Apicontent

In order to fix my broken life, God had to change the way I thought about Him and the way I thought about myself and others. He had to reintroduce Himself to me as a God of love. First John 4:16 tells us, “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.” The trials in my life pushed me to Him; it was there I began to understand and accept His love for me. And as I accepted His love, I began to understand Scripture differently.

In the Garden of Eden, when God created man, He said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him” (Genesis 1:26–27).

God made us like Him because He wanted someone to love and to share Himself with. Mankind is God’s most treasured of above all creation. We are uniquely designed to appreciate the fullness of God. He put Adam in the Garden to tend and care for the rivers, trees, birds and animals. Through Adam, He gave us dominion over the earth because He wanted us to share with Him in caring for the world He had made. God created man, and man only—not animals, not angels—in His image.

God is Three in One. He is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And mankind also is three in one: we are spirit, soul and body. First Thessalonians 5:23 says, “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Scripture tells us of God creating man: “And the LORD God formed man [1] of the dust of the ground, and [2] breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man [3] be- came a living being” (Genesis 2:7). God shaped Adam’s (1) body from the dust of the ground. Then He breathed into that body His Spirit-breath of life so that Adam’s (2) spirit came alive. And with that Spirit-breath from God, man became a living (3) soul. In God’s design, the soul receives life through the Spirit.

God gave us a body so we could live on earth. Our body is made up of our bones, muscle and organs. We interact with the physical world through our body. We see, smell, hear, touch and taste. Our body is like a house for the hidden parts of spirit and soul. “Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you”(1 Corinthians 6:19).

After God shaped Adam’s body, He breathed into it His breath of life. Our spirit comes alive when God’s Spirit gives it life. When we believe that Jesus is the Son of God who died for our sins and rose from the dead, the Holy Spirit comes and lives in our spirit. By “accepting Jesus into our heart,” we let God have a home on earth—in our spirit. Our spirit connects us with God and is a resting place for His Spirit. Just as our body connects us to the physical world, our spirit connects us to God. “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God”(Romans 8:16).

Upon receiving the breath of God’s Spirit into his body, Adam became a living soul. He became a living being with thoughts and feelings. The soul is the place of our mind, will and emotions. It is like a “bridge” between the spirit and the body. Our mind, will and emotions—not our spirit directly—determine the actions of our body. Our behaviors, speech and feelings are expression of our soul. The world sees the contents of our soul expressed out through our body.

The diagram below illustrates how God made us three in one.

Spirit and soul together form the hidden core of man—the heart. Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” God knows the heart, He knows what is of the Spirit (originating from Him) and what is of the soul (originating from us).

In God’s design, the soul is meant to be like the steering wheel of a car. How the wheel is turned determines the direction the car takes. But a wheel is not made to steer itself and our soul is not meant to steer us. God, in our spirit, is meant to be the driver. With His hand upon the wheel, all is well. His love directs us.

Each one of us is meant to receive God’s love in our spirit, know the reality of that love in our soul and then let that love flood out of our body to the world. In His great design, God planned that we would have dominion over the earth as guided by our love-relationship with Him.

But Satan had other plans.

Reflection Questions:

• What do you think it means to be made “in the image of God”?
• What does it mean to you to receive God in your spirit?
• In what ways are you experiencing the reality of God’s love in your soul?
• In what ways is God’s love expressing itself through your body to the world?
• How do all three parts (spirit, soul and body) work together to express God’s love on earth?

Before the fall, Adam and Eve had a Spirit-to-spirit connection with God. God did not live in them, but He walked with them. In the Garden of Eden, everything for Adam and Eve’s full life—their perfect relationship with God, self, others and the world—came through their relationship with God. Adam and Eve’s spirit, soul and body were in perfect agreement with God. God gave; they received. God loved; they trusted.

Satan hated Adam and his relationship with God. He hated that God had created humanity in His image to have dominion over the earth. He hated that Adam had been given authority “over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth” (Genesis 1:26)—for Satan was that creeping thing.So he plotted to destroy God’s most treasured creation. In the Garden of Eden, he tempted Eve to fall in the same way he had fallen—by relying on his own soul (his own mind, will and emotions).

