So much emphasis of the Gospel has become about salvation, confessing our sins, accepting Jesus, going to heaven. We need to know the full story of God, why he created humanity to begin with in genesis - relationship, partnership in cultivating the earth/ taking responsibility and ownership of the earth.
Sin entered the picture, put mankind at the center, outside of relationship with Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It ruined us, broke us and made us operate out of fear and insecurities.
The whole story of God in the Old Testament is not even visited by Christians today, who only think of salvation and getting God's blessings. To understand the Old Testament story is to know the consequences of what sin did to humanity, and what God did to teach and bring humanity back to him and His calling of Abraham/ Israel to be able to teach all nations about God and how to live.
Israel failed in living out the relationship with the Maker, becoming worse than the neighboring nations they were to reach, teach and influence.
We fail to see the love, goodness and faithfulness of God in the Old Testament story by getting stuck with the bloody disobedience and consequences, blaming this tragedy on God instead of recognizing the natural and not-natural influences and responsibilities involved in the context of the stories mentioned there.
God made a long promise of one day being able to change the hearts of man from stone (hardness/ stubbornness/ rebellion) to flesh and he would put his Spirit in them, to teach them and write his laws on our hearts (God's laws are summarized by loving God and loving others as we love ourselves and living out what the Kingdom of God and his rule look like - love, peace, righteousness, justice...)
He long promised of sending out his Son, Emmanuel, God with us. The Trinity would "earth" themselves to dwell amongst us and Jesus, born of a Virgin, became a man like us.
Even though he was God, he did not use his powers as son of God (Philippians 2) but lived as Son of man, learning, being tempted, spending time with the Father and being led by the Holy Spirit.
We do not talk so much about the power of the Incarnation and what happen to us in Jesus life and obedience as a man (Book of Hebrews) and how he through his life, obedience, death, resurrection and ascension undid what Adam did and recreated the "new man" and gave us all access to the living presence of God and sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in our hearts - Emmanuel - the home of God in us. (Book of John - role of Holy Spirit)
Now we as followers of Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit and in the communion with Father, Son and Holy Spirit, are to live in such a way as sons & daughters of the living God, free from the grip of sin & powers of the enemy, and we are to display what being alive and in relationship with God look like.
We are to imitate Jesus, the Son of man, in our society, families, communities - what would Jesus do if he was us, in our shoes today? living in our context and story? how do we live, love, act, and become present in society and bear fruit that last?
I think we all need to re-look at what the Gospel is and think how we grow in learning to relate to this Triune God who has not given up on his purpose for humanity and has empowered us to have a place in Christ and restored our authority and responsibility on the earth and love his world like he does...
We are to pray: May you kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven and act in obedience and in line with the Word of God, led and motivated by the love of God and the Spirit who is in us.
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