Who do you spend the most time with?
Older people might think Jesus “living in them” is just a warm spiritual feeling. But God “indwelling” us is more than that. The Bible sometimes says the “Spirit of Christ” lives inside believers (Romans 8:9). More often it says the “Spirit of God” (Romans 8:9) or just the “Holy Spirit” is in us (1 Corinthians 6:19).
The people you spend the most time with can change throughout your life. As you grow older, you’ll build new relationships, while others may fade or change. Here are some generalizations about who people spend the most time with at different ages:
- Childhood You’ll spend the most time with your family of origin.
- Adolescence You’ll spend a lot of time with friends, parents, siblings, and extended family.
- Young adulthood You’ll spend more time with coworkers, spouses, and children. Time spent with friends peaks around age 18, and time spent with children peaks in your 30s.
- Middle age You’ll continue to spend time with partners, children, and coworkers, but you’ll also start to spend more time alone.
- Older age You’ll spend an increasing amount of time alone, especially from your 40s on.
You choose who you do or do not spend your time with! It dawns on me that in jail/prison you really have no choice. Punishment! In contemplating this topic, I was driven to realize that at the beginning of ALL things after Man was Created; The Essence of God departed to allow Man to ‘explore’ His Creation. God gave Adam and Eve everything they needed. He gave them authority to watch over His other creation(s). Humankind was Created last, so God like a mother who prepared for the birth of his/her child ensure that all the things that would needed for his/ her comfort will be available. God made huMankind last because He was making preparation. He contemplated and said: “let’s make Mankind to our Image.” after God created man and looking at him, he said “very good.” Think on how a proud loving father looks at his newborn 👶. He created male and female (the Bible says). Creation did not ask God for another creation. God knows what creation needs and it would be presumptuous for it to make a request such as Adam requesting God for a woman. Besides, if Adam was created first and did not eat from the tree of knowledge and evil or would he know that he needed he was feeling lonely and needed a companion? Someone feels a need when there is a void. God is a God of completion. He does not cut corners, and he fulfilled his creations needs without being asked. When God was done with his creation, it was complete. With that said, let’s not procrastinate from the real question: why God left Adam and Eve unsupervised and let the devil hijacked his creation. God is omnipresent and not a minute was Adam and Eve without him. He knew before Adam and Eve ate of the tree that they were going to disobey him. Lastly the devil cannot take away anything that God does not allow him to have. He created all things and all things are His. God created Adam and Eve with free will to choose to obey or disobey him. He gave humankind everything He knows that they needed and held nothing back. He told humankind not to eat the fruit of the tree of good and evil because the day that they do, they would surely die. When God created the heavens and earth and his other creations. The earth was without form and void and darkness was over the surface of the deep and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said “let there be light .” With God’s creation, there was a separation between light and darkness. Life comes out light after God spoke. Each time, God spoke a creation, he then say: “it’s good.” Also with the words spoken after creation there is a separation of good and evil. The tree of knowledge and good and evil was uprooted from that separation and it’s also a reminder that before l God’s creation that only darkness, emptiness and evil existed and partake in his creation. Evil was in the world before mankind and was not part of God’s creation. (If one, wants to argue that remember: the trees were created before mankind and that tree of knowledge of good and evil was planted in the garden of Eve. Also the Bible also refers to evil as darkness.) Adam and Eve despite the close relationship they shared with God, choose to listen 👂 to the serpent and disobey God. Disobedience suggests that they did not trust God’s plan for them and that He knows best.” The darkness that disguised as a serpent to lure humankind from eating the fruit said: you will not surely die. For God knows that when you will eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” God’s word spoke the truth and : not to eat of the fruit and another word spoke a lie and said: to eat of the fruit. Whom you trust, so whom you obey. Whom you love and whom you follow. Eve trusted a lie and ate of the forbidden fruit and Adam trusted and loved his woman and ate it too by doing so unknowingly they choose darkness. They could not stay in the presence of God because they had sinned against God. Although disobedience leads to destruction, God knew what Adam and Eve had disobeyed him but He could not strike and kill them and still made away for them. Instead he chased them out after clothing them. God is a just and loving God so he punished them as he should by banning them but his love for his creation remained and he made a promised to redeem them. For his light cannot be overcome by darkness. Through his spoken light all things were made that was made. He later sent his light into the world to bring his creation back. Suffering and death of humankind were not part of His plan for humankind but the sin of Adam and Eve by disobeying God was the result. Love of God for humankind is the redemption for their sins. God gave his only begotten son as a living sacrifice for humankind who disobeyed him but his love was greater that he could not see his creation made in His image fall into darkness. The light 💡 must overcome darkness.
