Back To The Garden: The Reconciliation Of God And Man
Immersing yourself in God’s love
The thing about revelation is that is flows so easily, so naturally, that we don’t have to do anything but soak in it. I listened to my spiritual connection yesterday as she spoke, revelation was flowed from her to me like someone pouring cool clear water into my glass. I would like to share one point she made which is so true.
The word reconciliation means,
“The restoration of friendly relations”
My spiritual muse said that coming back to the Garden is the reconciliation of God and man. In all my years of talking about going back to the Garden I have never thought of it in quite that way. However, what she said really sums it up, making plain to me the over all plan of God.
Fitly joined together, we support each other
This is the power of connections within the Body of Christ. Each joint supplies what the other one lacks. We connect not only in revelation but also in healing, love, compassion, etc. As a result of allowing our spirits to connect, we become more together than we are apart. We supply what each other lacks. Together we become one that therefore whole.
God drove us out of the Garden because of sin. God allows us back into the Garden through faith in His son, Jesus Christ. We are restored to a position before our Father that we lost and have almost forgotten. We, through God’s grace, are going home. Like the prodigal son we have seen what the world for what it is and we are ready, now humbled, to seek our Father’s face once again. When we return, we find that our Father has been looking for us all these years and is overjoyed to see us.
We just want to be loved for ourselves
Connections are not forbidden love but the first love of Eden restored. It is the tie that binds us together in Him. As we love freely, in the way that God originally intended, we walk in His Spirit.
A mother and daughter spoke one day, and as they did, her daughter broke down in tears. Hearing the pain and anguish in the you woman’s sobs her mom asked, “what’s the matter?” The daughter exclaimed, “I wish I had a gay boyfriend!” Surprised, her mother asked “why?” Her daughter answered (who is very beautiful.) “All the boys ever want to do is make out, I wish I could just have a friend who liked me for who I am without all that.”
Our earthly love is not enough
When we walk in our flesh, even when we love, it is all about our selfish desires. Love becomes about what we get in return for treating someone nicely. In God, though, love is giving, love is kind, love has endless patience for another without ever wanting or expecting anything in return. Gods love is not about what you can get but what you can give. It feels natural and right. When two or more people allow God to love through them, everyone wins and everyone is satisfied.
The truth is, if one boy would befriended that girl without wanting something for himself she would love him to pieces. He would have a beautiful girl friend wanting to be with him and she would not care what he looked like or how much money or status he had. Likewise, when we love as God loves, we meet a need for acceptance in one another that the world cannot fulfill. When we actually care for another, independent of their external realities, we find true acceptance. This acceptance and the love that flows through us to each other, is the heart of true reconciliation.
Here, have some fruit from the Tree of Life
In conclusion, God is reconciling the world to Himself through us. As we love one another God accepts us individually back into the Garden. It is not a place so much as it is a position of acceptance before our God. Another sister in the Lord said that the Tree of Life, the one that we see as we enter New Jerusalem, is the actual tree of life that was in the Garden. Though we lost Eden through sin, God preserved the most important part of it, the Tree of Life, to give back to us when we came home. That, my friends, is true reconciliation.
Finally, the world does not function properly, because it lacks God’s love. Everything that is wrong with our societies stems from lack of love which translated into “lack of God” because His is love. When we try to love in and of ourselves we fail miserably. That is why when celebrities sing, “we are the world” is falls short of doing anything of lasting value. Only God loving through us can heal the world and cause mankind to become whole. If you really want to change the world, in a permanent way, allow God to love completely through you. Jesus began the reconciliation of the world to God and he commands us to finish the job through loving the world as he loved us.