Crux

If you would like to see Evan’s heart beat, please keep reading.

This post has been spurred on by a Rob Bell sermon a while back titled The Importance of the Beginning. He does a nice job of articulating so I’m stealing some from him. If we are going to tell the story of God, we must start at the very beginning and if we don’t, we can very easily misinterpret the story. Genesis 1 & 2 is where the story begins not 3. God created heaven on earth and saw that it was GOOD (not perfect, but actively good). Let’s talk about this; the earth is good, God created it to be good. he didn’t create earth for us to leave it. He created earth for us to live in harmony with her. Let’s stop treating it and our brothers and sisters as if they are originally bad. The spirit and soil are connected as one. Heaven and earth are the same thing and that’s how God intended it to be. This is a tremendous start and I personally think many people forget that it started this way. Now let’s skip to the end of the Bible, Revelations 21 & 22. What happens, the New Jerusalem comes down on earth and it is GOOD. There is a progression from garden to city that God is not and has not been stagnant in. This is where the bible begins and ends, being good on earth. Now we have to talk about the middle part.

Genesis 3 is where sin comes in. Yes it’s real and no I’m not trying to be wishy-washy but let’s talk about definitions. God created a hierarchy that we as humans were to be above the earth and God above humans but Adam and Eve were not happy with the hierarchy that God created and decided to break it. Humans didn’t want God on top so they tasted the fruit of something else. Here is where the definition of sin comes. Sin is a disruption of shalom or the deep peace of God. We were created for peace with the world and God but decided to rebel against that.

Now let’s talk about sin in the context of Genesis 1 & 2. Throughout the bible we see talk not of evacuation but of restoration Acts 3:21 Jesus will restore all things. Or Matthew 19:28, Jesus will create renewal of all things on earth. Finally Colossians 1: 19 that God will reconcile all things on earth. The emphasis is on all things using words like restore, renewal, and reconcile. This is the crux; if you start at Gen 3 then the focus is removal of sin. If you start at Gen 1 then the focus is on restoring shalom on earth which includes the removal of sin. This difference is huge.

The story takes place here. We have created disorder with earth and God and he is looking for people who believe in the story of salvation and restoration to take part in co-creating heaven on earth.

This is my opinion and where I come from and what I am passionate about. The crux of the story isn’t about making people believe the same thing so they can evacuate earth. The crux of the story is about believing and acting that there is a higher power that has cares and loves all of us and wants us to work with him to RESTORE heaven on earth HERE and NOW.