In
The Beginning
Genesis
1:26 “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness" Adam
and Eve were created by God, for God and in His image, a reflection of Him. What
does this mean exactly?
One of the best illustrations can be
found in computer science in the area of digital imaging:
The term ‘image’ is a duplicate of an object formed by a lens or
mirror.
The Hebrew word for ‘image’ (tselem) is the
same now as it was 2,000 years ago. It is used when referring to taking a
photograph. It describes the outward appearance. The ‘likeness’ on the other
hand, refers to the inner being. We received the inward form of God….whoah!
What this means is that the Triune God created a Triune man:
spirit, soul and body. This is also why, when God was made flesh, he was in the
form of a male human being. We were created in his image so it makes sense that when He came He would come as man.
The Glory of God is the image of God. The image of God is the Glory of God.
As God's creation man became the
perfect and sinless Glory of God. It goes on to say in Gen 1:27-28 that God not only created
man in His image, a likeness of the essence of God, He then blessed them and
instructed them to “be fruitful and multiply” and “fill all the earth and subdue it”.
He then gave them complete authority, or rulership, over “every living thing on
the earth”.
What did we do with it? Threw it
away, right? We were the actual Glory of God and we threw it all away!
Turn to Romans 2:22-23 please. It says, "Professing to be wise, they
became fools, and exchanged the glory of the
incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man..." I believe that this passage, more than any other describes not
only exactly what happened in the Garden, but also told us 2,000 years ago how
we would behave today – outside the Glory of God.
By disobedience to God (partaking of the tree of knowledge) man, acting on pride, exchanged the Glory of God for the image of man. Man traded his place as God's created Glory, because of his own selfish pride, and replaced it with the image of man. There, in that moment of tasting the forbidden fruit, we gave up on God and by way of sinful “knowledge” turned to ourselves for the answers to everything. This is exactly why we worship 'man idols' today - celebrities, sports figures, musicians, politicians – I’ve even seen Pastors and worship leaders worshipped more than God in some settings. When Francis Chan, the founding Pastor of Cornerstone Church in California , left that church in 2010, he stated that when he started hearing his name mentioned more than God that it was time to leave. He’s now planting churches in the inner city of San Francisco and enjoying surrendering himself fully to what God has for him. A lot of Pastors are still shaking their heads over that one.
By disobedience to God (partaking of the tree of knowledge) man, acting on pride, exchanged the Glory of God for the image of man. Man traded his place as God's created Glory, because of his own selfish pride, and replaced it with the image of man. There, in that moment of tasting the forbidden fruit, we gave up on God and by way of sinful “knowledge” turned to ourselves for the answers to everything. This is exactly why we worship 'man idols' today - celebrities, sports figures, musicians, politicians – I’ve even seen Pastors and worship leaders worshipped more than God in some settings. When Francis Chan, the founding Pastor of Cornerstone Church in California , left that church in 2010, he stated that when he started hearing his name mentioned more than God that it was time to leave. He’s now planting churches in the inner city of San Francisco and enjoying surrendering himself fully to what God has for him. A lot of Pastors are still shaking their heads over that one.
So, we turned out backs on God,
we quit God. But He never quit us.
That’s how much He loves us. Getting
back to Genesis 1:27, what did God intend that we were to “fill all the earth”
with? His Glory! What does that mean?
Well, if we skip ahead to Matthew
6:9-13, Christ gives us the Lord ’s Prayer. I believe that the Lord’s Prayer
isn’t simply a model for prayer but also a model for how we, as Christians, are
to be living here on earth – and I believe it is what He meant for Adam and Eve
to accomplish as well. It is our job to call down the kingdom of heaven on
earth that all living things should be filled with His Glory - “on earth as it is in heaven!” This would be a real good place for an Amen!
The Glory Manifested
Because we gave up the Glory of God, exchanging it for the image
of man, We no longer possessed the Glory. As judgment on Adam’s transgression,
we no longer have the Glory living and breathing inside us. This is why,
throughout the Old Testament covenants, God began to manifest Himself to us to
remind us of who He is and what our mission here on earth was supposed to be.
Jesus, as caretaker of the Glory, manifests Himself in
various ways – miracles, visions and actually appearing physically to some,
like Moses, Isaac and Solomon.
In 2
Chronicles 7:1-3 we have a perfect example of the Glory manifested. “Now when Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven
and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the house. 2 The priests
could not enter into the house of the Lord because the glory of the Lord filled the Lord’s house. 3 All the
sons of Israel, seeing the fire come down and the glory of the Lord upon the house, bowed down on the pavement with their faces to the
ground, and they worshiped and gave praise to the Lord, saying, “Truly He is good, truly His lovingkindness is
everlasting.”
Exodus 40:34-35 gives
us another example of the manifestation of Glory. It tells us of one such event when it explains that “Then the cloud
covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord
filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting
because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the Lord
filled the tabernacle.”