Long ago, Satan had tried to become like God apart from God. By his own efforts—his own I will—Satan had tried to make himself like God.He had said, “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:13–14). Satan fell because of pride; he was going to do it himself—by his own, independent I will. So he tempted Eve to act apart from her relationship with God, to rely on her independent soul and to express her own I will.

In the center of the Garden of Eden, God had planted two trees: the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God warned Adam about the second tree, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:16–17).

The fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was not good for humanity. So, like a loving father warning his child not to eat something poisonous, God warned Adam.

However, Satan reassured Eve that everything would be fine—even better than before. He told her, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil”(Genesis 3:4–5). “Don’t listen to God,” the serpent said. “You won’t really die; you’ll be like God.” The idea Satan planted in her mind was, “God doesn’t have your best interests at heart. If He really loved you, He wouldn’t withhold this good from you. So go ahead. Choose what is best for yourself.”

The fruit of tree seemed good to her, so Eve ate it. She gave some to Adam and he ate it too. In so doing, Adam made his own decision and acted apart from God. His soul—his mind, willand emotions—chose its own will over God’s. Thus, Adam broke his Spirit-to-spirit connection with God; he cut off the life-giving relationship. Now the soul had to make its own decisions using its new-found knowledge of good and evil.

When Adam ate the forbidden fruit, the effect rippled throughout the entire human race. When we are born into this world, we inherit Adam’s disconnection from God—the sin nature. Satan’s evil plot destroyed the perfect way God had created us to live—in Spirit-to-spirit connection with Him. Now the independent soul—cut off from continual intimate relationship with God—was in control.

After the fall, Adam and Eve’s minds became clouded by the knowledge of good and evil. When their “eyes were opened” they no longer saw God’s loving nature, but increasing viewed Him as a harsh father demanding good and punishing evil. The couple’s image of God, self and others was darkened by lies.

These lies changed their behavior. When God came to walk with Adam and Eve in the cool of the Garden, they were not there. The two had dressed themselves in fig leaves to cover their nakedness and were hiding from God.

But God searched out Adam, calling for the one he loved, “Where are you?”(Genesis 3:9).

Adam answered, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself”(Genesis 3:10). Fear (“I was afraid”) is the first emotion expressed by Adam after the fall. The I will brought fear into their lives. There was no fear in Adam or Eve before the fall. Before the fall there was nothing to be afraid of; they knew the loving nature of God. The New Testament says, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18).

Adam and Eve had lost their connection with God. Their Spirit-to-spirit relationship was severed. Through people’s independent souls, Satan could now work evil in humanity and in the world God had designed for them to rule.

Reflection Questions:

• Consider for a moment what it must have been like for Adam and Eve to “walk with God.” What do you think that perfect relationship may have been like?
• In what ways were Adam and Eve’s experience of God’s love changed after the fall?
• In what ways might you have bought into Satan’s lie, “God doesn’t have your best interests at heart”?
• How is the soul (will) central to Satan’s scheme?
• How is the soul (will) central to God’s full redemptive plan?

After the fall, God could no longer express His love and care for Adam and Eve as He had in the beginning. All of humanity was living in a broken relationship with God. Now people were living with their eyes opened to the knowledge of good and evil. Because people had no connection with God on the inside, the rules had to come from the outside. Therefore, God gave Moses the Ten Commandments as guidelines for the independent soul.

God knew what was best for man. He wrote the commandments like a loving father making rules to keep his children safe and happy. Just as a father might tell his child, “Don’t stick your finger in fire,” God gave these laws to protect His people.

The Ten Commandments, along with other laws in the Old Testament, clearly defined what people should and should not do. However, even when people wanted to, they just couldn’t obey all the rules. The soul, cut off from God and clouded by lies and fear, couldn’t follow His instructions. Before Moses received the Ten Commandments, the people had said, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do” (Exodus 19:8). And yet, soon after those same people had given up on the Lord and worshiped a golden calf.