The Bible is clear that God’s purposes STAND and nobody can thwart them in any way. That means that God is not bound by the space/time continuum as we are, and He knows the end from the beginning. Too often, our finite minds bound by our own limitations are tempted to bring God down to our level. No, He is never taken by surprise, is never second guessed, and things will turn out just as He planned.
There are those who take offence to this, insisting that if all this is true, then we are mere puppets controlled by forces far beyond us. This is denied since we are responsible for our own actions, and will bear the consequences; so how does this all work together? Frankly, I’m not sure, and we cannot understand fully until we (God’s redeemed huManity) are in our ultimate glorified state. I assume then we will be free of the limitations now imposed on us.
Meanwhile we are to accept what the Bible says, and try not to rationalise around it. I hear a lot of religious talk about “free will” which is not a biblical concept, but I can understand why many Americans have problems with it, since democracy and self fulfilment is so ingrained in their thinking.
Think of free will and a prisoner. A prisoner serving time in jail can decide to wear the blue or green underwear, whether to brush his teeth or not, but he cannot decide to go to the mall and shop. So it is with our free will – it is severely limited. Nobody can understand the Gospel and respond positively without the direct intervention of God Himself through the Holy Spirit. But, my goodness, the rationalisations: some insist He brings the sinner to the point where he/she does understand and THEN they can decide to accept of reject.
Anyway, you asked about Adam & Eve. Yes, it was God’s plan, including not being present when the Serpent tempted Eve, etc. AND it likely goes back before then to the fall of Lucifer. I was reminded today of a verse in 1 Cor. 8:2 – “If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know”. That applies to you and me.
The question is who you would spend time with
When Christians say Jesus lives “in their heart,” little kids might picture a tiny Jesus inside them. Older people might think Jesus “living in them” is just a warm spiritual feeling.
But God “indwelling” us is more than that. The Bible sometimes says the “Spirit of Christ” lives inside believers (Romans 8:9). More often it says the “Spirit of God” (Romans 8:9) or just the “Holy Spirit” is in us (1 Corinthians 6:19). Those phrases all mean the same thing: when we believe, God establishes a relationship with us that’s so close that we become one with him. He’s in us, and we’re in him.
The Holy Spirit Empowers Us to Share the Good News
The book of Acts tells the remarkable story of how, in a few short decades, the Good News of Jesus Christ spread like a wildfire from the tiny backwater province of Palestine across the Roman Empire, reaching the very heart of the civilized world — Rome itself. The message of Acts is that this amazing task could not have been undertaken by any human effort. It was indeed the work of God, accomplished through men and women empowered and guided by the Holy Spirit.
Jesus commissioned his disciples, saying, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost marked the dawn of the new age of salvation, empowering and guiding believers.
Defining the Holy Spirit’s role in evangelism is much like talking about your heart’s relationship to your physical body. Without your heart, you would be dead. Without the Holy Spirit, you would be dead in your relationship to God.
• The Holy Spirit makes us “alive with Christ” (Ephesians 2:5).
• The Holy Spirit resuscitates and regenerates us so that we can see and understand the things of God (John 3:3; 1 Corinthians 2:12).
• The Holy Spirit gives us ears to hear and respond to the call of the gospel (John 6:44), resulting in salvation and holiness.
• The Holy Spirit is our very own “caseworker” for adoption into God’s family as children and heirs (Romans 8:15 – 16).
• Even before we hear the gospel, the Holy Spirit is working to empower the message (Romans 1:16) and the messenger (1 Corinthians 2:3 – 4).
One of the most vivid images of the Holy Spirit’s role in evangelism is found in the book of Ezekiel, where the prophet received a vision of the valley of dry bones (Ezekiel 37:1 – 14). It is an astounding picture of the new work that God will do in Israel by his Spirit in the last days. Ezekiel was told to preach, and as he did, the Spirit (breath) of God began to animate those old bones, which came together to form a great army (Ezekiel 37:9 – 10).
Christians Live in the Power of the Holy Spirit
In the New Testament, the disciples received the Holy Spirit; then he gave them power; and finally the disciples were told they would be Christ’s witness to the very ends of the earth. Effective witness requires that we first learn to rely on the Spirit to help us.
Believers must appropriate daily, by faith, the power of the Holy Spirit to live as Christians (Romans 8:4–5). This means that instances such as resisting temptation, being faithful and sharing one’s faith. There is no secret formula that makes the Spirit’s power operational in our lives. Scripture tells us that the Spirit dwells and operates in us (1 Corinthians 6:19). We have to learn by experience through interaction with God to understand how that dynamic works.
God promised back in the Old Testament to send his Spirit to cause us to obey him (Ezekiel 36:27), and Jesus said the Spirit will come to comfort and teach us. Whenever you change and become more like Jesus, that’s a sign of the Spirit working in you (Galatians 5:22 – 23).