“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:5 NASB
Healing, Protection, Everlasting life
From Genesis to Revelation, the Tree of Life stands firm and strong as a wonderful through line. It brings to us a great mental image and great expression of the fullness of God through Jesus Christ.
The Tree of Life is full of meaning of healing, protection, everlasting life, and abundance of God’s great love. The Tree of Life shows us harmony and togetherness with God through the image of roots, vines, branches, leaves, fruit and more.
The Tree of Life is represented in Jesus Christ. His life, death, and resurrection is the offering of healing, protection, and everlasting life. Jesus Christ is the promise, given to us by our Father God, seeded in the conveyance of Abraham’s personal heartfelt faith, which intently grew into blessings for his descendants, and the promise continued through to all the nations of the earth grafted in.
Jesus Christ, the branch of David, leads us from sin and death in Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis through to everlasting life as the way to healing of the nations in the book of Revelations.
The Vine
We, now being like trees with roots, branches, leaves and fruit are called by Jesus Christ to remain in Him who is the vine. He causes us to survive and thrive with the fruit of the Spirit. He invites us to this transformation.
In the Garden of Eden, where we so innocently once walked with God in His presence, and having access to the Tree of Life lived forever in peace with God, there we came to find ourselves in the midst of radical change- the regenerative plan of salvation through Jesus Christ.
And though distanced from the Tree of Life in the book of Genesis, we press on to what lies ahead, having access to this grace in which we stand- the bountiful grace of God- which blooms the Tree of Life. Be covered, eat, and be transformed by the Tree of Life that in revelation heals the nations.
“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Romans 5:1-5 ESV
Love and Sacrifice
The feeling and action of fulfillment is satisfaction and completion. Fulfillment derives from something that was accomplished and the resulting integrity of that accomplishment. Fulfillment remedy’s debt- it counteracts and eliminates something owed. The necessary steps that were taken to meet a requirement or condition was successful according to a process. And in the midst of the process of fulfillment is love and sacrifice.
Our debt was paid long ago on the cross in fulfillment of God’s law. Jesus Christ died for our sins. He fulfilled the law of sin and death by taking the burden of our sins upon Himself and defeating death in resurrection. God made Him who knew no sin to be an offering for our sins so that we could be made right with God. And since this time of fulfillment in Christ, we have been brought close to Him that we may attain absolution and the resulting joy associated with His promise of forgiveness.
Our Advocate
In Jesus Christ we have an advocate who intercedes for us as we stand before God in judgement. Jesus Christ clothes us with righteousness and lives within our hearts as we are in Him also. He testifies to God on our behalf that we have been redeemed by His sacrifice- the shedding of His blood, and our receipt of grace and mercy through faith in Him who died for our sins. This fulfillment brings us atonement and reconciliation with God through Christ.
We are justified, and the promise of this fulfillment is everlasting. We have moved from a place of sin and injustice to the state of grace and justice. And when we receive justification through faith, our obligation changes from slave to sin to freedom from sin.
The Courts of Heaven
There is a cost for sin < the price was paid < fulfillment made.
And in the courts of heaven God sees our condition. Have we moved from a state of sin to a state of righteousness? Has the accuser of Job, the enemy of God and man succeeded in his accounts to discredit us before God? Or are we confident in our position- having joy and peace in believing the fulfillment of Jesus Christ, His forgiveness, and God’s everlasting love.
“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.” Romans 8:31-34 NKJV
“For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:6 NASB
Birth Pangs
When Jesus spoke to His disciples about a future time before His second coming, He spoke of birth pangs. The productive pain of something that is just beginning- or that has begun since the time of Jesus. A pain that leads to a positive result.
We hold this pain in the form of a longing for the return of Jesus Christ, and this longing grows as we grow in Christ. We can also relate to this pain in many varied ways. In the birth of a child, the birth of aspirations, the birth of hope fulfilled.
“It’s not small it’s just beginning” is a call to remember that the desires of our hearts, which God knows more than we do, which leads to wisdom and understanding is beginning to grow or increase rapidly, as the state of the world also increases rapidly in conquest, division, economic changes, and demise. Personal birth pangs and societal birth pangs are intensifying consecutively. Small now, but just the beginning.
