Cultivating LifeDoes the Christian life
revolve around choosing between good and evil? 1
André H. Roosma
16 February 2015
(Dutch version: 22 Dec. 2014)
Many Christians seem to live from the principle that in essence, life
consists of making the right choices: choosing for the good, and against evil,
against sin.
Life then is all about knowing at each choice what would be the right option.
Careful study and weighing is employed to determine what is ‘good’
and what is ‘wrong’. The Bible is read as if it was a law code:
this is good, and that is wrong. And what is right and what is wrong is, of
course, defined precisely. We must, after all, know well where we should
go.
And whosoever does not choose ‘good’ is rejected. Hearts cool
down. One says: “this is right”, and the other “no,
that’s the right option!” Married couples argue about it.
Friendships are split up over it. God and our relationship with Him and each
other are no longer at the center but just who is right. People who consider
themselves important, demand that others follow them in their
views on what is “good” and “not good”. More and more
issues – so: including secondary issues – get involved in it.
Entire church divisions have resulted from this. Rabbinic Judaism has totally
gone into the mist because of this (613 commandments or
laws, each again explained in dozens of sub-laws, and not even recognizing
Jesus...). Is that it? Was that what God intended...??
Let’s look in the Bible, to see what God intended. Let’s start
at the beginning. In Genesis 1, we read about creation; in Genesis 2 about
the first two people: ’Adam and Eve (Hebr.:
Chuah). Everything was good. They walked in the garden of ‘Eden,
paradise, in great harmony with God Himself.
There in that wonderful garden God had provided for their food through
fruit-bearing trees. There was, among others, the Tree of Life and the
Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Thereby God had given them an
important capacity to choose. The Tree of Life testified to the
fullness of Life that God intended for them. The Tree of Knowledge of Good
and Evil was ill-presented to them by the adversary as a source of
(own) wisdom and independence from God (Who, according to the adversary, was not to be trusted...). Although they knew Him, they did not listen to God, but to that nasty
adversary, that division-sower, that demolisher. They wanted to be able to
choose by themselves. To have knowledge by themselves of what is good and
what is evil. Be like God themselves and determine their own lives by
themselves.
And just that was what they lost: Life...
As a pastoral worker I often heard from people that they ran empty
or got depleted of all energy by this kind of behavior of significant others
in their environment (husband/wife, manager, neighbors,
family (in law), church leaders, ...). Their eating from the Tree
of Knowledge of Good and Evil, following that life principle, not only
gives absolutely no Life, it also sucks all the life away out of
everybody involved and thus it sows non-life; death!
Yet God chooses Life anyway
Yet God did not give up. God sought for man again. Time after time He
came to meet us again with His grace and tender love. Like His glorious
Name YaHUaH already indicates, He is looking for the relationship,
the mutual trust, the Life. 2 And while doing that, He
makes Himself utterly vulnerable. Jesus / Yeshu‘a came into our night, into our non-life, to have that non-life,
that death be nailed to the cross in His own body, and to rise up in a
New Life, and to share that with us.
He overcame evil. It is no longer a choice between two similar things.
God wants us, too, to choose Life. In fact, we therefore have again
this choice between that Tree of Life and that Tree of Knowledge
of Good and Evil. The choice between Life in dependence on God
on the one hand and on the other hand decide for ourselves what is right
and what is wrong. Paul therefore also uses the terms: Life from the
Spirit of God, and: life after the law or to the letter.
That choice lies embedded in the fact that God does not make us puppets.
What the choice for the knowledge of good and evil leads to, I have briefly
outlined above: chilling love, and death. Let’s look more closely at
what the other option of Life really entails.
That Life is firstly something we receive in grace from God’s
hand. In the death and resurrection of Yeshu‘a everything is prepared such that we can Live in harmony
with God and each other. And that leads also to great appreciation and
gratitude towards God.3
That marks and determines already immediately the entire atmosphere. It is
not something we deserve. I do not have it because I was so good. I got it
from God’s love, which is inexhaustible. So, in passing it on I do not
have to be frugal or scanty.
This means a lot for our relationship and fellowship with God. It means
that I become curious and eager to receive even more from Him. It means that
I especially want to learn to listen to Him well
and extensively day by day, because I do not want to miss any of his beautiful
and loving guidance and His beautiful influence in my life. I have to think
of that famous confession of Peter to Jesus: “You have words of eternal life!” That’s why he
wanted to stay close to Jesus! It also means that I can wait and let go;
after all, isn’t everything in His hands?! I do not need to be right or
to see something ‘just right.’ The world is in God’s hands,
so it does not have to be under the control of us, little people.
This also means a lot for our relationships with each other and for the
way we relate in every day life. In all relationships, it is a Life
where we as humans are given to each other. Personal differences thus show
something of God’s variegation, and so they are appreciated.
It’s not about which vision is ‘right’ and which is
‘incorrect’. It’s about how we can bless each other in
this Life! Specifically: In this Life I look how I can bless
others with what God has given me in particular. And conversely, I want to
see that what God gives me in the other, first and foremost as an enrichment.
What God gives in and through your neighbor, you therefore do not exclude,
and you do not humiliate and certainly you do not ridicule it or him/her.
You look how you can encourage yourself and others to receive
more of that beautiful Life from God!
That would give everyone dignity and energy! That allows everyone to arrive
on his or her place, as God intends.
Hallelu YaH !
Notes
| 1 |
About this same theme Watchman Nee and Witness Lee wrote
in their book: Basic Elements of the Christian Life, Vol 3, Living
Stream Ministry, Anaheim, CA, 2003. Order and download from the website of Rhema Literature Distributors. |
| 2 |
The glorious Name of God represents His will to be
present with His people, and the fact the He gives Life. In this article, that
great Name is not replaced arbitrarily by some other word (e.g. LORD) but
transliterated as accurate as possible from the oldest Hebrew original. For
more background information on this see:- ‘The wonderful and lovely
Name of the God Who was there, Who is there, and Who will be there’
 , extensive Accede! / Hallelu-YaH! study, July 2009.
- ‘Life, security and belonging in joyful adoration, from the hand of God’ , brief Hallelu-YaH article about the
Biblical Name of God in the earliest Hebrew (old Semitic) script, January
2011.
- ‘The Shema‘ – the First
Testament declaration of faith (1)’, Hallelu-YaH! web article, February 2012.
More at the Articles page. |
| 3 |
Compare what Abraham Kuyper, the famous Dutch Christian
politician (founder of the ARP and the Free University of
Amsterdam) said more than a century ago, in his 2nd Stone lecture on
Calvinism and Religion: „In its original form, in
its natural condition, religion is exclusively a sentiment of admiration
and adoration which elevates and unites, not a feeling of
dependence which severs and depresses.” (Source: Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism , WM.B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids MI,
USA, 1898/1931). |
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