The Garden
And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. (Gen. 3:8)
We are all, as Christians, familiar with the Bible account of creation and the fall of man. But this scripture points to the greatest loss of all, our ability to walk in God's presence without fear. Before the fall Adam and Eve were naked and didn't know it. After the fall they were naked and knew it. They suddenly felt shame in the presence of each other. They felt fear and hid when they heard God coming. They made excuses and blamed others for what they did.
They tried all kinds of things to cover their nakedness: leaves, excuses, trees, but nothing worked. God wasn't pleased with their efforts so He provided a blood covering from animals that would temporarily cover their sins but could not bring them back to the unawareness of themselves they had before they sinned.
Jesus came as a gift from God to cover our awareness of nakedness permanently. His sacrifice made a way for us to once again be covered by God's glory and be able to answer boldly when He calls us to walk with Him in the garden. By accepting Jesus as our only cover, we should not be aware of our lack (our nakedness) but be free to answer His every call.
So why is this very this so hard for us to achieve? One reason is probably the same as the original church found in Acts 15:5, Some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed rose up, saying, It is necessary to circumcise them, and command them to keep the law of Moses. We still have believers who want to be covered by Jesus but have a hard time believing this is all it takes. They so much want to "do" something to atone for their sins that it's hard for them to accept that Jesus is the only "thing" that is acceptable to God. They sometimes become teachers, spreading their doctrine so that others will learn there is something they can and must do to make themselves look better to God.
When the Spirit of God begins to move in our church services and He begins speaking to people's hearts, there is always someone who feels like they have got to do "something". That walk with God in the cool garden is not inviting to them. They start another chorus or begin talking to fill in the gap. They think if everyone gets quiet it's a good time for them to "keep the flow" going by giving a call for the lost to come forward. If God is dealing with people to get saved, He can bring them running to the altar, if that's what He wants. We don't see this happen now but it used to occur regularly in the past when the Holy Spirit was convicting people.
It could be that we are so busy trying to handle the situation that we don't give Him a chance to do anything. We start doing our "thing", singing "I Surrender All" because that is what situational procedure calls for, and the person gets distracted, caught up in their feelings and departing from what the Holy Spirit is trying to do, exchanging the Spirit for what man is doing. This is not to say we will never be prompted to use a song or words to draw people but these tools should only be used under the direction of the Holy Spirit.
We need to understand that the whole purpose of Christianity is not to simply have a church service with singing, offering, preaching and altar time, but rather to come into the presence of God as One, the body of Christ, and walk with Him in the garden of His presence.
There is only one thing that will keep us out of God's presence: feeling naked and trying to cover it by our own trees. Trees are those things that look good to us but keep us separated from God. Trusting in our works, the rituals of our church services, will never please God. He only accepts one covering and that is Jesus. It's not Jesus and preaching. It's not Jesus and worship. It's not Jesus and Sunday School.
We must never put anything on an equal level with Jesus by thinking, "if" we can just hold on till He comes or "if" we can just keep being faithful to our church or "if" we can just get enough word in us, everything will be alright. These things are great but the key to making them work is "me" and my ability to do something besides trust Jesus. God want to be the center of our universe. He wants to be in our church services from the very start instead of us trying to bring Him in with our praise and worship.
God knows what is in us much better than we do and He doesn't want us to be aware of what we are. If we still have an awareness of our unworthiness, it could be that we have only acknowledged His covering, Jesus, and never really accepted Him as the answer to our problems. This is why we can hear the word preached over and over again and not receive it. We are still trying to cover our tracks and are very much aware of our lack and shortcomings. We can use up a lot of energy under our own steam but we never get anywhere because we keep going around in a circle like a toy train.
As long as there is an awareness of sin it will keep us from God's presence.
Romans 3:20 says, ...by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
The law pointed out our mistakes and shortcomings (our sin) and made us continually aware of them. We couldn't get away from them till Jesus fulfilled the law. Now we are made free to walk before God with no condemnation of sin. We still may do things wrong but God wants us to be unaware of it unless He points it out to us. He wants us to be so caught up in Him that we are not aware that we have a naked body or that others are naked also. We can't do this in ourselves. It will only happen by a continuous relationship with our Father, letting Him bring us closer and closer to Him.