Hope & A Future
For those who believe, Jesus offers us hope and a future. He offers us a time of maturation- a gestational period of development where our faith grows, and hope and love is made reality within us. As Jesus covers us in His righteousness and protection, He fortifies and strengthens us, and prepares us for the pain of birth and sanctifies us in the process as we submit to His process.
The birth pangs are real as they have been happening throughout the centuries. And now we feel them too. They are collectively happening within and without. A course of reckoning of the state of things. He has always been preparing His church body- His bride, and the world for His coming. And He has indwelled within us the Holy Spirt, full of purpose and promise for His glory.
“And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” Colossians 3:14-17
Active Resonance
Peace is an effect. It is the result of the quality of confidence you have in your state of being. It is of a resounding harmony. It reverberates against disorder and chaos. Peace is an active resonance in your mind and body that is as close to the nature of absolute truth as can possibly be.
There is an infinite amount of chaos or molecular randomness that resides constantly in the environment. But even chaos is governed by underlying patterns of ordered molecular motion. So, the momentum going forward is always and forever truth, order, and light, irrespective of the seeming unpredictability of chaos.
To the divergent force associated with chaos, the mental energy that resounds as peace is its antithesis.
Active Belief
The activity of consciousness remain deep and full, as it actively opposes lack and soaks up information– nature abhors a vacuum. The choices are substantial, otherworldly and earthly, and the integrity of consciousness clings to whatever brings peace. But peace has a noticeable pattern of wisdom and understanding that is both innate and self-evident because what brings us peace directly impacts our quality of life.
“But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”James 3:17-18
Exacerbating Feedback
The world has a knack for feeding fears, and even at the heights of civilization, the world still devolves to meet our fear mechanism. As the world positions, engineers, and ensnares in an assault on our sympathetic response, it configures and inputs a type of ordered chaos and outputs an unstable feedback loop. And one small disturbance in our internal or external environment- exacerbates. One seemingly ineffectual but exacerbating feedback building upon another if the internal system does not value a steady state.
Balancing feedback
Without a competitive balancing feedback– without a system that is extremely sensitive to counteract each and every rudimentarily deployed fear tactic; without a neutralizing, stabilizing, negating effect in response to this overstimulated world which knows it has found its technological sweet spot; without an active program for peace in our internal environment which extends outward- we are outmaneuvered into an onslaught of misleading fear.
“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” John 16:33
“I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you.” Psalms 32:8.
Faith
Belief + action + confidence = Faith. Go forward by faith. The only way forward is by faith. And how do we know this causation? Because our inclination is to always be moving forward. To not be at a standstill but to grow. We’re wired to move with time, to consider the future, to seek avenues that ultimately lead to progress and peace. We build upon what we know; we act upon what we believe. These are the building blocks of our faith that propels forward the chain of events in which life unfolds.
There is a reason for everything. A never-ending series of remarkable occurrences with causal connections. A way forward that draws us in the way of purpose, and draws us through time like magnetism. Should we care to know is an exercise in wonder.
Force of Life
We are in the midst of surrender to the force of life that connects us all. We relatively live in the unknown from our point of view. Ideal objectivity is ever so out of reach- we are in echo chambers of egos. We think and feel with skewed emotional maturity- intellectually striving to subvert our primal drives. We feel masterful in our autonomy. To know we’re not the ones in control is to threaten our sovereignty.
We make our choices, every second of every day, one after the other. Without a thought or indiscriminately, or with impeccable planning and forethought; But also with guidance. An invisible hand in the form of momentum moving us forward.
God’s Will-Your Journey
So, are we creating this journey of life with God? Is the way paved before us or are we paving the way? Free will or determinism. The answer is both. Free will and destiny coexist. We are all in a symbiotic relationship with our creator God and with each other. The good, the bad, the ugly things in life, all mutually dependent. All our choices are a means to an end. God draws you to Him as we all draw nearer and nearer to the end of time and a new heaven and a new earth.
“Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory;” 1 Corinthians 2:6-7
Remembering
Before you were born, you were inspired, breathed, and known by God. Every bit of information that is your intricate genetic makeup is known and stored within you by God. You are of a reverberating lineage; one that is vibrant and resounding in space and time. Who still remembers?
Innatism suggests that the mind is born with knowledge, ideas, and beliefs. Memory that transcends our experiences. Could there be memories encoded before birth? An intangible faculty of memory stored prior to all mind body experience.
Although the mind is not a blank slate at birth, we need our senses and experiences as keys to unlocking what is stored knowledge and intellect, and even remembrance. Things that are innate to you are things that you naturally identify with through sensation, reflection, and memory.
Memory is your brain’s capacity and function to encode, store, retain, and recall information from sensory experiences. The collection of our experiences since birth and our innate sensibilities. Every experience and memory shapes us in purposeful ways. And although specific memories may be forgotten, those memories that truly shape us are never completely gone.
“Remember your Creator before the silver cord is loosed, Or the golden bowl is broken, Or the pitcher shattered at the fountain, Or the wheel broken at the well. Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, And the spirit will return to God who gave it.” Ecclesiastes 12:6-7
Nothing has meaning
Nihilism- the undoing of belief, where belief is nothingness. It is the story of annihilation of the human spirit. The plot and ploy to instill nothingness– to determine that nothingness be willed in the heart of man. Life has no meaning or value (existential nihilism); there is no right or wrong, no good or evil (moral nihilism); all knowledge and beliefs are baseless (epistemological nihilism); reality does not exist (metaphysical nihilism).
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” II Corinthians 4:16-18
Visual Perception
Imagine for a moment, that what your eyes see, which is based on knowledge of visual perception and optics; knowledge which has been formulated through centuries of study, empirical data, and true to form scientific evidence; imagine for a moment that the science on which our interpretation of the visual world is based, has a determined gap or opening for persistent illusion; and that this gap for illusion, can forcefully mislead your senses and your reality in a duplicitous way.
Your eyesight is how you visually see the world. Your eyes collect visual information from light in the environment, and your brain processes and interprets this light. This is your visual perception. Your visual perception, along with all other information from sensory inputs from the environment, make up your perception of the world.
Visual System
Looking at the world through your eyes is an instantaneous process. Visible light in your environment reflects off the objects in your field of view and enters your eye. The reflected light rays enter the eye through the cornea. The cornea refracts (bends) the light rays, the light rays then passes through to the lens which focuses the light into an image onto the retina. The retina converts the light photons of the image into electrical signals which are carried by the optic nerve to the visual cortex of the brain where it is processed. All in an instant.
What we see is essentially light reflection and refraction. It’s all about light. Light informs what our eyes see in the visual world. It is the basis for our reality of the visual world.
Illusion
Now, visual perception can be tricky. The scientific study of optics shows us that important details of how light behaves and how light properties interact with matter is still a mystery. Sensory stimuli from light in the environment has a premise of being openly available for tricking the brain. We see this with illusions. Illusion can easily interplay with reality. An illusion is a confusion of the senses and a distortion of how our brains normally interpret sensory stimuli. Illusions distort our general perception of what we know to be reality or true.
So, if perception is how we understand the world through sensory information; is perception everything in understanding our reality? Can you trust your senses? Can you trust what your eyes see to be true?
What is True
In philosophy there are several schools of thought regarding knowledge of truth. There is empiricism, which states that knowledge comes only from sensory experience such as observation. Rationalism states that reason and applying logic is the primary source and test of knowledge. And there is innatism, which suggests that not all knowledge is gained from sensory experience but rather that the mind is born with knowledge not learned.
So, we have two ideas: 1) No knowledge enters the mind except through the senses, 2) There are eternal unchanging truths which are known by the mind not by the senses.
Science is wholly committed to one; the other says the senses can mislead you.
So, do we wholly accept our interpretation of sensory information presented by the environment? Or are our brains primed to be misled? Is it prudent to rely solely on our senses to inform our reality, knowing we can be misled by illusion and optics?…
Or is there a divine or innate knowing which we can believe, embrace, and rely on, despite what we see?
