FROM EDEN TO EDEN

[Subversive Underground]

FROM EDEN TO EDEN
by Keith Giles

In the beginning God revealed His pefect will for mankind by creating a universe where every man and woman could walk with Him in the cool of the day and have intimate communion with one another.

We know that sin entered the heart of mankind and that this original plan had to be scrapped and a separation between God and man was formed because of this sin.

As God blessed Abraham and his descendants, the chosen people of the Earth, He again revealed His perfect will for mankind and loved them and led them as their King, leading them out of bondage to slavery, appearing to them in a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

But the people rejected God's intimacy and hands-on approach. They asked if Moses could be their go-between. They were frightened whenever God spoke to them directly out of the cloud. So, God allowed another degree of separation to come between Himself and His children because of their sin.

Later, the people grew tired of being unlike all the other nations around them and asked if God would give them a King to rule over them. Again, God's people rejected Him and so God allowed another degree of separation because of the sin of man's heart. He gave them a King to rule over them as they had asked, but even in doing so He was grieved.

When King David, a man after God's own heart, wanted to build a house for God to rival his own palace, God's response recalls his word from Isaiah, "Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be?" and in fact He takes it a step further and says, "When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son." - (2 Sam 7:12-14)

God made a promise to David that a King would come from his own seed who would build a house for God not made with human hands, where once again He would be our God and King and we would be His people.

When the angel announced the birth of this Messiah, he called his name "Emmanuel" - the God who is with us. When Jesus came he opposed the man-made religious systems of the day. He threatened the status quo and he fulfilled the promise by building a temple not made by human hands; a people who were themselves the living stones of an eternal household of God.

Jesus restored God as the King of every human heart and invited all who wanted to live under the rule and reign of the Father to come. The doors of God's Kingdom were now open wide.

Jesus fulfilled God's original desire to have intimate, daily communion with Him. He tore the veil of the man-made temple and made it possible for the Holy of Holies to spill out into every human heart and to encompass all of planet Earth with the tangible presence of God.

Because of the work of Christ upon the cross, all of the Earth is now potentially the Eden of God where mankind can walk with the Creator and know His presence and hear His voice. Because of Jesus, God's new temple has a heartbeat, and hands that can help and feet that can travel and a voice that can proclaim His goodness a million times each day to hundreds of millions around the Globe.

God has broken ground on a new temple for His glory, one not built with human hands. We are that temple. We are the house He has built for Himself. His Holy Spirit is within us. We are carriers of God's Presence.

The Good News that Jesus proclaimed announced access to God's Kingdom. We know that this Kingdom is still growing. We know that it has not yet been fully embraced by every heart and mind, but we have received the Good News that the door to this reality is now wide open. Every single person who has the desire to enter this Kingdom, and to live under the rule and reign of a loving, intimate God and Father can do so at any time.

Today the door to the Kingdom of God stands open. The opportunity to return to Eden is available. God wants to be your God. He wants to be your King. He wants to walk with you. He wants you to become the Temple where His Holy presence will rest and breathe and find a home.

"How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!" - 1 John 3:1

This is the Gospel. This is Subversive.

-kg

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MORE ARTICLES BY KEITH GILES ONLINE NOW

READ "More Love, Less Politics" over at Next-Wave Magazine
HERE

READ "Women as Pastors, Elders, Deacons and Overseers" over at TheOoze.com
HERE

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BLOGS YOU SHOULD BE READING

*Mark Main's "The Untried"
HERE


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THE END WILL COME. WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

We'll all find out on 8/28/09

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