The more things change.....

The more things change the more they stay the same. The old saying is as true today as it has ever been. Especially when it comes to culture, spirituality and our problem as humans. The tension even in the garden of Eden was not really as simple as good versus evil, light versus dark, or even God versus Satan. It was the beginning of a worship war that is fought in the spiritual realm with human minds as the battleground, human hearts as the targets, human will as the ammunition, and human souls as the objective. You see Adam and Eve lived in perfection. Perfect environment with an unpolluted earth, perfect companionship with each other, and most importantly perfect fellowship with their Creator. Satan who is actually a fallen angelic worship leader, planted in their minds the thought that their object of worship was not worthy. He fertilized their hearts with a longing for "more" than God had already provided. And finally he watered them with the thought that God's word could not be trusted. Satan knew that the first shot fired was him being kicked out of heaven and that his next move in the battle would be to show up in the garden and plant his own seed that would lead to what he felt was the knockout blow in the war of worship. What he was growing has been and will always be at the core of humanity's issue. Once he planted, fertilized, and watered Adam and Eve, the fruit of "selfish ambition" was grown. At the core of original sin and at the core of every sin from that point forward is selfishness. The world has changed a lot since the creation account but one thing is the same. Our self centeredness is what separates us from God. The only reason that Satan's counterpunch was not the knockout blow to humanity is the everlasting love and unlimited grace God displayed through the redemptive work of Jesus. Jesus is the antidote to the disease of selfishness. We have somewhat mislabeled sin in the sense that we are often referring to the acts of disobedience as "sin" when in reality that is the fruit of sin. At the core of Sin with a capital "S" is selfishness. This explains why so many people make professions of faith but lose heart when they still struggle with disobedience. We tend to look for outward change without considering whether a new heart has been formed through the new birth. This is why it is important to understand that at the core of salvation is a death to self and not an intellectual belief in religious structure. It is a giving up not a "try harder" attitude. It is a surrender of will, not a prayer of hope. It is a dying to live, not a living better to earn God's love. It is why Jesus calls it being born again, it is why Paul says I have died but yet I live, it is why James says do nothing out of selfish ambition, and why James also says to "humbly" accept the word planted in you. So you see, the more things change the more they stay the same. The war is still waging and it is "self"versus "death to self". It is won or lost by seed planting. The seed of self produces sin which produces death. The seed of Christ produces righteousness which produces life. Go fight the war and plant Jesus!