The Journey to Oneness

When I think about the goodness of God, I tend to focus most on His love for us and His desire for our unity, to become one, in Him.  If we pay attention to the Word, He expresses it in a wonderful story to us as individuals, and as the church.  He is the Lord God, the only God, the beginning, and the end.  A God who sent His Son to earth in human flesh to be our Tree of Life.  The original tree of life wasn’t necessary to have that kind of relationship with God, and was instead, forbidden.  Adam and Eve just needed to remain obedient to Him, but they didn’t.  Genesis 3:22 states, “Then the Lord God said, “Look, the human beings have become like us, knowing both good and evil. What if they reach out, take fruit from the tree of life, and eat it? Then they will live forever!”  They had already eaten the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  If they ate the fruit from the tree of life in their sinful state, they would’ve had eternal life, but apart from God.  So, they were banished from the Garden of Eden for their unfaithfulness.  But because God wants permanent relationship with us, communion, He made another Way.  Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit through the virgin Mary.  He was born to die, for your sins and mine.  John 3:16 says, “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”  By Jesus’s death on the cross and resurrection from the grave, He became the Savior of mankind, and is the only way we can be reconciled with God.  So, how do we get to love, unity, and oneness in God?  Let’s look a little deeper.

Jesus has always existed.  John 1:1 reads, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He existed in the beginning with God.”  In Genesis 1:26 we read, “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”’  I can almost picture the conversation.  The Holy Trinity discussing what it would be like to have a likeness of themselves on earth, but with limitations.  The likeness won’t be the spirit version, but a human version.  He will have everything he needs, plus, he’ll be given choice.  Life will be easy for him, if he’s obedient.  If he makes poor choices, life will become complicated and more difficult.  But We will be here to help, if and when, he calls on Us.  He must always confess his sinfulness and repent.  If he continues to love us and be obedient, we will be his God.  Then came Eve.

When God made Adam a partner, things soon changed.  Genesis 3 records Eve chose to believe the deceiving serpent, chose to eat of the forbidden fruit, chose to convince Adam to eat (which he chose to do), then they chose to lie to God.  As a result of man’s failure in the garden of Eden, we will always have problems in the garden of life.  Genesis 3:14-19 says, “Then the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all animals, domestic and wild. You will crawl on your belly, groveling in the dust as long as you live. And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” Then he said to the woman, “I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy, and in pain you will give birth. And you will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you.”  And to the man he said, “Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat, the ground is cursed because of you. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. It will grow thorns and thistles for you, though you will eat of its grains. By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made. For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return.”  Our chance for an easy life was over.  We have problems today because of the sins of yesterday.  We work hard, because we have to.  We failed our God, but He won’t fail us.

As man continued to exist, his relationship with God was essential.  The more man followed the ways of God, the better the relationship became.  But sin still existed, as did our even more frequent, poor choices.  Man’s sin broke God’s heart, and sacrifices became worthless.  But God loved us too much to give up on us.  It was now time to execute the plan to save us.  The Son of the Father, conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Let that sink in for a minute.  Matthew 1:18 says, “This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit.”  Our Lord and Savior was born both man and God, through a miracle.  The bible says His name would be Emmanuel, God with us.  Oh, how God loves His children.  Jesus did not come to babysit us; He came to offer reconciliation, salvation, and eternal life with God.  Colossians 1:15-20 reads, “Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.  He existed before anything was created and… created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth.  He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see—such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.  Everything was created through him and for him…  he holds all creation together… also the head of the church, which is his body.  He is the beginning, supreme over all who rise from the dead.  So, he is first in everything.  For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled everything to himself…”  They were ONE. I don’t know about you, but I have no doubt about it.  My God loved me enough to die for me, then defeated death so I spend eternity with Him.  Hebrews 9:14, How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”  Jesus the Christ is our Tree of Life.  The journey continues, and the King is waiting for us to show oneness, through love and servant action. 

Jesus sent the Holy Spirit, who dwells in us, when He returned to His Father in heaven to prepare our place.  He’s coming back for all who believe in Him, to live together forever, and ever.  Jesus prayed we would all become one, as They are one.  John 17:20-23 reads, “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”   He has gone to prepare our room, and He will return when everything is ready.  Will we be ready?  John 14: 23 says, “Jesus replied, “All who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them.”’  God invites us all to come to the table, to partake in the bread of life and fruit of the vine, from our Tree of Life.  Jesus is the only way to oneness in God.  Will we be obedient to His call?  Will we be the answer to His prayer?  Will we find it in us, to become one?  The journey continues.