The Crossing
What does it take to have a genuine and real relationship with your creator? The Bible addresses this head-on. You CAN know God. You can live in his presence and with his power.
We all make mistakes and those can cost us a lot - time, money, relationships. Genesis records the worst of those mistakes.
God created all that we know and see as a backdrop to creating us - the final character in the creation story and the most intimate and personal of His creation.
Genesis 1:26-28 NIV
God was doing more than creating, He was procreating, passing His ‘DNA” onto us - the ability to exercise reason, intelligence, speech, moral consciousness, creativity, rationality, and choice as well as a measure of dominion.
Genesis 2:7 NIV
The creation of man is different - there is an intimacy to it - a relationship is being created and it is very personal to God.
Genesis 3:8 NIV
God walked and spent time with Adam and Eve - calling it “very good.” The first two chapters of Genesis reflect who we were created to be.
A fatal mistake occurred and its consequences are recorded in the rest of the Bible. There are four chapters of people being in a right relationship with God and
So what happened?
Genesis 2:9 NIV
The second tree represented a choice. God has an indisputable right to make choices and so His children, made in His image, must also have a choice - to love or not to love.
Adam and Eve chose what was right and loving for a time, but there came a day when both of them made a choice to love themselves more than God.
Sin is the byproduct of love - its dark side. Love is a choice, and for Adam and Eve, it was the choice to love themselves.
Genesis 3:6 NIV
Fear and shame were the instant byproduct of their choice - their relationship with God was broken and judgement followed.
The clock starts ticking at this moment - sin and death enter the world and one story is torn in half and becomes two: the upper and lower story, setting in motion every negative choice from then until now.
Love can begin to appear fragile.
Genesis 3:15 NIV
We can’t underestimate the power of love - in that tragedy a ray of light appears that now shines today with the radiance of the sun. In love, God would save us, showing us the true power of love.
Genesis 3:21 NIV
Just as covering Adam and Eve’s sin and shame required a death, so did ours. Jesus covered it through His death on the cross - casting out fear with His perfect love. He invites us back to the garden, ending the dominion of death and the marching on of time.
The two stories become one again.
He has always been closing the distance, starting with animals and sacrifices, priests and prayers, but none were close enough.
Jesus came to walk beside us as our priest and sacrifice, applying His perfect blood to pay our debt but that too wasn’t close enough.
God sent His Holy Spirit to dwell inside of us but even still that wasn’t close enough.
One day God will recreate us in perfection and place us in the garden again to walk with Him and finally and forever, that will be close enough