Even David, God’s chosen king of Israel, failed to keep the law. He wrote sincerely, “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God”(Psalm 42:1–2). Yet David’s soul was fickle. He had an affair with Bathsheba, the wife of one of his loyal army officers. Then to cover it up, he had the man sent to his death in battle. God’s chosen king disobeyed four of the Ten Commandments; he coveted, committed adultery, lied and murdered.

Nothing was wrong with the law God gave His people; it was just that it couldn’t be followed. The law was not designed to be kept by the efforts of mankind. It was designed to show us God’s standard that, apart from relationship with Him, can never be kept. The purpose of the law was not to make people good; the purpose of the law was to show people that life guided by the soul can never be good. Despite having the knowledge of good and evil, the soul can’t live rightly on its own.

In the New Testament, Jesus summarized the Old Covenant law—that couldn’t be obeyed. When He was asked by a Pharisee about “the great commandment in the law,” Jesus replied, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets”(Matthew 22:37–40).

These two greatest commandments in the Law summarize what is best for us. “God is love” (1 John 4:16) and He created us in His image to reflect His love-nature to the world. But, these two commands are Old Covenant commands and therefore impossible to obey. Think of trying to love God with all your heart, all you soul and all your mind. How could you possibly do that? And even if you could, how could you then, having given all your love to God, have some left over for your neighbor? And how could you love your neighbor as yourself if you didn’t really love yourself, because you didn’t know God loved you?

Even though the law couldn’t be obeyed, the Pharisees were deceived into thinking they were obedient. But Jesus called out their true condition, “Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness”(Matthew 23:26–27).

Following rules can make a person look good by their own definition—from the outside. But it cannot make a person good by God’s definition—from the inside. Our true goodness comes from an inner relationship with our heavenly Father that flows through us to others. In God’s design, right living flows from right being. We were created as human beings, not as human doings. Being in relationship with God allows us to know his love for us and to naturally follow his rules. Paul summarizes this clearly when he says, “Love does no harm to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the Law”(Romans 13:10).

God doesn’t define right living as obedience to any set of rules—not even His own. Neither does He define sin as disobedience to the law. Sin, in God’s view, is not just doing evil as defined by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It is also doing “good” under that same tree. Both the good and the evil are equally death producing—because they come, not from the Spirit, but from the independent soul. Sin is doing your own thing—no matter how “good” that thing appears.Sin is missing the true goal and purpose of life; it is living apart from God and being led by the independent soul. Again, Paul makes this clear: “Whatever is not from faith is sin”(Romans 14:23).

By showing the total failure of the law to make us good, God planned that we would come to know our desperate need for a Savior. Paul says, “The law was our tutor to bring us to Christ” (Galatians 3:24).

Our old, soul-guided nature always wants to live by rules. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil has deep roots. Every religion of the world caters to the desires of the Adam-nature to do something “good” to please their god(s) and earn their favor. Jews try to obey the Law of Moses. Muslims try to follow the Koran. Hindus try to appease many different gods and goddesses with a variety of sacrifices. Christians too can be easily deceived into trying to gain God’s favor through “good” deeds generated by the independent soul such as going to church, witnessing … or even loving others.

We cannot please God apart from our relationship with Him. God wants us to let His life and love flow through us.

In my own life, I had completely missed this point. When I did good deeds, I believed those deeds put me in right standing with God. Adam’s clouded mindset had darkened my thoughts. I believed the lie that if you do good things, God will love you, but if you don’t, He won’t.

That lie so warped the framework of my life that I tried desperately to do “good” things. In high school I got straight As. I earned the position of number one on the tennis team. I was president of the Girl’s League, the California Scholarship Federation and the church youth group. Pushed by the lie, I earned two separate undergraduate degrees in four years, attended graduate school, wrote numerous publications focused on helping sick and disabled children, aiding starving children in Kenya, raised four kids and worked as a volunteer for a mission organization. But … nothing was enough. Life was a constant struggle to accomplish the impossible and be “good enough” to earn love from others … and God.

Trying to love as commanded in the Old Covenant was the root of my problem. My independent soul couldn’t generate the love.

