God Created Potentialities

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Series: Beginnings in Eden

Sun am 13 March 2011 – Kobus Swart

1 Cor. 15:20-28; Rev. 21:3

Understand what it means that we have been crucified with Christ, in the first Adam. Satan will try to reactivate and resurrect your past. He will try to focus you again on a history that was nailed to the cross. Satan is the accuser of the brethren. The only voice he has, is the voice you give him! We must confess the truth that we (in the first Adam) have been crucified with Him. Jesus – the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit. He opened up a new level of living to us. We are seated with Him in heavenly places!

In a relay race, the last person who crosses the finish line is not the only winner; the whole team becomes the winner.  God has decided that the ‘one corporate man’ will cross the finish line together. We are part of this finishing (or 42nd) generation; the Christ generation.

How much more do we need, before we show a transformed mind, a transformed life – which will become part of the model that the world is waiting for? You and I must model something. God does not count numbers, He will weigh a church. How do we determine the weight of a household, spiritually? How many are able to go out and disciple somebody else and impart what you have received? You will grow spiritually up to a point, and then you will stop growing until you turn around and help somebody else. How many of you have infected others with the Christ that you confess lives in you? Can people see Him in you, feel Him in you, without you preaching at them?

“Creation at the beginning was the creation of conditions for the potentialities of creation’s history …. man was created for righteousness and not for sin.” (Moltmann). Man was made in the image of God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It was a potential that needed to be developed. Man was created for glory and not for death, but he can still fall short of the potential he is designed for. The story of Adam and Eve is the story of mankind. It is the story of God looking for a people like Himself. When God said it was not good for Adam to be alone, it was God reflecting the desire in His own heart to have a people like Himself. He created Adam and Eve and gave them a choice. He put a potential in them for righteousness and not for sin. He put a potential in them for glory and not for death.

Christ is the first fruits of those who are asleep. As in Adam all die (where did he die?….on the cross!) so in Christ all shall be made alive (1 Cor. 15:20-28). All the things we are talking about in this season – fathers and sons, the government of the Lord Jesus – are all stepping stones to the final picture of God filling all in all. It is the Theocentric picture.

Reflect on the following: Where is God? Are we perhaps sitting with a lot of baggage, a lot of religious teachings from the past? What is the relationship between God and those who have been created in His image? What does it mean when He said, “Let us make man in our image?” There is this quest in every person to find God.

Remember – eternity is in the heart of every man!