This passage speaks not only to one type of manifestation of
the Glory, but also to the power of the manifestation of God. His presence, His
Glory, was so powerful that Moses couldn’t even enter the tabernacle! Hopefully
we have all experienced this power in times of worship, prayer or visitation.
An example of this power is what is commonly called ‘being slain in the Spirit’
where the power of God literally sweeps us off our feet. Now, I’ve had people
ask me what the purpose of being slain in the Spirit is - and it’s two-fold
really. One purpose is to remind us that He is still on His throne and still in
control of everything! That He can show up at any time, any place and make His
presence known – God is large and in charge!
In Exodus 3:10-14
it describes a visit from Jesus to Moses. “Therefore, come
now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons
of Israel, out of Egypt.” 11 But Moses
said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring
the sons of Israel out of Egypt?” 12 And
He said, “Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that
it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you
shall worship God at this mountain. Then Moses said to God, “Behold, I am going
to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has
sent me to you.’ Now they may say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say
to them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I AM
WHO I AM”;
Do you see Jesus in this, even though it says this was God
speaking to Moses? Jump to John 8:54-58.
Here Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees who are questioned
Him and accusing Him of having a demon. Jesus answers them, “But
I do not seek My glory; there is One who seeks and judges. 51 Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My
word he will never see death.” 52 The
Jews said to Him, “Now we know that You have a demon. Abraham died, and the
prophets also; and You say, ‘If anyone keeps My
word, he will never taste of death.’ 53 Surely
You are not greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets died too;
whom do You make Yourself out to be?” 54 Jesus
answered, “If I glorify Myself, My glory
is nothing; it is My Father who glorifies Me, of whom you say, ‘He
is our God’; 55 and you have not come to
know Him, but I know Him; and if I say that I do not know Him, I will be a liar
like you, but I do know Him and keep His word. 56 Your
father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.”
57 So the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet
fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” 58 Jesus
said to them, “Truly,
truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.”
Here Jesus not only speaks regarding the
Glory and the fact that He sought only to Glorify the Father, He also confirms
that it was He that spoke to Moses as the great I AM.
Now Look at John 14:12-14. “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me,
the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he
will do; because I go to the Father. 13 Whatever
you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the
Son. 14 If you ask Me anything
in My name, I will do it.”
Again, emphasizes the Glorification of God the
Father and instructs us that when we pray if what we ask for glorifies the
Father, and if we ask it in Jesus
name, He will do anything we ask!
The Model for Prayer
It is important to understand the ministry of the Holy
Spirit and how He fits into things. If you look at Genesis 1, God begins
straight off the bat by establishing the Trinity, then introducing the Holy
Spirit, then Jesus.
“In the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth. 2 The earth was formless
and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God
was moving over the surface of the waters. 3 Then
God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.”
The first thing here is God. This isn’t
just God, the Father, but the entire Trinity. This God in the Hebrew is Elohim,
which is plural. We know that this name is plural because of the ending, the
‘im’, which is the same as an ‘s’ in English, which denotes plurality. So we
effectively have “In the beginning, God the Father, God the Son and God the
Holy Spirit, created heaven and earth”. Now look at the second part of verse
two “the Spirit of God was moving…” Notice that the Holy Spirit (the Spirit of
God) moves first then God began to speak things in creation – who is this ‘God’?
Which member of the Trinity? Jesus. We know that this is Jesus because of what
is stated in the book of John. In John
1:1, is says “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God. 2 He was in the
beginning with God. 3 All things came
into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has
come into being.”
Now look at verse 14. It says “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory,
glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Which person of the Trinity became flesh?
Jesus. So this verse establishes Jesus as the Word. Now go back to Gen 1 and
read it again with the proper names filled in.
“In the beginning, God the Father, God the
Son and God the Holy Spirit, created heaven and earth. 2 …and
the Holy Spirit was moving over the surface of the waters. 3 Then Jesus said, “Let there be light”; and there
was light.”
Now do you see it? Right off the bat God
tells us that Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Father are all working together –
at all times! This is always the situation throughout the workings of God. As I
said, the first person of the Trinity that we’re introduced to is the Holy
Spirit and the second is Jesus, right? Who do we meet first at salvation? The
Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit that convicts us and in turn introduces us
to Jesus as our savior.
This pattern of the persons of the Trinity working
together also works the same in the model for succesful prayer. This is a
verticle relationship. Our prayers go up and the blessings come down.
One other thing is this. We must acknowledge both Christ and the Holy Spirit in the church. While
Christ is Lord over the church, the
Holy Spirit is Lord in the church.
