Part Two

This all sounds so fleshly and carnal because it is. Instead of esteeming others more highly than themselves, most pastors esteem themselves more highly - never realizing it was never God's will to exalt any man over his people but rather that He himself would be their head - using only men who are so filled with His Spirit that there is a complete absence of fleshly ego and desires. You have many teachers but not many fathers, Paul said. This lament is so true today - so many go to "Bible College" to learn to use their minds to lead God's people - to become teachers - who teach by logic and the understanding of men, instead of becoming fathers, who lead from their hearts, whose hearts are broken and fully given in love to his children, who will lay down their very own lives for their children - whose goal in life is to see his children succeed and surpass him, not have them continue to stay in his home but go out and establish homes of their own. Butterfly's are easily controlled by the wind (John 3:8). They are light - more wings than flesh! They come and go as the wind directs them - so are believers who walk (and fly) in the Spirit - when we die to our own will, we become Holy because it is never his will for us to sin - only when we die to our will can we live for the Father's will. In Gethsemane, Jesus crucified his will - then it became easy to allow his body to be crucified. It is easy then to allow our bodies to go and do whatever the Father's will is on any given day - Jesus testified he only did what his Father did (John 5:19). Indeed, he testified in John 10:17 that the Father loved him because he laid down his life (his will).
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil represents man's will exalted over God's simply because God said not to eat of it and man, at Satan's urging, chose to exalt his will over God's. The Tree of Life represents God's will exalted over man's. His will is life for us, eternal life. He never wanted us to taste death. Choose you this day - life or death? Will you choose a religious Christianity centered on the pursuit and consumption of knowledge Or will you choose a Christianity centered around Christ himself - who we engage and commune with in our hearts? Will you be a doer or a hearer only? Part three soon.