When my granddaughter was a preschooler I often kept her at my home. She had lots of creative activities at her disposal, and because the items for the activities were stored in her play space she didn’t have to wait on me to give requested resources or permission.
She had the freedom to choose if she wanted to make soups or cakes from the ingredients in her toy kitchen, paint pictures or string jewelry from her art center, care for her lifelike babydolls with all their appurtenances or her mini dolls in their playhouses, play Tornado Warning! hiding herself and family of dolls under a blanket behind the sofa while the sound from a YouTube video of an approaching tornado with my Weather Station narration provided drama, relax at the end of the day with a favorite TV show, or go outside on the patio.
In order for my granddaughter to have dominion not only over the environment – but most essentially over herself – she had to be free to take action. This was not a structured daycare or preschool where she was instructed what to do, when and how.
As a result my granddaughter’s productions were highly imperfect – the soups vile, the cakes edible only for a taste, the pictures gross caricatures, the jewelry usually abandoned as being too tedious to continue, the dolls never wearing coordinated clothes, and every room in complete disarray when she went home.
But the product was not what was important, it was the process of developing the skills, most of all the social skills for a healthy personality and relationships. She said she loved being here with me, and I loved having her here and the relationship we built while interacting.
As the adult, I provided a healthy environment and set the rules for safety for an inquisitive child within her capabilities. As the child, she trusted my judgment. Our mutual respect is what allowed her to independently choose a TV show, get a snack or piece of candy from the pantry without asking my permission, go into any room or the patio outside without needing me to escort her everywhere.
Can we apply that to a relationship between God and his family?
“And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is
- pleasant to the sight,
- and good for food;
- the tree of life also in the midst of the garden,
- and the tree of knowledge of good and evil…
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it surely you shall die / become separated from the source of life .” (Genesis 2:8-17)
While people are quick to blame God when things go bad, even faulting him for having the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden because, being omniscient, he knew full well what would happen, the reality is that it was the tree itself that gave us freedom – defined as “the power to determine action without restraint.”
Without the opportunity to choose, provided by just one fruit tree, humans would have been drones, always under the control of our Creator, NOT humans having dominion.
There is always the most basic toggle option to every decision we face:
- align our plans with the Creator’s / Author’s system design by doing things right – i.e. be right-eous,
- or not.
This biblical truth has been corrupted through ignorance of God’s word into a legalistic interpretation of “sin” as breaking some rules preventing our self-expression and enjoyment of all that this material world has to offer. When the Bible talks about sin, it is not referring to breaking the ten commandments, the speed limit, or cultural boundaries on human relations.
No agency has done more to wipe out the significance of “sin” than Christianity with fundamentalists relegating sin to a list of behavioral does and don’ts and liberals updating what constitutes allowable social interactions from Puritanical or Victorian restrictions, selectively obeying the parts we like and ignoring the rest. The essential problem with transgressing God’s laws is that these are not, as some people claim, legal restrictions or arbitrary rules established by certain cultures which change over time as circumstances change.
Sin = Making the choice to disobey the Father / Authority / Protector from the enemy and obey the Luciferian “Not thy will but mine be done!” With this we recognize that sin is not simply a physical action or an emotional/mental process, but the spiritual personification of evil.
“if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve…the [old] gods which your fathers served…or the [new] gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: ” (Joshua 24:14-15)
“Let not sin – an entity – therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin – an indwelling spirit: but yield yourselves unto God.” (Romans 6:12-13)
Separation from Creator God’s power and authority – not only over ones’ self but also over others who have malevolent intentions towards us – is plainly the unavoidable consequence of choosing to limit oneself to one’s own authority, since both desired and undesired consequences can result from choices we make.
God’s laws are natural laws, like gravity, established when he designed the universe. “A phenomenon of nature that has been proven to invariably occur whenever certain conditions exist or are met.”
We understand this process in the material world physics that we can observe, but this also applies to social and spiritual domains that are more or less hidden. Can we not extrapolate the same point of view that human actions within these domains cannot break these laws without causing chaos and inevitable destruction. Conflict within the social domain is an obvious result of breaking social contracts, is it not?
We literally heedlessly burn up necessary life energy through the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind (Ephesians 2:3), clearly evident in sexual promiscuity, drug intoxication, gluttony with consequent medical problems, greed and self-indulgence with consequent physical, emotional and social problems.
Unless counteracted, unchecked transgressions of established rights and natural boundaries protecting the various elements of Creation results in ever-spreading chaos and ultimate utter destruction. Current scientists are saying exactly the same thing. We humans are destroying our ecology, our social interdependency, our ability to survive as a civilization and even our own selves through our refusal to sacrifice our self-indulgence to promote the welfare and sheer existence of our interdependent social and physically sustaining world.
This is sin, a disruption in the “right-ness” of that person’s relationship / connection to Creator/Sustainer God and others and the natural world, which spreads and contaminates every dimension, not just moral. Anyone who has experienced a relationship breakdown should be able to personalize this concept to their own life. There is much more than a cessation of relationship with the ex-spouse – there is loss of time and experiences with children during split custody, loss of financial security, loss of shared friends, loss of a home, and it goes on and on, loss of emotional stability, loss of physical health. Then there are the effects felt by the children, and family members, and friends, and school associates, and work colleagues, and…
Knowing and following spiritual laws that define the right way vs the wrong way to act, like knowing and following the laws of physics that define stable vs unstable processes, prevents chaos and saves lives.
We understand this is auto mechanics – to keep the car running we must replenish the gas in the tank, oil in the engine, air in the tires. The same idea is expressed in business, social work, ecology, politics, etc. as Systems Theory.
In systems theory, it is argued that the only way to fully understand something is to understand the parts in relation to the whole. Systems thinking concerns an understanding of a system by examining the linkages and interactions between the elements that compose the entire system. By taking the overall system as well as its parts into account this paradigm offers us fresh insight that is not accessible through the more traditional reductionist approach.
The opposite of Systems Theory is Chaos Theory.
What about you? Do you like having a good life, being productive, meeting your goals and having your plans come to fruition?
“I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: that thou mayest love / identify with, unite with the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life.” (Deuteronomy 30:19-20)
“That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with…the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ…This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
- If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:
- But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light…the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
- If we say that we have no sin,
- we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
- If we confess our sins,
- he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
- If we say that we have not sinned,
- we make him a liar, and his word is not in us…these things write I unto you, that ye sin not.
- And if any man sin,
- we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our [sons of God] sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
- if we keep his commandments
- hereby we do know that we know him / are one with him / have fellowship with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ
Every reference in the Bible to commandments and law is not about the law of Moses. Long before God made a particular covenant with the descendants of Jacob / nation of Israel there were basic laws of holiness – perfection in relationship.
“after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; Who will render to every man according to his deeds: To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life: But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil…
For there is no respect of persons with God. For when the Gentiles…do by nature the things contained in the law…shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another.” (Romans 2:14-15)
These are built into human conscience with at least the common sense awareness that trouble will follow misbehavior.
Of all the choices we make in this life, the one that matters most is this one.
- I am going to acknowledge the fact of an ultimate powerful immortal Supreme Source of Life through
- the evidence provided in his creation,
- the provenance provided in his written word if I have it,
- the witnesses of his physical manifestation and resurrection if I have them,
- and submit to his authority in my life thereby placing myself under his protection now and in the hereafter as best I know how through the conscience given to every human being,
- or I am going to buy into the lie of the Adversary that I can be my own authority and achieve whatever I want out of life even if I violate God’s natural laws AKA sin against God.
Kingdom Come 