This is one of the major issues facing the church today. While all true
Christian churches acknowledge Christ as Lord over the church, not all
acknowledge the Holy Spirit in the church, Amen? Without the Holy Spirit in the
picture, we can have all the right doctrine and say all the right words, but
our prayers never go any higher than the ceiling of the church! Those prayers
never reach the Father, who is the ‘say-soer’. What I mean by that is that our
prayers go through Jesus, by way of the Holy Spirit, to the Father. The Father
has the ‘say-so’ over what is answered in the positive. Have you ever heard
someone say “God never answers my prayers” This is the case for one of two
reasons, or both. Either the person doing the praying hasn’t acknowledged the
Holy Spirit or the Father truly answer ‘no’. You see, the Holy Spirit is key in
everything. This is why Jesus commanded
His disciples to wait in Jerusalem (Acts
1:4) for what the Father promised, the Holy Spirit. It is also why Jesus
told His disciples that they were better off without Him being there, when it
was time for Him to go to the Father (Matthew
16:7-8). He knew that without the Holy Spirit active in their lives they
could not carry out their missions. The Holy Spirit also plays a very active
part in the manifestation of the Glory. The way to make friends with the Holy
Spirit is to glorify Jesus, praise Him, worship Him and the Holy Spirit will
come!
Have you ever prayed over someone and had them get slain for
the first time? Did you feel anything, any power surging through you at the
time? No. This is the same as praying over someone for healing, or leading
someone through deliverance. Usually we don’t ‘feel’ anything at all. When God
first blessed me with healing, I used to get all tingly and warm in my hands,
but I think that was just to let me know that He was working through me because
it rarely happens any more like it did then. I remember the first time God
healed someone of cancer through me – and I felt nothing at all physically but
received a direct download within a few hours, after praying for it, that the
woman, a very well known Christian disc-jockey had been completely healed of
pancreatic cancer – and she had been given just a couple of months to live. The
next day she went in for a scheduled PET scan and the tumor was completely gone
– Praise Him! But I ‘felt’ nothing. Again, God does this just to let us know
that we have nothing to do with it, that He is in charge. And even though the
Holy Spirit resides in each of us at salvation, He isn’t activated until we receive the second baptism, what John
called the baptism in fire – the Holy Spirit. John so much as called this
baptism the baptism in Christ. It is
with this second baptism that the Holy Spirit is activated in us. This is when
He bestows certain gifts on us…as taste of the Glory that we relinquished upon
yielding to sin and disobedience.
These are the same reasons that He performs miracles of
healing, or deliverance – and He uses us to again remind ourselves of the life
that we are supposed to be living, in HIS POWER AND FOR HIS GLORY! The subtitle
of my mother’s last book, “You Shall Receive Power”, that she wrote in 2007 at
the age of 86, is “The bridegroom cometh, don’t just sit there!”
We, as
Christians, are to constantly be taking action, calling down the Kingdom of God,
the Glory, here on earth! We also are to be listening to His voice and
following what He gives us. We must become like the RCA motto, “His Master’s
voice”.
When He speaks we need to hop to and carry out what He has given us to
do. If you don’t you’ll never realize everything He has for you. When God gave
Abraham the covenant and made circumcision it’s sign, Abraham didn’t doddle,
sitting around thinking about it for days before doing what God commanded him
to do. He took immediate action, circumcising himself and his entire household,
including the servants, in one day!
I am here today for this very reason. The bottom line is that I knew that if I didn’t step out when I heard the voice of the Lord, I
would never experience everything He has for me – and I want everything He has for me. An itinerant
missionary friend of mine, Alan Bender, received his marching orders from God
in 2007. At the time he was a very successful executive with a major company.
The next day he walked in and quit His very
well paying job. Alan just visited His 46th country doing the work
that God had planned for Him. He’s just went to go to India with the guy who
produced the “Dead Raisers” movie, to raise the dead. He has seen great
miracles of all kinds in the last seven years – but He wouldn’t have experienced
any of that if he hadn’t followed God’s voice and took that first step out.
Isaiah 55:11 says
“So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, Without
accomplishing what I desire, And without succeeding in
the matter for which I sent it.”
These are all ways that God demonstrates His Glory to us
today – through Spiritual gifts, miracles and speaking to us, guiding us back
to the Glory…allowing us to glimpse the Glory. Did you ever stop to think of
why you’re still here on earth? Why didn’t God just zap you up to heaven when
you were saved? The only reason we’re here is to finish the task that God
started with Adam – to call down the Glory of heaven on earth – as it is in
heaven. This is the only reason for us being here, this and to lead others into
the walk to serve the same purpose.
So, after the fall, God took away our dominion over
the earth and gave it to Satan. Ever since, our natural state is that of sin.
