Greetings;
Today I am in Castlegar, BC, Canada. We have had a great weekend at the church here and a gathering of people from the area have been hungry, willing, and teachable. God’s presence was wonderful, and people’s hearts were hungry and receptive for what the Holy Spirit desired to give them. There are shoots of New Covenant life and grace planted for the increase of God’s glory. Our theme was the Simplicity of Devotion based upon Paul’s writing to the church of Corinth.
2 Corinthians 11:1 Oh, that you would bear with me in a little folly—and indeed you do bear with me. 2 For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. 3 But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. 4 For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted—you may well put up with it!
These verses begin with Paul expressing his heart concerning Godly jealousy for the church of Corinth. We can apply Paul’s appeal to them to God’s heart for His church today. God’s jealousy is different than the jealousy of men. When people become jealous it is because they feel something that should be theirs is being given to someone else. Their jealousy is based upon what they are not getting. God is not a taker. He is a giver. His jealousy is different than ours. He wants to give us more than we want to allow Him to give. He doesn’t need anything from us. He gives life, breath, and all things. He wants to give to us identity, testimony, and destiny. We are called to find our place of predestination in Christ as part of His calling, His inheritance, and His power that subdues death with the power of His resurrection life. This is true dominion as the revealing the life-giving truth of each “i am” in Christ that comprises the many-membered body of Christ that crumbles every lie beneath the feet of Christ. That Christ is both the headship of Jesus and the Church as the body of Christ. It is the testimony of an eternal Adam and an eternal Eve that brings glory to God the Father in all things. It is a partnership of God and man that fulfills the mandate of God in heaven and upon the earth. That dominion is the fruit of intimacy with God who is life, thus life fills all in all and affects the worlds of men.
Paul’s point in writing was to clarify the identity, testimony, and destiny of who we are in Christ. We are part of an eternal Eve and the secret to discovering who we are is found through an intimate love relationship with God that fulfills the purpose of His life-giving Spirit in the earth. We are the Proverb’s chapter 31 woman dealing in the real estate of the earth on behalf of our Husband who sits in the gate. We purchase the real-estate of the earth in our family name and we weave relationships in the earth for the fullness of His glory.
Our purpose is determined by our connection with Jesus, the One who gives us our identity. He gives us the true spiritual DNA of life. Holy Spirit gives us our God-given testimony as a part of God’s inheritance. It is God our Father who partners with us in all things to give us our part in the destiny of the family business of life. Even as the serpent deceived Eve it is possible for members of the body of Christ to be deceived. In the original fall, Eve was deceived and then Adam ate. When the “one flesh” of Adam and Eve ate, there was a disconnect from the Spirit of God as the administration of man’s heart. Information became the presiding force of human administration and a love relationship of trust with God was lost. The power of internal transformation was abandoned, and the destiny of man-kind became a destiny of self instead of a fulfillment of the mandate to bring the fruitfulness of the God of the garden to every barren place of the earth. It wasn’t until Adam ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that the full disconnect happened for man – male and female as the one flesh testimony of God in the earth to fulfill the calling, testimony, and destiny – things that can only be fulfilled by God resting in human identity upon the earth.
In the original fall, Eve was deceived and then Adam ate the fruit and man (male and female) became disconnected, separate, and independent of God. The moment Adam ate, sin entered into mankind. Sin didn’t enter until Adam ate. Eve was deceived, but when Adam ate man-kind became disconnected from being able to be truly God-kind. I believe if Adam had not eaten, but had loved instead, that Eve could have been freed from her deception. Perhaps Adam and Eve could have been whole and holy before God, but when the headship embraced the fruit of the tree it was the full embracing of independence from intimacy with God. When Adam bit of that tree mankind become sinners. They became disconnected in their hearts from God. Jesus came to reconnect us to intimacy with God in Christ. Jesus is the eternal life-giving Adam to all who are in Christ. He has reconciled us to God and the sting of death does not need to prevail over us anymore. His love covers us even when we are deceived, but can we be deceived? What is that deception? That deception is seen in choosing an identity, a testimony, and a destiny that robs us of experiencing the life, breath, and all things that God wants to give to us.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
