Desperate Joy

  The first step of any spiritual journey is understanding that we need God. We cannot live our lives or make it to heaven without him. We have no hope without him. The Christian life begins and ends with full dependence upon God. This is why the devil does everything in his power to make us believe that, somehow, we can live independently of him. As beings created in the image of God, we have free will. We have the capacity to choose. We can love God or hate God; we can obey him or disobey him. We have some level of autonomy. We are self-guided and self-directed.   We can decide which direction our life takes.   In the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve faced a similar choice, to choose the Tree of Life or the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They could determine their own destiny. (See Genesis 2:8-17)   The two trees represent two ways of thinking and believing. The Tree of Life represents surrender to God.   It showed that Adam and Eve loved God a...

  "I am fearfully and wonderfully made."  The Psalmist declared. Each and every one of us has been hand-crafted by God. He shaped us and formed us while we were in our mother's womb. We are made in his image and likeness. We are like scale models of God, we don't quite live up to the original, but we can see the similarities. This is one of the most important and amazing truths revealed in the Bible. In a previous post we discussed that this image has several aspects, we looked at just three: we are moral, relational, and rational. Underpinning these three is another important aspect that is just as important, if not more important. Because we are created in God's image, we possess a free will. The other three aspects do not work unless the engine of our free will is driving them. We are the only creatures on earth that God made with a free will. We can choose. We may choose to obey him, and we may choose to disobey him, we can choose to do right or to do ...