We are born into it and live in its death grip as a natural result of
disobedience against God. Adam and Eve, in their disobedience, unwittingly
sentenced us all to a state of enslavement. But it is imperative to understand
that this was of our own choosing, as man. We chose to follow our own urges of pride and arrogance over God. The same applies when we stand before God and
answer for ourselves. He doesn’t send us to hell – we have already sentenced
ourselves to hell by our own choice and our own actions. The fall also marked
the beginning of the need for the deliverance ministry, for it was then that
demons were released to torment us. So, by being disobedient to God not only do
we live in a natural sin-state but on top of that God allowed us to be
tormented by demons in order to compound our torment.
As God’s creation, we have separated
ourselves into two distinct time frames and functions on earth: before the fall
and after the fall. The difference is that, as we were originally created, we
lived the Kingdom life here on earth, as it is in Heaven. There was no sin,
there was no illness, no cancer, no heart disease; there were no demons to cast
out, there was no depression, no self-pity – we had nothing to be sick or
depressed about. We were God’s children, pure and perfect, living in God’s
Kingdom as He created it here on earth. We lived in sinless perfection with
total authority over all things. Do you realize what we gave up? This should
also tell you what we have to look forward to in the Kingdom! Amen?
Because we traded that
perfection for corruption, God now has to make Himself known to us. He does
this by way of signs and wonders, miracles, healing cancers and the plethora of
diseases and curses that we have brought down on ourselves through our own
disobedience. He also empowers believers that recognize Him as Lord of Lords and
King of Kings to act on His behalf.
In Matthew
10:1 Jesus called His 12 disciples together before sending them out and
gave them two powers or authorities; to cast out demons and to heal every
disease and sickness. Did He say some
diseases? No, He said ALL diseases! If we call ourselves disciples then the
same authority applies to us! The Lamb of God has given us His ‘Power of
attorney’ to act on His behalf, to heal diseases and cast out demons of fear,
unbelief, depression and doubt in order that we may enable others to see His
saving light of salvation. In doing so, we get to experience a fraction of the
Glory and Power that was given to Adam at the start.
Luke 19:10 says “For the Son of Man has come
to seek and to save that which was
lost.” What was lost? The image of God in us, the Glory. Jesus is sometimes referred to as the “second
Adam” in that He was pure, innocent, perfect and sinless. What makes Jesus the
‘last Adam’ is the fact that He remained pure, innocent, perfect and sinless
His entire time on earth. Jesus was sent to redeem us to Glory! Jesus is the
Glory of God in the flesh! Praise Him! The power of attorney that He passed on
to us gives us the authority to carry out everything that He did while He was
here. Are you with me?
Ephesians
5:25-27 Says “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and
gave Himself up for her, 26 so that He
might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,
27 that He might present to Himself the church
in all her glory…”
This tells us that our salvation isn’t just
an individual thing, that Jesus gave His life for His church, the Body of
Christ. We are the flesh of His flesh and the bone of His bone. He has
made us “members” of His body – individual parts that make up the whole of His
very self! In His church, His body, is where you will find the very depths of
God's love, and find your place in demonstrating the most exquisite workmanship
of God.
In Ephesians 3:14-21,
Paul prays “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,
15 from whom every family in heaven and on
earth derives its name, 16 that He
would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened
with power through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 so
that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being
rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be
able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and
height and depth, 19 and to know the
love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the
fullness of God."
Here Paul prays for the church, the body,
that, of all the riches of His Glory, the one thing he wishes on us is to “be
strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man”, to have the Holy
Spirit not just hang out in us but to be active in us to the core of our being
– the inner man! He goes on to say that IF the Holy Spirit dwells is us it
enables us to comprehend how much God loves us AND to be filled to the maximum with
God’s love! So, it is the Glory that enables us to experience the fullest
endowment of God’s love…wow!
1 Corinthians 15:45 “So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.” The last Adam (Jesus) became a life-giving spirit."
Yeshua Hamashiach, the Son of
God, the “anointed one” and the second (and last) Adam, was perfect and sinless
and was sent that sinful man be redeemed back to the life of Glory, the very
image of God.
John 11:40 “Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”
The only way we can receive
redemption is by stepping out of our prideful nature and into Jesus! Then and
only then can we be restored to the image of the Glory of God – but while here
on earth we can only get glimpses of the completed Glory that we will
experience in Heaven.
On Perfection and Why We Can Not Achieve It on Earth
Because man has stained the
earth with sin, the state of perfection will only be realized when we are with
the Father in heaven. So, we are to focus on Jesus and the Kingdom – “forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to
those things which are ahead” in the Kingdom!
Hebrews 12:1-2 further instructs us “Let us throw off everything that hinders and the
sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked
out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus,
the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured
the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of God."
If we use the lessons of Jesus
as the model of how we are to live as Christians, we have it all: salvation, water baptism, tithing, fellowship
with believers, loving your neighbor as yourself, baptism in the Holy Spirit,
healing the sick and casting out demons and leading others to salvation. At the
heart of it all is love. God's love is the key to Glory.
Be blessed and be a blessing!
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