this we can tell that humanity was made to follow God, not to divert from His path, because God is the source of life, blessings, and knowledge and has the ability to make us whole in spirit, soul, and body. Any other soulish feeling or emotion that leads us away from God’s path brings death which is separation from God.
Mankind only has two choices, either receive the words of life or receive knowledge based on the desires of the soul and flesh by trying to become like God through knowing good and evil where pride is born, and pride is the cousin of self-righteousness. The problem is that the flesh and soul have no life or ability of their own but develop based on experiences and the direction taken from the human spirit, faith in God’s Word, and/or faith in man’s word, where the latter originally came from the devil. The soul is the “I”, or the “me”, and is what makes us unique individuals because it decides what to believe in based on experiences and preferences, which generally include laws, lust, greed, or other perversions. We however have two sources from which to build our personality and character, either we listen to God’s Spirit (tree of life), or we listen to the devil’s spirit which came originally from the deception in Eden and subsequently from those around us who foster sin and perverted knowledge such as LGBTQ, transgenderism, abortion, war, population shrinkage, etc. Generally, however, people build a character based on both sources, whatever whets their appetite.
Today, people in the top echelons of Satanism know what they are following, however, they do not know Satan’s true plan and have no choice but to obey, and obedience will give them a potentially long and wealthy life until they are no longer necessary. Followers are blinded to the truth and follow their leaders because of the lust for wealth or power, which only a few dedicated followers attain. What they do not know is that these leaders have given something of themselves to Satan in exchange for wealth and power which does not always materialize, as in the case of the Satanist who tried to destroy me, when he gave his manhood for power which has no effect over a true Christian. Most Satanic cults are oblivious to the truth as they do not realize that Satan is an evil spirit (angel) that controls their leaders. They merely believe they are normal people looking for wealth and power which is Satan’s modus operandi and why God says that we must choose between God and mammon, see Matthew 6:24. God’s true people do not look for wealth and power, but for God, Who provides all their needs, and thus a life of peace, patience, and tranquility is achieved, as we do not go out competing for deceitful profit. Matthew 6:31-24 is clear in that God provides all our needs, if, and only if, we seek first His kingdom and His righteousness.
It’s the human spirit God puts in us and the choices we make through experiences that develop our souls and therefore make us unique individuals. The more we listen to the desires of the flesh the more carnal our soul becomes and the more we follow the god of this evil world, but the more we listen to God, the more spiritual we become and lead a quiet life. Once we break away from listening to God we are outside God’s domain and start trusting in our own abilities by believing anything that makes sense to us, whether good or evil. The problem, however, is that we remove ourselves from the source Who is the life-giver and therefore graft ourselves into the death-giver.
In my early days of Christianity, God asked me if I would prefer to meet an openly good or a bad person. Naturally, I said I would like to meet a good person. Then God said that it is better to meet an openly bad person because I would be able to quickly remove that person from my life, whereas a good person would be forever in my life and potentially working against me, and I might only identify this after too much damage has been done. I realized God was implying that all people have evil in them and that I should be wise about whom I choose to associate with.
The choice mankind made
Mankind decided to choose pride over humility when they decided to be like God through their own pride and self-righteousness. The problem, of course, is that the flesh and soul have no ability of their own but to strive carnally in order to survive, mostly with pains and frustrations, because we plucked ourselves out of the flow of the spirit and knowledge of life, as Jesus put it, “we must abide in the vine because without Him we can do nothing”.
God gave it to me succinctly through a vision after I became a Christian again. The vision was of a beautiful tree and I was one of its branches lying on the ground trying to catch every drop of water from the sky in order to survive, and I heard God say, “My grace will graft you back into the tree and my mercy will not give you what you deserve”.
It was the choice of self-centredness and self-righteous behavior because of pride that got humanity into depravity and sin, and thus salvation was required. God tried to get mankind back to God through the blood of animal sacrifices as a substitute for sin but that did not work because the flesh and blood of animals have no power to overcome sin, especially where the conscience is concerned, and therefore God had to stand in the gap in the embodiment of Jesus Christ to die for our sins. It is the blood of Jesus Christ that can wash away our sins and clear our conscience because He (God – The Word) humbled Himself unto the likeness of man with a similar conscience from the Spirit, and upon His death, he gave us the Holy Spirit to assist in our ongoing salvation of soul, and body.
God has always maintained His stance over what our choice should be because He is the same yesterday, today, and forever:
- In Eden, he told them to choose the Tree of Life which is based on His Word and presence.
- In the desert with Moses, He told them, “I set before you life and death, choose life, ….hear my voice”, see Deuteronomy 30:19-20.
- With Jesus, those who believe in Him shall live and not die, see John 11:25-26.