THE WHOLE BIBLE IS THE WHOLE TRUTH

As I am reading The Biblical Jubilee and the Struggle for Life, I feel supported in by belief that a lack of knowledge and understanding of the Old Testament and so much emphasis on the New Testament is the root source of most, if not all, of the problems in our world today.  It is hindering us from knowing and understanding all of God’s Ways for His people.  It is hindering us from fully knowing and understanding Jesus’ mission and message and fully knowing and understanding God’s Word accurately.

It reinforces my beliefs that the church that human hands built are not the same as the Church that Jesus Christ built, the one that the forces of hell cannot destroy.  It reinforces my beliefs that the church built and established by human hands is a “golden calf”, which would explain the gradual decline and failing of that church as we know it. 

God’s original mission and message was exploited for personal gain by the Religious System in Jesus’ days.  Jesus’ mission and message was exploited by those who didn’t fully know or understand His mission and message.  Constantine exploited  Christianity for personal gain only to be followed by the church built and established by human hands for centuries.  That lack of knowledge and understanding is still exploited right up to today as the Gospel of Jesus Christ is being watered down, cheapened, and even done away with.

This is yet another reason I believe the Bible, The Story of God, is to be read as one entire narrative, from beginning to end, Genesis thru Revelation, known and understood in its whole context.  If we start doing that and teaching others to do that, we will clearly see that God has had solutions to most, if not all of our problems if we will simply humble ourselves, seek His face and ask Him, and then follow what He commands us to do.  It is to our peril to do anything else.

LIVING A SABBATH LIFE

God created the world in six days and then He rested on the seventh.  Week two we find Him walking around in His creation, hanging out with Adam and Eve, thinking about how He was going to take care of and tend to His creation.  Adam and Eve would live in a committed relationship with one another, have children, and tend to their home that God had provided.  They would enjoy their surroundings, tend to and care for them and each other.  They would also enjoy a personal and intimate relationship with God.  Sounds like heaven to me.

God made all things good and able to reproduce themselves.  There was no need to keep improving on what was made, simply take care and tend to it.  Perhaps His blessing on the Sabbath wasn’t just for a one day event.  Perhaps it was meant to be a way of Life; a Sabbath Life.

That all changed after Adam and Eve abused their freedom and did not do the one thing that God had told them to do…stay away from that one tree.

God had freely given them all the other trees but they were enticed to go after that one tree that God told them no to.  That faulty decision and action of not listening to God, of thinking they knew better than God, had consequences that would last throughout all time and history of mankind.  The work God had given them to do to fulfill a sense of purpose and would be pleasing and fulfilling now became filled with toil and effort.  Now the ground was cursed.  Thorns and thistles would have to be cleared causing man to sweat and labor of ridding the waste.  Adam and Eve were expelled from God’s place of provision and rest and would now have to provide in their own effort.  God was still there but He had given them over to themselves and their unsatisfying efforts.  They continued to work and toil but never reached that place of contentment or satisfaction.  Now the cry became “bigger and better.”  “Let us build a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make a name for ourselves.” (Genesis 10:4)

Human beings continue in the pattern set by our forefather; disobeying and rejecting God Himself and His tending over them.  God who made everything good and provided everything man could ever need or want to live life as it was designed to be lived was continually forsaken and His ways abandoned; and for what?  So human beings can proudly sing, “I did it my way!”  This is the evil and wickedness of human beings.  It is the root of all that is wrong in the world today.

          “For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken Me,

           the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns, broken

           cisterns, that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13).

This befuddles God and astonishes the heavens and all other created things that know and look to God with the awe and respect He should be shown.

(Jeremiah 2:13)  It should befuddle all of us.

It absolutely amazes me that God, through all of this, continues to want to have anything to do with us!  “Behold what manner of love He has for us.”  He loves us so much that He sent His Son to recover and renew the relationship He had with us in the beginning when He created us.  He wants us to live a Sabbath Life with Him, not be worried, anxious, and fearful about so many things.  He wants us to find rest and peace and joy in Him and His love.

“Come unto me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you       rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).  Love, Jesus.