Live consistent with who you really are, inspired by the loving kindness of God. My brothers, the most practical expression of worship is to make your bodies available to him as a living sacrifice; this pleases him more than any religious routine. He desires to find visible, individual expression in your person. Do not allow current religious tradition to mold you into its pattern of reasoning. Like an inspired artist, give attention to the detail of God’s desire to find expression in you. Become acquainted with perfection. To accommodate yourself to the delight and good pleasure of him will transform your thoughts afresh from within.
Rom 12:1-2
What a beautiful rendition of this well-known text, what a change of perspective.
Suddenly, it is quite impossible to read this text as a moral issue, telling you to not follow the bad rules and behaviors of the world, but change your thinking to adjust to the rules of the Kingdom.
This text becomes one about finding yourself and within you, the image and likeness of God that God placed there in beginning.
Translating Genesis 1:1 with a more literal, yet spiritual reading of the Hebrew makes it clear:
In her head the powers created the place of desire of giving and the place of desire of receiving and reflecting.
Gen 1:1
The heavens are the place were the light is shining from, the beamer in modern terms, whereas the earth is the canvas that receives this light and not only reflects the light, but the image within. The earth is the silver screen.
In Genesis, when we read further, we see that Adam, the one that receives and reflects what comes from above as a humble doorway and lets it flow into the world (the meaning of the three letters making up Adam’s name and function), decides to receive just for himself and tries to become the source himself.
We cannot be like God unless we fully live the giving part of our function as he is the giver. But since we do not want to reflect, the giving part of our calling and function, we need to become our own source in order to give. And soon we will just live to receive for our own.
Thus, it becomes clear that we in that moment develop our ego and live from it. Coming back and looking at ourselves will get rid of this ego. It’s from looking for ourselves to taking a look at ourselves. Most do not understand the difference.
We cannot look at God for that because he is only shining light. If we have a beamer without a silver screen, the light just goes on into space and fades at an incredibly far distance–a thing we learned in the Swiss army where we were not allowed to light a match in the night in order to not give away our position from kilometers afar.
Looking into the beamer, we just see light.
It is only on the silver screen that the picture within the light becomes visible. The earth was to be that screen, but it became tohuwabohu, void and empty, all cracked (the literal meaning of the word use for earth in the Hebrew).
This first happened to the cosmos. When God then created man, the same thing happened to man in the fall. Being created to heal the world from egoism by being God’s reflection, man fell too instead.
We can only return to God becoming that silver screen again, and that is only in part, in small part a moral journey and undertaking. Actually, moral behavior is just an outflow of being the receiver and reflector. It is much more an undertaking looking at ourselves, becoming aware of our ego, and changing to get rid of the ego. It’s a process.
This is what all creation is waiting for, that we in and through our suffering of the pain when we look at our ego-ridden self and making the necessary adjustments become “who we really are”. Then, Romans 8:19 can happen:
Our lives now represent the one event every creature anticipates with held breath, standing on tip-toe as it were to witness the unveiling of the sons of God. Can you hear the drum-roll?
Rom 8:19
Remember, the ego instilled the woman we later call Eve with three things:
- I know more about God than you.
- God is withholding this from you.
- And once you know that fact, jumped that hoop, made that experience, you will become like God.
Adam, both man and woman, were the image and likeness of God. You cannot be more like God than what they were. The fall now is this:
To believe that somebody else knows more about God, because God is withholding this from me, and acting on the desire to become like God by attaining whatever we are missing.
Reaching forth for the fruit we express our believe that we are not like God.
And we believe that what is lacking is the ability to discern good from evil. Therefore, we try to follow the rules and observe the observances.
But what is the cure? It is in seeking the kingdom within and without judgement bringing it into each situation to bring life.
So the unveiling of the sons of God is equivalent to us truly becoming ourselves not through obedience, but through the search for and acceptance of our true nature, which is God.
Sin is not believing what God said you are. Sin is believing that you are not like God.
Sin is thinking I have no part, or only if …
The body is one but has many parts; and all the parts of the body, though many, constitute one body, namely Messiah.
1Co 12:12