An Eternal Agenda

Moving forward with this discussion we are transitioning from gaining an understanding of the “human condition” into “God’s plan”.  In order to understand this transition we must come to realize that:

• There is something beyond this existence, 
• What is beyond may very well be more important, and 
• Everything gained through this existence is an integral part of the journey beyond.

The common theme between the messages over the past two weeks is coming to realize that the key to spiritual growth comes through humility.  Humility is the opposite of pride, and the ultimate in pride believes we “can be just like God”.  Way back in the garden Eve was tempted to believe that if she and Adam ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they would become just like God.  The temptation has not changed.  This is what Satan wants for himself and what he uses to draw us closer to him and further from God.  We must remember that this is a spiritual battle and that he is the greatest hunter ever created.

I’m not a hunter but I do know some things about hunting.  A good hunter understands his prey and what his prey finds most tempting.  For most animals it would be some kind of food or the sound of its mate.

Let’s take a minute and think about how God created us.  Didn’t He create us in His image?  Wouldn’t it make sense then that our greatest desire would be the same as His?  What is God’s greatest desire for this world?  Isn’t it drawing all of us back to Him?  Another way of saying that would be, God’s greatest desire is to deliver us into spiritual freedom.

If this is His greatest desire and He created us in His image, than I would argue that this is our greatest desire.  If this is our greatest desire, then this desire is the path for our greatest temptation.

Knowing that Satan is a great hunter we come to understand that he has set up a really incredible plan to use our pride along with our desire to bring about global spiritual freedom to lead the world into global captivity.

But, the truth is, God is the ultimate hunter.  Satan is the greatest hunter He created, but we know that the created can never be greater than the creator.  So, what is God’s angle?

Does it make sense that God would create us with a desire to be free, help others, and bring about peace and then create a hunter to take advantage of these attributes simply to lead the world into bondage, pain, and suffering?

At first glance we would say of course not.  Even the thought of that is beyond reason.  But what if the most important part of this journey is coming to realize that God is God and we are not.  Maybe the most important thing isn’t the freedom or the peace.  Maybe the most important thing is that we allow Him to use the experiences of this journey to show us that we will never fully understand all that is to be understood, that as such we will never totally comprehend the difference between good and evil, and as such there is no way we will ever be just like Him.  Maybe what He has prepared for us once we move beyond this realm requires that we come to this point in our spiritual development.  If we don’t leave this realm and immediately come into the full knowledge, understanding, and likeness of Him then it would only stand to reason that there is more to our spiritual development than what occurs at that moment we leave here and go there.  Assuming we never reach the full knowledge, understanding, or likeness of Him we come to understand that this is an eternal journey that has no room for pride.

Coming to understand this leads us to understanding the critical nature of our being purged of any tendency to succumb to temptations toward pride.  If we embrace this as the sole purpose of this aspect of His creation (the story of planet earth and the human race) we come to see things from a different perspective.  We come to realize the magnitude of the humbling we must endure.  Simply stated, we begin to understand why we must:

• Be allowed to believe we are free, 
• Be tempted into believing that we know the difference between good and evil, 
• Be used by Satan to lead the world into his bondage, 
• Be shown how our own pride in these specific areas is what created the opportunity for Satan to take advantage, 
• Feel the pain of seeing the results of what transpires, and 
• Make a free will choice to kill our desire for freedom and our belief that we will ever fully comprehend the difference between good and evil.

This awareness is exactly what God’s plan ultimately leads us to.  Our full maturity into Christ ultimately comes through:

• The realization of the damage we have done in our desire to do what is right, 
• While not allowing God to transform us into what He desires, 
• While holding onto what we believe to be true, 
• Thinking we are capable of doing what only He can, and 
• Blaming others when we fail (because they disagree with our version of good and evil).

This takes me full circle to the question that stimulated this entire 5 blog series.  Do I agree with replacement theology?  For those of you who don’t know what this is, it is a theology that believes that the church has replaced Israel as God’s “chosen people”.  The following summarizes how I see God using “His people to carry out His plan”:

