Why is there a castle built? A castle is built to house a king and a queen or prince and a princess.
Why would two people put a beautiful Nursery in their home?
The nursery is built because they are excitedly expecting a baby. They want everything to be ready for that child.
Now that is not always the case in this Fallen World, often separated from God’s love.
But you were born for a purpose. First and foremost to be in relationship with the Living God.
Nobody walks up to a castle and goes, oh that’s really amazing! No doubt things just came into place without any intent in mind. I love how the Rocks just perfectly fell together in the proper places!
Nobody walks into a house and is shown the nursery, and is told oh yeah we just decided to put a nursery in for looks. We thought it was really cool. No, the nursery was built for a purpose. And the core purpose was love for the child to be born.
Nobody walks up to a piece of art like the Mona Lisa and goes wow it’s just amazing how that paint came together all by itself! There must be some Universal or existential motive and force behind that painting.
Everything that we see in this world is created. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Bible but I would highly recommend the Chosen and I would highly recommend reading the Bible. I would start with the Book of John and the Book of Genesis. These are writings that have been passed down for thousands of years.
At some point in my history on both my mother and my father’s side, and it had to be at least three generations back probably further back in Germany and in Scotland, somebody somewhere decided to believe in Jesus Christ death and Resurrection.
I don’t know how far back that goes. But I know for the first Christians in my family it would have been quite the culture change. The first Christians in my family no doubt would have faced quite a bit of persecution and possibly ridicule for choosing such strange beliefs. But for some reason they did.
They chose to believe that the story was historically accurate and true. All of it. Jesus dying on the cross. One of the biggest proofs to the Bible is the fact that this document recorded 2,000 years ago and now I’m referring to the New Testament used three women as the first witnesses to Jesus Christ being resurrected from the dead.
This was in a time. Where Women’s testimonies were not even permitted in court. Women were not considered at that time equal to men. That change came after the birth of Christ along with a lot of other changes that we count normal in our society today. For example in the time of Roman rule if you had a baby born that was disformed you put it out on a wall to be eaten by animals. That was common. But under the Christian thinking all life was treasured. It was very counterculture.
But the Bible answers the question pretty clearly about why are you here?
Every blade of grass, every sunrise and every sunset, every breath and every healthy DNA is God’s design for the castle this beautiful planet we call home. For the nursery was not created without intent or purpose. You were created to be loved by God. And you were created to be in joyful Union with him.
However, love could never be love if there is not a choice. No one could take a gun to your head and command you to love them. They might command you to marry them but love requires free choice. And so when God created this beautiful world and placed the first people Adam and Eve in it, he walked every evening with them. They’re very first day was what we call the Sabbath. The Bible teaches that God created the world in six days and on the 7th day he rested.
And Adam and Eve’s first day was a day of rest just to enjoy everything that was given. And before the fall, before they chose not to believe God and not to love him, work was a blessing meant to satisfy them and to bring them enjoyment. They were highly intelligent. I always found it interesting the fact that apparently they were completely naked and the world was so perfect that there was no need for protection over their bodies.
There was no discomfort about it because they were covered with the glory of God and that is my understanding that is not actually spoken outright in the Bible so I do not want to ever say that what I think is the same thing that the Bible says it’s just what I perceive and what I think. But we know that God is a consuming fire and yet he appears in the likeness of men at times. And every evening he walked with them in the garden as a loving father conversing with them about their day. I sort of picture Eve just delighting in a fawn’s birth. God created a garden for them and that was the equivalent in my thinking of the nursery. And he commanded them to multiply. And he made multiplying very enjoyable…
And it was beautiful.
But there had to be a tree. I personally believe and again this is just what I think this is not written in the scriptures, but this is just my perception from humanity and how I see humans functioning, I believe we were meant to soak in all of the goodness of God and not to make a whole bunch of choices about right and wrong all the time. There was one choice in the garden. Only one. Only one tree they were told not to eat from.
But when God gave command to Adam about taking care of the garden he also gave wording that we would think strange in a perfect garden, so it wasn’t exactly Perfect by what we would call Perfect. There were forces that long ago had abandoned serving God. And God told Adam to take Dominion of the Earth. That’s a pretty strong word. He was supposed to be in charge. He was supposed to make sure that those forces that had left God and were now roaming the Earth kicked out of heaven were in submission to God’s rule on this Earth. Because spirits that are Fallen are very limited to their power within this world. They do not have physical bodies like we humans do, though apparently that was not always true and that’s a whole other conversation, but those things could be debatable so I’m just not going there right now, but anyway they are Spirit beings and they need physical bodies to control to get to do things their way.
One of the Fallen beings was what we call the devil or Satan. Satan the word Satan means Accuser. He would constantly go to God and accuse people of how bad they were. The name Jesus means the Lord saves. And so you have two voices in the universe, one constantly wanting to condemn and accuse you of everything you’ve done wrong, though sometimes the deceiver also portrays himself as an angel of Light and makes it seem like everything is good even if you don’t have God in the mix, but like the lies in the garden, adding to the word of God and taking away from it, those are just lies. They will not hold any more water than trying to build a house on one plus one equals whatever.
