Story of Our LIFE...

     A triune God, fully satisfied in Himself looked out and conceived the idea of joy to be found in expanding Himself…Making Himself known.

His heartbeat…love, His hands… sovereignty, His intelligence… of ruling wisdom, His actions… of unchanging goodness, within His being… grace and truth, His existence… one of unity. That which worked counter to unity, He despised, and in His perfect holiness cannot dwell within.

     From nothing, He created, for He beheld all creativity, all idea, all ability. Out of the dust He breathed life and created man. He formed something in His own image, most special of all His creations, forming it capable of something nothing else contained, the ability for eternal relationship--demonstrated by free-will choice.

     Man dwelt with God in perfect union, enjoying the benefits of His goodness displayed in His creation. Man lacked nothing, all satisfaction was found in God, until he doubted the goodness of HIs creator, and desired more than what had been formed. The enemy deceived, implanting a thought that only through disobedience could man obtain unkept abilities.

In such envy for satisfaction apart from God, man chose disobedience and was separated from God. 

The separation is entitled sin.

In such a state mankind dwelt, sin growing as it was embraced. Mankind was moving further away from the yearning within to be united to his Maker again.

     God looked down upon His creation and saw from afar what He desired to be near again. With loving eyes He saw us in our lost state as a bride searching for the lover of her heart. He looked down and saw the sin separating us from the state we once existed. He saw what we would become without His blood, the eternal separation that was counter to His creation for eternal relationship. 

     With such a yearning, He sketched a design to redeem His people back to Himself, He would use a small nation to display His love for mankind, and use her as a vessel for salvation. The people of Israel He claimed as HIs own, and through her history, He sovereignly wove with His hands, His character, His plan, His lineage to bring forth a Savior for the plague of sin.

He watched this people cycle through the depravity of sin--enslaved to their own ways, rebelling against the ways of God; just as the first man and woman of creation. He stood so near, but they chose to walk so far, He stood at the alter, but His bride would not come near. He knew it was only by giving Himself in full surrender upon the alter, that He might bring her back to Himself. 

     The depth of such a sight moved His heart to leave His throne. In longing vision, He chose a way to make Himself known, He authored His Son, Jesus the Christ to live a life we could not, a life that would demonstrate His own nature in making a path for man to once again be united with God. He walked among us, sympathizing with our every weakness and sin that tempts us from nearness to God, He endured it all, to tread a path of overcoming such separation by dependence through unity on the Father. He lived a sinless life, but was accused and sentenced to a sinner's death. He drank the cup of death bearing our sin, to be for us the sacrificial atonement for our penalty, and in the most brutal death the world had ever designed, He bridged us back to God.

     The earth shook when the grave welcomed in the Creator; and evil falsely assumed that death had swallowed victory--

but how can death swallow One who is eternal, the One who gave life and breath to all things? The grave could not contain the sacrifice, and instead of dead-death, new life began to spring forth , as a seed falling into the ground and producing new growth. He was crucified, stated dead, and three days later, resurrected, revealing Himself to eye witnesses.

     In His resurrected living, He spoke of a gift He would leave for those who believed that He was truly the Son of God. In His assent ion back to His eternal throne, He gifted us with His Spirit to dwell among us, to work to daily unify us back to God. To enable us to walk pleasing to God.

     This Spirit was a new form of breath breathed upon the new creation, those created in Christ's blood. God had re-formed a people for Himself through faith in the work of the cross. 

     This new creation He has chosen, that by free-will believing in Christ, those who are found cleaned by His atoning blood would be sealed by His Spirit and kept in Him until His second coming. The Spirit reveals to us who God is, and in knowing we love. Our faith is exercised in our love for Him. This new creation is one of hope, and one of waiting for HIs return. One of reason and design, kept upon the earth with purpose, commissioned to go forth unto the lost world and testify of the good news that there is a Savior come to save us from our separation from God, to restore perfect unity of creation to Creator forevermore. Amen.