Time for a spiritual overhaul (part 2)

God created man in his image and likeness to fellowship with him. Fellowshipping with God should be a daily commitment. It is good to fellowship with God when you wake up before you begin your day. In the beginning, God wanted man to have a place in his presence (a place to live). He wanted man to live a happy life in his beautiful home (Genesis 2:15). God is concerned with what we do. His message is that all people are to be holy. We are set apart for Gods’ special use.

God gave our original parents (Adam and Eve) the opportunity to live forever and to spend eternity getting to know him and his works (Ecclesiastes 10-13), and he wanted to pass on the same opportunity to their offspring. They were free to enjoy God’s universe, if they lived according to God’s instructions. Then they would enjoy a perfect life forever.

Like our forefather Adam, God gives us the same instructions and freedom of choice. We are responsible for what decisions we make, and our actions follow our decisions. All of us know what happened in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s instructions (Genesis 3). They sinned and did not pass on this perfection to their offspring. Because of their sin, death came into the world.

Satan’s aim is to get this world under his control. He wants us to do his will, not God’s will. Satan uses worldly enticements to turn our minds away from God’s way of living. In order to live God’s way, we have to renew our minds daily with the word of God. Satan uses the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life to get us away from God’s plans for us (1 John 2:5).

Satan uses such devices as gossip, physical pleasures, ridicule, drugs, alcohol, violence, etc. to lure us into sinful activities (read Galatians 5:19-22 for a list of other devices he uses). When we commit sins, it causes division between us and God. But nothing we do can cause God to stop loving us and to achieve his original purpose for our lives. We have God’s DNA in us, and greater is He that is within us, than he that is in the world (1 John 4:4). God is able to do what we commit to Him.

It grieves God to see us suffer, because He has plans to bless us. He wants us to follow his instruction and His written rules in the Bible. God wants to give us relief from our illnesses and other burdens that we may have. That relief is through his son Jesus. He gave us Jesus as a means of forgiving our sins and mistakes. Jesus sacrificed his body for all our sins and for the sins of our forefather, Adam (Jeremiah 31:31-34). God also gave us His Spirit, which lives in every born again believer.

Today there is so much violence and unrest in our world, we forget God and try to live by our own means and by the ways of the world. God has given us the solution to living a Godly life. It is summed up in Joshua 1:8: “This book of the Law (Bible) shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”

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