• The Jewish people were chosen by God to be His partner in bringing His plan of purging all mankind of our tendency to succumb to temptations toward pride, 
• As such they would have to be the first people to be purged of this tendency, 
• God gave them the foundation to what is right and wrong, 
• Their pride allowed Satan to blind them to the foundational aspects and led them to believing these things to be the totality of ultimate truth, 
• Believing these things to be the totality of ultimate truth they saw themselves as free and containing the ability to bring forth freedom to others, 
• This provided the opportunity for Satan to make them his slave, 
• God stepped in at the appointed time and did something new, 
• Because Christ pointed these things out instead of lifting them up they rejected Him (pride), 
• This rejection has led to the church carrying on the commission to work with God in purging all mankind of our tendency to succumb to temptations toward pride,
• Over the past 2,000 years the Jewish people have been the most persecuted people on the face of the earth, 
• During this 2,000 year period the Church has followed in the footsteps of the Jewish people, 
• Satan has used our pride to blind us to the foundational aspects of the teachings while relying too heavily on scripture such as John 3:16, 
• This has provided the opportunity for Satan to make us his slave by reducing what it is to be a disciple into little more than wearing a cross, doing good works, and telling people about Christ, 
• God is going to step in at the appointed time and do something new, 
• What He does will bring about so much pain and suffering it will be the catalyst necessary to bring the Jewish people to the humility necessary to once and for all be purged of their tendency to be drawn from Him, 
• The church’s humility will come when we find ourselves feeling as separated from God as the Jewish people have over the past 2,000 years.  This will be the result of our being subjected to the same persecution as they have endured, and the same tribulation as the rest of the world. 
• Our pride has led us to believe that we will “be lifted up” and that God’s wrath “will fall upon those that deserve it”.  God will use these events to open up our hearts to a deeper truth than we have previously been willing to see, 
• Together, Jew and Gentile who have allowed these things to bring them to their knees in ultimate humility will finally be prepared to be His ultimate bride, 
• The millennial period will be ushered in as Christ sits on His thrown with Jew and Gentiles working together, under His lordship, free from the fleshly temptations of the world, to do His work His way, knowing it is He who is bringing all things about.

The bullet point on the church “needing” the humbling of our failures is probably the most difficult for us to comprehend.  The truth is there are many parallels that we could use to understand this point.  Let’s look at the attitude of the Pharisees prior to Christ’s first coming.

• They were anxiously awaiting the coming of the Messiah, 
• They were celebrating the feasts and honoring “His appointed method of atonement”, 
• They felt as though they were living in accordance with God’s desires and that they had been properly forgiven of their infractions against the law, 
• They believed the Messiah would come to lift them up and crush their enemies, 
• The prophecies clearly told them that the Messiah was going to come BECAUSE of their misunderstandings of what God had given them, BECAUSE they were not going to be living in accordance with His desire, and that He was not going to send the Messiah to come and lift them up or crush their enemies, yet 
• They were not able to see the truth of the prophesies because their pride did not let them.

Answering the question in typical fashion, I say yes and no.  Yes, the Church did replace the Jewish people in taking the commission for a time (the time of the gentiles).  However, this will be just long enough to humble the Jewish people and to set the stage for the Church to experience the humbling necessary to come to know what must be understood.  In the end both Jew and Gentile will come together and work with Christ in the establishment of His millennial government.

Here is the cool thing.  I fully believe that individually we are free to come to these realizations prior to these events taking place.  We can read in the prophets how people in the future will come to understand these things and how God will communicate with them as they come to these realizations.  I fully believe that we are capable of having these conversations with God today, prior to the experiences taking place.  We can accomplish this by simply realizing that we are as responsible as those who will have to endure it.  As we come to understand our roll in what will take place in the future we can feel the pain of our humility just like those who will feel it in the future.  As we read the conversations between God and those who will come after us we can claim their words as our own.  Together we can go on our knees before God, embrace His plan as good, and have peace in all He is bringing about.

The people who are willing to walk this road are the people He has called me to share these words with.  God is calling me to share these things because He has told me that there are those who are willing to accept our roll in what will take place in the future and who are willing to repent before a kind and loving God.  He has asked me to share this to prepare that people to hold the hands of those that are not willing to see it, to go before Him and repent in their behalf of the sins they do not even know they are committing, and to be prepared to comfort them through what is to come.  He has told me that there are those who will see this as a blessing and that these words will bring them peace.  I pray that you are one of those people.

If you have been moved by the experiences of these blogs, challenged by what you have read, feel led to point out where I have overlooked an aspect of scripture, or would simply like my thoughts on something I encourage you to email me at JeffAndras@gmail.com.  It would be an honor to continue moving forward with posts addressing particular thoughts, comments, concerns, or life application discussions.

If you have been totally moved by where we have come I would encourage you to go back and start with “Choices” and take another read through the blogs.  Understanding the perspective from which all of this has been written will probably change everything about what you hear.  I am going to spend the next several weeks going back and re-writing some of the early blogs to fit the more current format.  I have learned so much over these past several months and thank you for supporting me in this effort.

God bless.