Sep 6, 2013 Daily Thoughts The Axe Laid to the Root 1 By Fred Pruitt The Axe Laid to the Root 1 Introduction This short book gets immediately to the heart of the matter, diving right into the depths of our greatest spiritual impediment to a fully functioning life in Christ. We were in a meeting in Atlanta in early 2007, and someone asked the question which surely so many of us think: “Isn’t it true that we must all inevitably sin?” Who of us is able to believe that God through Christ causes us to walk perfectly in His ways, expressing Him only, in the “right now” of our lives? We know we are “supposed to,” but most of us think it is an impossible goal and that “grace” is there to sort of cover over the fact that we never measure up. However, walking in obedience to God is not an impossible goal: in fact, it should be the norm! Though we may think otherwise, grace is not some band-aid that God puts on things to slovenly overlook their occurrence. Grace is the life of God in us to bring us a life of victory, power and love in Him. Therefore, that is what we will explore in this brief little book. How can we find out who we really are in Christ, and how can we then walk in that knowing? That is what we are after and by God’s grace, the reader will discover between the following pages. Part One: Foundations In The Beginning In the beginning, the Genesis story says, God made man (human beings – male and female) in His image. That means that we are made to be that image (God’s) reflecting through our human lives. Therefore, to be the image of God means that God has purposed our visibility in order to reveal His invisibility. Not only from the beginning were we chosen and made to be that image, but as a surety for it, God put Himself into us. The same story that tells us He made us in His image, also tells us that He breathed His own breath into us and we became living beings. So it was the very life or Spirit of God in which we have been one since the absolute beginning. That means that heaven is in us even deeper than our earthliness. Our bodies were fashioned from the dust of the ground, the story tells us, but the life that came in to animate those bodies was spirit – from heaven. Therefore, that means that man was an original creation in God’s universe, a joining of the eternal and the temporal in a oneness. Then further, in our beginning, the Lord God put us into a safe garden of delights and gave us no law except the commandment not to eat of a certain tree. Of course, in our innocence, we could not have known what the tree was or what it would do. In addition, the way the tempter represented it made so very much sense to our minds, since wisdom is a thing greatly to be desired and acquired if possible. It seemed so clear that if we got that wisdom for ourselves, we would forever be draped in sumptuous garments. Why, as the serpent said, we would be “as God” Himself! And we know how the story went from there… This post and the next 26 that follow it on “Daily Thoughts,” are taken in consecutive order from “The Axe Laid to the Root,” published 2008, by Fred Pruitt URL: thesingleeye.wordpress/the-axe-laid-to-the-root/
Posted on: Fri, 06 Sep 2013 13:46:34 +0000
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