We see people all the time getting mad because someone else is pointing the finger at them in accusation. They try to control the situation by "pointing" it out to the person, not realizing they are doing the same thing. As long as we keep trying to convict others we have an awareness of sin that we aren't supposed to have. We may be justified legally but if we try to do things according to the law we find ourselves back under the law instead of Jesus and the law separates us from God.
Sometimes preachers chose to overlook this in the heat and passion of preaching but we need to remember:
Love is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. (1Cor.13:5-6)
How many sermons have we heard from well meaning preachers who were provoked into browbeating their people with the condemning lies of the devil? It seems like they really are rejoicing that they have sin to point out to the people and some even abuse their position further by correcting one or two people they don't agree with anonymously from the pulpit. How sad that God's precious time of teaching is wasted in this way. If we preach the pure, unadulterated word of God, people will be lifted up and changed because they are made aware of the answer and not the problem.
We are not called to be judges but doers of the word. A judge recognizes and points the finger at someone else's mistakes and issues a verdict. We are to go into God's presence and hear the word from His mouth for us personally and then do it. We aren't to look at others and try to make them do it too. We don't know what He has said to them, even when he speaks to us both through the same means, such as a preacher. God takes the word and causes it to minister to each of us individually as our needs require.
We do not have our eyes entirely on God if we are taking note of what others are not doing for Him. This is another "tree" we use to hide behind because we don't want others to see our shortcomings. For some reason we feel better about ourselves if we point out another's weeknesses. God wants us to feel good about ourselves because we are covered with Jesus. He wants us to feel righteous because we are in Christ and not because we feel like we have done something right.
There is no work we can do that will bring us into the presence of God. Like Adam, we wait to hear His voice calling to us to come walk with Him in the garden. God calls us to come into His presence by that longing and hunger we feel in our hearts but if we are conscious of sin we will feel a reluctance to come to Him. We will try to hide in excuses or just draw back, not knowing why.
There is a garden, a secret place, where each of us can meet with our Father and walk and talk with Him. If we stay in this place and refuse to be moved away from it by guilt and condemnation, we will remain in right fellowship with Him and He will keep us safe from all evil and we will find ourselves doing the right thing without trying.
For he who has entered His (God's) rest has himself ceased from his works as God did from His. Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall...(He.4:10-11)
A great many people are spinning their wheels because they can't stop their own works. In fact, they can't seem to tell the difference between what they do themselves and what God tells them to do.
The word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And the is no creature hidden from His sight... (Heb.4:12-13).
The word became flesh and dwelt among us...(Jn.1:14)
Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth...(Jn.17:17)
Jesus is the word and there is no getting away from that. We cannot separate Him from the word for He is the word. If we can just let the word....Jesus....have his way with us He will cut us off from our fleshly works and we won't have to wonder if this is "me or thee". They will simply fall away and we won't even notice when it happens. When we are fighting to overcome sin in our lives, we have not submitted ourselves to Jesus, therefore, He is unable to meet our need. He has already won the battle against sin and is just waiting for us to let Him do a work in our lives. Yes, we have to do something but that something is to keep ourselves in close communion with Christ. As we walk, with our eyes on Him, the things we do wrong will fall away. If we have our eyes and minds on Him, we will no longer see the things others do wrong.
Because of the fact that we are all in the process of learning to give ourselves completely, God has chosen to not see our sin. When He looks at us, He sees the blood of Jesus. For this reason, we can boldly come into His presence without fear or doubt, and partake of everything God has. The problem of getting our needs met is not God's problem because He has already made a decision to meet our needs. The problem is that we draw back from God because we don't feel worthy to receive from Him. This may be because of wrong teaching or we have made a practice of standing on our own two feet. Whatever the reason, God is more than willing to give us what we need.
If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, THEN I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. (2Chr.7:14)
God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time. (1Pe.5:5-6)
God is calling us into perfection as Christ's body. There is so much more waiting for us to come into the full measure of Christ. It is true that eye has not seen nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love him. The question is, Are we willing to let go of our own works and follow Him?