But Edna had seen past the whitewashed walls and the shiny ornaments that decorated my good Christian life. On that hot August day, she had spoken the truth, “Mary, you don’t love.”

She had identified the problem. But what was the solution?

Reflection Questions:

• In what ways is the law currently hindering you and/or helping you to live as God designed?
• Imagine and describe a growing relationship with God?
• In what ways might you be living by rules and regulations?
• In what ways might you currently be trying to earn God’s love and approval?
• In this chapter the author says: “Sin is doing your own thing—no matter how ‘good’ that thing appears.Sin is missing the true goal and purpose of life; it is living apart from God and being led by the independent soul.” How might your independent soul be causing you to miss your true goal and purpose in life?

Jesus didn’t just show us a new way, He made it possible for us to live in that new way. He gave us the New Covenant to replace the Old.

In the New Covenant we receive from God by faith. It is a two-step process summarized clearly in First John: “And this is His commandment: that we should [1] believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and [2] love one another, as He gave us commandment” (1 John 3:23). We (1) believe that Jesus is the Son of God and we (2) love as Jesus commanded with the love He first gave to us.

The New Covenant speaks, not of what we should do, but of what Jesus has done. He has made a way for us to live in love-relationship with God. It is God who changes us from the inside out. Obedience to the New Covenant does not depend upon the work of our independent soul; the only requirement is that we believe in Jesus and all that He accomplished for us on the cross.

The first command of the New Covenant—the first step in restoring relationship with God—is to believe in Jesus as the Son of God. Scripture repeats this first step with its promises over and over again. John 3:16 tells us, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:36 says, “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life.”John 6:40 reiterates, “And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life.” 

When we believe that Jesus is the Son of God who died for us, our sins are forgiven and we have eternal life. When we die, we will go to heaven. No good works are required of the independent soul. We simply accept the truth by faith. Salvation is a free gift. The Holy Spirit comes to live in our spirit and we are born again. When we invite Jesus into our heart, our spirit becomes a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit and we begin our relationship with God. In this way, our spirit fulfills its God-intended purpose; it connects us to God and His all-embracing love.

The diagram below shows that the spirit of one who believes in Jesus is filled with the love of God.

During the time of the Reformation, in the early 1500s, the church was reintroduced to the first command of the New Covenant. God used the teaching and writing of Martin Luther to make it clear that eternal life cannot be earned by works but is a free gift to be received by faith.  With strong resolve the Luther held to the truth of Scriptures such as Romans 1:17, “The just shall live by faith.” Today many Christians have an understanding of the first command of the New Covenant. We know that we are justified by faith and not by works of the law.

When I was 16, the truth of believing of Jesus became clear to me and I accepted Him into my heart. As a new believer, I spent the first few months of my new relationship with God just enjoying Him. I would ride my horse into the hills, find a spot for him to graze, lie under a tree and read my Bible. Some days I would get up early and walk down the dirt road with my dog just to watch the sunrise and sing made-up songs to Jesus.

But then I began to learn about all the things good Christians did. I didn’t understand that these things were meant to come naturally from the spirit relationship I was enjoying, so I began trying to do my own good deeds. I thought this was what God wanted me to do. And so the framework of my Christian life became twisted: I began to assume that God would bless me and love me because of my good deeds. Thus, in working for God, I lost the simple rightness of living life in relationship with God.

My Christian life had begun well—with Jesus in my heart—in Spirit-to-spirit relationship. And I knew it would end well—with eternal life in heaven when I died. But I was completely deceived about how to live life on earth—in those important in-between years.

Salvation by faith in Jesus as the Son of God isn’t all that God intends for us. We were made for more than a born-again spirit and eternal life. We were created in the image of God to share His life and love with others—just as Jesus did. God intends that, through our spirit connection, we begin to understand more and more of His love—so that our souls also come to be renewed.

Reflection Questions:

• Share one way, meaningful to you, that the New Covenant is different from the Old.
• What does the Bible teach about how to receive everlasting life?
• Why is believing in Jesus a critical first step in our relationship with God?
• Share three ways that believing in Jesus has changed you.
• John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world …” Why is God’s love central to understanding what this verse is saying?