The other is the voice of God speaking truth. So much patience. He told people at the beginning that if you sin you will die. That is like telling your children do not play with fire. Do not go in the middle of the highway with your bicycle. And there is a time and a period where we protect our children. But there is also a season where they have to grow up and make their own choices. And so there was a time and season where Adam and Eve were in that divine protection but again it is not love if they can’t have free will and make a choice. It would be the perfect prison. The perfect slavery. So if some King forced some woman to be his wife she might have the most beautiful world imaginable but at the same time she would be miserable not in a relationship Bound by love and she would be a Slave.
So today God gives everybody who is reading this a choice. And there are many things I do not understand. But you were created to be loved by God. And you were created to love God. And it’s the most beautiful thing. There is suffering in this life. And one reason the Bible seems so harsh at times is because it is very honest about the fall. God told Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree in the middle of the garden because it was the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. And honestly just logically to me this makes practical sense to when you look at Humanity after the fall how often do we choose what feels good for the moment rather than what is healthy good true and right? We smoke cigarettes knowing full well we could get cancer. We live lives of greed knowing full well people are dying for lack of $5 a day while we grow bigger and bigger in all of our lovely things that we don’t need for life.
But the biggest problem with the fall wasn’t the physical death but the Eternal death. Because God is not going to stop being who he is for Humanity. What I mean by that is he’s not going to suddenly say murder is okay. All of the laws that we see in the bible teach us his Perfection and who he is. But it is his love that draws Us near to him even though we fall so very short of obeying those laws.
I do not believe in karma because if there was Karma the world would have self-destructed thousands of years ago if not a million years ago. People do way more wrong than they do right. But then of course you have to say well who gets to decide what’s right and wrong? So somebody that comes from a island cultural of cannibalism believe it’s perfectly okay to kill a human and eat it. Why do we not agree with that? Why do we not agree that a baby that is not wanted could just be put out for the animals? Largely because of Christianity, even though Christians are some of the biggest proof that God is kind gracious merciful and loving an amazingly patient.
And in the Bible we see that. He is slow to anger and abounding in love and he’s patient when people are foolish and just plain ignorant and he’s even patient when we were rebellious. He sends his word to warn us of the consequences and often sends people to warn us of the consequences, pastors and Prophets and the like. But eventually if you grow a garden Full Of Weeds expecting to live off of fruits and vegetables you will die. If you do not decide to pull up the weeds you will have nothing to sustain yourself. That’s actually not a very good example of the kingdom of heaven but that was the best I could think of at the moment.
You are also created not just in this life for this moment in time but to spend eternity with the Living God in love and peace and joy. Down here it’s messed up and there’s a lot of suffering because of the choice Adam and Eve made. But because of the choices of humans, and because God does not change his laws because we mess up, so for example if we decide we want to fly, there is the law of gravity.
No matter how much we want to fly if we step off a 10-story building flap our arms and that’s all we do thinking we are going to fly the law of gravity is going to work. However I’m sure God greatly delighted in the Wright brothers and others who struggled to learn God’s laws and how to come in line with them so that they could fly.
The same is true for spiritual laws. For example one law is that of sowing and reaping. You cannot sow thistle seeds and expect an apple tree. Likewise you cannot sow hatred and expect to grow love. Neither can we so unbelief or doubt and expect to receive the blessings of faith. It is very serious. However I have hope because he said he was making all things new. I know that there is an eternal separation from God that we call hell because God is never going to force anybody into heaven. God is love. If people decide they want nothing to do with him, he will honor that choice but eventually those who choose to allow for the Salvation that he offers which transforms us little by little and ultimately will transform us at our death into the image of Christ where we will be walking in love, when we received God’s grace through faith we receive the seed implanted in our hearts that can grow eternally and allow us to live forever with God.
That was what we were all designed for. It is in here in this moment in time in the shadowlands where Darkness and Light coexist. But where there is Darkness ultimately there will be destruction and death. But for a season God permits the two to be Blended so that that seed of life might be planted in all who choose to believe and receive. I don’t think it’s just a mental acknowledgment that God is true, there is an element of Faith the way it works by love.
We can complain in our humanity and I know we often do of all the struggles and the hardships and how could God expect us to forgive our enemies and do all of these things he tells us to do like not commit adultery and he gives many commands, but the laws are meant for our well-being and health as well as for the well-being of others. And the spiritual laws also are love for God. If you have been a single male for a long time and you’re not accustomed to putting down the seat and you get married it is a loving act to put down the seat. You can sit there and say I don’t want to put down the seat but that wouldn’t be loving because the woman would like you to put down the seat I realize this is all mostly women here but anyway.
And then the other thing is so very difficult in this generation to comprehend is the authority of God. It is only in recent Generations that the concept of authority has been almost completely annihilated. Lawlessness equals destruction. And I confess I must roll my eyes when I see a bumper sticker on the back of the car quoting Anarchy, which means basically do whatever you want to do whenever you want to do it, but they are stopped at the red light they are driving in the right lane not the wrong lane even if they are completely ignoring the speed limit when they start up again.
