Recently, I found myself thanking the Lord for the Flaming Sword. You know… the one that guards the way to Eden and the tree of Life in Genesis 3.
When Adam sinned and was kicked out, God put a Flaming Sword at the entrance to the garden so that Adam couldn’t just go in and eat from the tree of Life whenever he felt like it.
God was concerned about man stretching out his hand and taking from that tree casually. That stretching and taking, in the root of the Hebrew words, has the thought of divorce behind it.
After having become like God, knowing good and evil, if man then ate from the tree of Life, he wouldn’t need God anymore. He would then live in a perpetual state of being divorced from God. Able to effect his own brand of salvation, but sentenced forever to live in self-will and self-effort.
So God’s heart-solution for keeping man close to himself and rescuing him from that terrible fate was blocking off the garden and that tree with a Flaming Sword. He wasn’t forbidding Eden and the tree with it’s fruit from man forever. Just creating life-giving conditions for him to be able to partake of it.
You see, the Father’s heart in creating us is fellowship. Closeness. Marriage to his Son. Needing him. Ohh, that’s soo his heart for all people….
And so we need that Flaming Sword—the hard stuff—the trials—the challenges. The pain. We need difficulties, big and small, so that we might seek him and find him. So that we can experience the closeness with himself that he longs to give us.
But oh how we HATE those Swords!!
Yet… we need tribulations in order to find our salvations.
If there weren’t trials—Swords of Fire—in our lives we’d never know him.
So, that Sword—It’s for LOVE.
It’s a FLAME of Pure Love.
Love for his creation. You and me. Our very souls.
THE HARD STUFF THAT IS ALLOWED TO COME IS …FOR LOVE.
It’s his mercy to us.
Without the Swords, we’d be on our own completely. Exiled away from him, lost in the sea of our own self-awareness and self-worship. Self as our god for eternity.
We would divorce him from our existence.
We can think him an evil ogre for allowing such difficulties…
(Yes, I’ve done that)…
But the hard stuff is there so that we’ll see him and acknowledge him.
GLORIFY HIM. Sing his praises to others!
Look to him. Trust him.
Land on him. Work through it with him. Fellowship.
It’s CONFLICT with the Sword that gives us access to the fruit of Life.
Yes, I know. I HATE CONFLICT. I don’t want it to be so. I don’t WANT trials! I don’t want hard stuff!
Still. I need the Sword. Humanity needs that Sword.
God would disappear from our thoughts and our lives completely without the Sword.
Yes. It’s hard. It’s sharp. Indeed, excruciating at times. It truly pierces through flesh and soul. Heb 4:12. But, we must change how we think and learn to embrace it and thank him for the Sword when it comes in all it’s various forms…. if we want to know God and sup with him. Rev 3:20
This website is supported by your purchasing of our natural products. If you’d like to see what we sell check out the sidebar —-> or visit www.jordanscrossing.net/store