Off to Pennsylvania tomorrow…the future awaits.  The future is something I’ve been talking to people a lot over the summer, actually. And if there’s one thing I’ve had a sense of, it’s that many are unsure of what to do with their lives.  I feel like there’s a lot of stalling, or doing things to kill the time, or even if they do make plans they’re still unsure of whether they‘re good or not.  Yeah, life is a big deal.  We kind of only have one.  Seeing as most of us young people are all in the same boat trying to figure this stuff out, I want to share with you what I found about the big picture.  Perhaps you have heard some of this already, so if this is review you can skip it. But there are two reasons I want to share this: first, to lay foundations so you know where I’m coming from as I share more in the future, just so that we’re all on the same page. And second, because I’ve realized that I’ve found such a gap in my life between what I say I believe and what I’m actually living that really, if we just understand and live the basics of life, things can be pretty simple, and pretty fun. So let us begin…

In the beginning, there was God.  And he made it all…And everything was good.  It was heaven on earth. God dwelled, and walked, and hung out here, in all His holiness and majesty.  With no problems.  I mean, it was His earth, right? Then there wasthe first human, made out of dirt – but not just dirt.  What made him come alive was the breath of God, because God IS life – God and all his characteristics define what life is supposed to be.  And God put His nature, His characteristics and His very substance into the breath that he breathed into us.

So God and our ancient grandparents hung out on this very earth together in the garden, enjoying each other’s company.  We walked with Him, named all the animals He made, played hide-and-seek (well, that wasn’t till after some problems happened. But we kinda did, I mean, as one of my pastors says, “You know you’re lost when God can’t find you.”).  God also gave us direction as to the things we were created to do.  He said, “Be fruitful and multiply”, and “Rule over the fish, the birds, all the earth, and all the animals that move along the ground.” From the beginning, we’ve been the ones who have dominion over the earth – God assigned us responsibility for it.  As God is ruler of everything, so we are the designated rulers of the earth. Psalm 24:1 says that “the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it“, but we gotta understand that God chose to make us the rulers of what He created.  Being made in God’s likeness, we are supposed to reflect God’s characteristics upon the earth through the God-made nature breathed into us.

But the craziest thing is that God never forced himself upon humans.  His biggest will is to have people love him cuz they WANT to.  It’s like, God wants us to do good and live in a love relationship with Him, but he will not force it because His “bigger” will is to let us decide for ourselves what to do.  That is really key in understanding God’s will today.  We say things like, “God will have His way”, or “All things turn out in the end”.  But really, God’s way is to let you have your way.  We know He desires for us to all be like him and live in goodness, but if we choose to not follow those desires God will not stop us.  God definitely works through everything – it’s just that, as Curry Blake says, God plays “9-level chess” in doing it because he doesn’t violate a single free will of ours.

So we know what we did with our free will.  We chose to disobey God’s only command given to us, and in doing that we were basically choosing a new god.  So, since we chose a new god, and we are responsible for the earth, guess what happened?  We empowered our new god – the devil – over the earth, even though he had no power before.  That’s how the devil was able to tempt Jesus with the kingdoms of the world, and why the devil was called “the prince of this world”.  Because people let him have power over what we have been assigned.  Definitely our fault.

So perfect humanity with our God-natures got messed up, and God gave the Old Testament Law to make us aware of how far short we fall of who we were meant to be.  This wasn’t to shame us, it was to make us realize that we need help from Someone to get us out of this mess!

We can’t save ourselves by ourselves, Galatians 3:24 says that the Law was just a safeguard for us until help came from an outside source…

Enter Adam.  The second one.  Only difference between this one and the first one is that this one was God (!).  Jesus is what God looked like wrapped in flesh.  And he came to get all that had been lost since humans gave it all up at the beginning of the world.

Jesus died.  Why death?  Death is…not life.  And remember, God gives life.  So, going against God naturally has one result, and that is death.  The original perfect human sinned, so only a perfect human could pay for that sin.  That is what Jesus did.  Jesus came to take back everything that we lost because of sin! He came to allow us to live sin-free lives and free the world also from its bondage to sin and its effects.  Jesus rose from the dead.  Why did he come back from death?  Cuz he defeated it!  Life dominated death through Jesus! Bam!  And all we have to do is accept it.  The work of God is this: “To believe in the one He has sent” (John 6:29).

What does accepting Jesus’ sacrifice do? It kills our old selves.  It makes us new creations.  New creations – back to our roots, to the way we were meant to be from the creation of the world, and with God‘s very spirit inside of us!  We stand holy and blameless before God (Ephesians 1).  We are once again able to walk with God, talk with him, and are able to carry out what He wants us to do with life.