So there is a difference between sin and lawlessness. When we say that we have sinned we acknowledge God’s Authority in his laws. But lawlessness says there is no Authority. And that’s a whole nother level of Destruction. That is like the difference between breaking the speed limit and having a hundred or so deaths in a month because people don’t want to obey the law. And deciding that we don’t actually need Lanes or curbs or speed limits or lights, that would be lawlessness. That’s what it likes what it is like when we do not acknowledge God at all. And things can seem to go really well for a while but the end result, especially eternally is destruction. And God does not want that.
Now I am going to say one thing I tend to agree a little bit more with cs Lewis’s theology in the last book of The Chronicles of Narnia. I do not believe it is scriptural to say that everybody just goes to hell. God promised Abraham that all families on the Earth would be blessed through his seed and that was referring to Jesus Christ. I believe there is great blessing in accepting Jesus Christ as soon as possible even though often there is great suffering that comes with that.
I do believe God’s words that those who accept him will have entrance to the New Jerusalem and in that New Jerusalem the word of God teaches there will be no harm on all of God’s holy hill. It talks about God making all things new and the lion will eat grass like the ox it’s an absolutely beautiful picture and if you wonder why the Bible is so full of so many dark things and death and destruction it’s because God tells the truth. He does not lie.
And even though it frustrates and angers and hurts us to see Fallen Humanity in the constant need for punishment and destruction at times, because he’s honest about those things we know he can speak the truth and be honest about what he is doing in the renewal of all things and in the world to come. And that is what you were created for. That is God’s desire for every human. The Bible says he is not willing that any should perish.
So my friend! I would invite you to start a journey with him and if you are a believer I would encourage you just to take time fasting and praying and seeking him. Pick up extra Bibles studies when you can. Be aware there’s a lot of lies out there right now both inside the church as well as outside of it. The thief comes to steal to kill and to destroy but Jesus Christ has come that you might have life and have it more abundantly. That’s why you were created.
And that analogy about the castle and the nursery? It has two places or points.
First, the Earth is the castle or the nursery, every good thing lovingly designed by a God Desiring the best for his children. But the Earth was made to function When the Children of Men walk with God. When we do not it does not function as it should but in his love he draws all more and more into that truth and Grace. But the second analogy is that you are the nursery and the castle and you were created to house God. To be the Temple of the Holy Spirit. Not to be God; that is a damnable lie. And there is a new false thinking that’s going around and it’s just damnable. And remember if something is a lie eventually it will lead to death and destruction. So we don’t want to play with vipers.
But you were created to house the Living God. There is nothing more astounding to my brain. And we shouldn’t think that God is going to fit into our brains or that his ways are going to make sense to us. But what God always longed for was to live among people. But his very Glory would destroy us before the cross. It would be like trying to walk in the middle of the Sun we couldn’t get near without dying. God’s holiness and perfection does that to Fallen Humanity. And so all of the wrath of God and anger at our sin as well as all of the punishment for the sin of all Humanity was poured out on his own son at the cross.
The most amazing Act of Love there are no words that I can’t even begin to know how to speak it. Not just the torture that he endured. Not just the suffering and the pain and eventually the death. But God reveals himself as Father Son and Holy Spirit. The church calls this the Triune God. And we know that this is real because we worship the Son. But only God can be worshiped. If Jesus Christ was not God In the Flesh part of the Triune God then it was the ultimate blasphemy when the wise men bowed down to worship Him, or when the man born blind who healed worshiped him bowing down before him, and as well as the apostles bowing down before him. So we cannot comprehend or understand God. If I can’t understand my car before I get in and drive it why do I think that I need to be able to understand God before walking with him?
But after Jesus rose from the dead he gave the Holy Spirit to all who believed in him. He gave orders that we baptized in the name of the father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Not the names, the name. Singular. One God three persons. That is revealed even in the beginning when you see the plural term for God used even as early as Genesis the word Elohim is literally translated gods. But it is used with the singular verb. One God plural. Singular verb. And God has revealed himself to us in Father Son and Holy Spirit. But the spirit of God dwelt in a physical Temple in Jerusalem during much of the Old Testament. But God longed to share his divine power and love with more of humanity than just those that came up physically to Jerusalem. He longed to share his love with all of the world and so he calls you and every individual to Bear God. To be the nursery the castle that God himself dwells in and then to share that love.
This is why you were born. To be loved by God and to love God and as you grow in that love and receive him to share that love with more and more people. This is the kingdom of heaven. And it is here now on Earth. And there will be a day where Jesus Christ will come physically and there will be a renewal of all things. And God Longs for as many as possible to receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit the holy seed so that when we die we can live eternally with him because if we do not have that seed within us there is no life.
I don’t know that I’m wording that quite properly so forgive me I should stick more closely to scripture and others can correct me but I seek the best I can to share God’s truth and Grace with you.
For — God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Because God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but rather that we might be saved through him. John 3:16 and 17
God’s peace.
Letters to a Friend 