THE THIRD EFFECT OF THE LOSS OF IDENTITY: OUR EMOTIONS

As Adam and Eve sinned, they lost the “rest” they had known in God. It was destroyed because God is the source of our rest. Previously, their emotions rested only in Him, but now, they were restless for a resting-place and the only source they had was their knowledge. This knowledge awakened, fed, and excited their emotions. Judgements, emotions and spiritual fulfillment had to be satisfied in their knowledge of good and evil.

Let’s look at this knowledge of good and evil as on a scale. On one side is the balance for evil things and on the other side is the balance for good things. In our natural mind, we want to balance our lives because this is “rest” or peace to us. When we experience something bad, e.g. sickness, we will look in our knowledge of good for the opposite – health. We think the imbalance is the cause of our sense of separation from God and balance will mean restoration of that relationship. If we experience poverty, our sense of righteousness will tell us to seek for the opposite, which is wealth and riches.

The error in our scale theory as our judge of communion with God is that it is still within the realm of the knowledge of good and evil and therefore not the source of life. We need to find the Tree of Life!

Too many activities of The Church are in the realm of good and evil with the effect of producing death in the Body of Christ. So much good knowledge is available to us, material written on every aspect of God’s nature and every new theology and doctrine can be discussed for us to understand God, and yet, there are so many people who feel dead inside and their lives are not coming alive with the life of Christ as it is being preached. Perhaps the answer may be that these are still the works in the realm of good and evil. Why does it have these kinds of effects on the Church?

Knowledge eats the life from within because life everlasting is dependent on a single seed dying to itself to bear multiple fruit instead of single fruit. Good and evil are the cankerworms, palmerworms and caterpillars which Joel speaks about in (Joel 2:25). The Church has been deceived into thinking it is alive just because it has the outline of the Church of Pentecost. The Church of Pentecost was not just a structure, but a living organism. What is life? It is not mere existence like the ancient ruins of Rome or Antioch. A living organism has the ability to reproduce, grow and function in health and through this function, multiply.

Is this the description of the Church of Jesus Christ today? I do not think so. I believe that the cankerworms have eaten the seed of life, which should have produced a life-producing Church. What is the seed of life that will bring us into the supernatural life of God?

This seed is the love of God. A good seed will produce good fruit. Jesus said in (John 12:24) “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.” Only the love of God will give us the strength to want to die to ourselves and become a seed of life. As this love grows and becomes the priority in our life, we will die to ourselves and be a good seed of life. As this seed grows, it will produce a source of life for others to eat from as we produce the fruits of the Spirit.

Because knowledge has eaten away at the seed of life from within, it is necessary that one of the first acts of restoration will be to have a new source to eat from to give life to our inner man. We will then begin to grow, reproduce and multiply.

This multiplication is the development within our emotions to enlarge them. The “abiding alone” which Jesus warns us about in (John 12:24) is a sign of death and an effect of the cankerworm destroying our emotions. It is the work of Satan to try to alienate our emotional life from serving and loving God. If he can do this, he can take away a flow of power and life which is part of the great work of restoration needed in the emotional lives of most Christians.

In His Love,
      Sigi

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