The other thing is we haven’t really seen many of the implications of this truth in reality yet.  But it will come, and I will talk more about that at a later post…

Okay, so, now to current time.  Jesus has been given all authority in heaven and on earth.  Those who accept Jesus’ sacrifice have been made holy and blameless in His sight.  The devil has been defeated.  So what’s with all the awful stuff going on in the world? Usually we tend to think of all the troubles of the world in fleeting thoughts, and then move on because we don’t know what to do about them.  Now is the time we need to realize something – we actually can.  There is a key ingredient here that’s been in the mix since the beginning that still has a part to play, and that is free will.  Remember our command from the beginning?  Be fruitful, multiply, and rule over the earth?  That’s still in effect.  You see all the bad happening in the earth?  That’s the earth that we’re responsible for.  Jesus has all the authority in heaven and on earth, but who did he assign as His hands and feet to use it?

This is what John G. Lake had to say: “Men have mystified the Gospel.  The Gospel of Jesus is as simple as can be.  As God lived in the body and operated through the man Jesus, so the man on the throne, Jesus, operates through his body, the Church, in the world.  Even as Jesus himself was the representation of God the Father, so also the Church is representative of Christ.  As Jesus yielded himself to all righteousness, so the church should yield herself to do all the will of God.” Since Jesus paid the price for the world, I reckon it’s about time He gets what He paid for.  Our mission is to bring the world back to what it was made to be.  That is what preaching the gospel is – aligning earth with what heaven’s reality already is, where God is ruler over all.  That is why the Lord’s prayer says, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”   It’s agreeing with God’s will, which is to bring heaven’s perfect reality to earth, where it used to be and once again will come!

So Jesus leaves his disciples with this epic command.  “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.” That is what we’re supposed to do.  This is life’s assignment.  And it is God’s will that everyone gets saved (2 Peter 3:9), even though not everyone has gotten saved. It’s up to us partner with God to get ‘er done! His will is to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head – Christ (Ephesians 1:10).  We gotta realize that it’s a ridiculous lie of the devil to feel helpless and scared in the world.  That’s how the devil feels right now, cuz he’s about to get owned – for all eternity.

The End Times: Chaos or Goodness?

You may be thinking, “It sounds nice, Nathan.  A bit idealistic, but nice.”  And then you think of all the verses about the end times – the great falling away, the love of most growing cold, the tribulation and chaos that’s supposed to happen.  How could this reality interlock with what I just explained?

I don’t have time to get into all of that now, and perhaps I don’t have all the answers, but I just want to point out one thing: you become what you are looking at. And if we choose to rather focus on the world getting worse rather than doing what God has called us to do and has given us the authority to do, it’s disobedience. Jesus never called us to hide in our homes and stay in our bubbles, just waiting for Him to return.  Jesus is the victorious one, and we are His representatives.  That’s what Christians are supposed to be – “little Christs”.  Believing the world is getting worse takes no faith at all, and yet faith is what Jesus is looking for when he returns (Luke 18:8).  In a twisted way, if we don’t do what we’re supposed to do, there really will be no light for the world to see, so the world really will fall into darkness.  And when that happens, I suppose we can pat ourselves on the back and congratulate ourselves on being right? I’m not saying there won’t be hard times.  I’m just saying we need to stick to the point.  And we need to realize the goodness of the God we represent.  After God has given us all this victory for free, how much more will He not graciously give us all things (Romans 8:32)?

Translating into Reality

We have the opportunity to be part of something bigger than this world has ever seen.  It’s not just words on a page.  This is supposed to be real life – better than the most epic manly movie we’ve ever seen.  God’s the director, all we gotta do is follow the script.  So feel inspired.  God is in a good mood.  He is so ready to bring His kingdom to the earth the way Jesus and the early disciples did, and more.  This is why I’m going to San Jose in the fall – I want to do more of what this looks like because I know I’m still falling short in so many areas.  So this message was kind of general, and I guess I didn’t get specific about what this means for today yet.  But it’s a start, and hey, best way to learn is to go to God!  I’ve realized that you often remember things better when you discover them for yourself.  I just want to encourage you to make sure, if perhaps this stuff seems unheard of or too intense or whatever, to not let whatever has been your experience decide what you believe.  If we are serious about loving Jesus, we gotta make our lives line up with what God has spoken in the Bible and what He’s still saying.

So in my next post I want to explain another important aspect of being a new creation that is key in being able to bring the kingdom.  I heard this message about 8 months ago and I can honestly say that I think it changed my life.  I love you guys and hope it changes yours too!  So read 1 Corinthians 2 if you think of it and meditate on it for awhile – it’s good stuff.

So that’s it for now – might not be updated for awhile as I will be hanging with the family in Pennsylvania. Woohoo!  I forgot to mention, there’s a little box on the right of the screen where you can get an email whenever I put up a new posting, that way you don’t have to check back to see when I’ve updated it. I also sort of have a Facebook application for this, which apparently is supposed to do something, but I’m not sure what yet. I guess we’ll see…Anyways, stay rocked guys, please feel free to send messages, comments or anything you’d like.  Let’s find truth and to live it together!  Live it real.