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    The Door Is Open
    The Door Is Open
    The Door Is Open
    Ebook128 pages2 hours

    The Door Is Open

    By Darlene Gaston

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    About this ebook

    Jesus opened the door for the whole world, the entire human race, for all time, and invited all of us to live in God's portion.

    When we know that we know for 100 percent surety, within our core values, that God loves us no matter what, then we walk like we are loved 100 percent, and this is how everything else follows.

    In the last chapter of my last book, Time to Really Live Free, I wrote about what Adam and Eve had given up and the plan God had to return it to humanity through his Son, Jesus Christ. When we begin to understand this is what the new covenant is all about, God's portion being returned to humanity, we can truly live from the place of truth that God already loves us.

    My next questions were, "God, what does your portion look like? And am I living from the truth that I have your portion?" I kept looking for answers, but my answers were already there for me. What I realized is that for the last five years, I have been learning to live from this place.

    My first book is like the roots of what the good news is all about. This book is going into how I live my life from those roots. Come with me on a journey into real life with God…

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChristian Faith Publishing, Inc.
    Release dateMay 6, 2021
    ISBN9781098082222
    The Door Is Open

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      Book preview

      The Door Is Open - Darlene Gaston

      1

      The Law of Liberty

      New covenant—I am completely forgiven by God.

      Jesus had stated many woes to those who were the teachers or priests of the day. He also was trying to clarify some things for the Jewish people. Some of those things sounded downright scary, even scary to many today. Have you ever been afraid of what Jesus said in Matthew 7:21-23, Not everyone that says to Me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven.? I sure have! We will get to that soon, but first, we need to remember what starting point we should start with when looking at what Jesus said.

      What is the purpose of the law? In the past, I had been taught many different things. For example, It is there to keep us safe. It is there so we know how to ‘act’ as Christians. It is there to point out how Holy God is and how unholy we are. It is there to give us a framework for our behavior. It is what we have to do to secure our salvation… Wait a minute…what? This, in so many ways, is what is taught to the church (ekklésia the body of Christ). Behavior is what keeps you going to heaven or gets you the ticket in. But now we know that faith (the horse) comes before the natural outflow of the spirit (cart). But today in many churches we are taught do not lie, cheat, talk bad about people, listen to certain music, read certain books, be around certain people (because they are doing wrong things), drink wine or any alcohol, gamble, dance, wear pants, etc. I mean the list could go on. The law in the Old Testament was given to Moses, not Abraham. Abraham believed God, and that is where he received his righteousness, a gift from God. The Mesopotamians had their own law known as the Code of Hammurabi, which predates the law given to Moses by around three hundred years or more. The Code of Hammurabi has many similarities to the law given at Mt. Sinai. Why? We’ll get to that also in a minute. Let’s start with what Paul, a great Bible scholar of his own admission, has to say regarding the law in Romans 2 in the Message Version:

      If you go against the grain, you get splinters, regardless of which neighborhood you’re from, what your parents taught you, what schools you attended. But if you embrace the way God does things, there are wonderful payoffs, again without regard to where you are from or how you were brought up. Being a Jew won’t give you an automatic stamp of approval. God pays no attention to what others say (or what you think) about you. He makes up his own mind.

      If you sin without knowing what you’re doing, God takes that into account. But if you sin knowing full well what you’re doing, that’s a different story entirely. Merely hearing God’s law is a waste of your time if you don’t do what he commands. Doing, not hearing, is what makes the difference with God.

      When outsiders who have never heard of God’s law follow it more or less by instinct, they confirm its truth by their obedience. They show that God’s law is not something alien, imposed on us from without, but woven into the very fabric of our creation. There is something deep within them that echoes God’s yes and no, right and wrong. Their response to God’s yes and no will become public knowledge on the day God makes his final decision about every man and woman. The Message from God that I proclaim through Jesus Christ takes into account all these differences. (Romans 2:9–16)

      And to save on space (so I encourage you to go and read all of Romans 2–3), here is a little more:

      Circumcision, the surgical ritual that marks you as a Jew, is great if you live in accord with God’s law. But if you don’t, it’s worse than not being circumcised. The reverse is also true: The uncircumcised who keep God’s ways are as good as the circumcised—in fact, better. Better to keep God’s law uncircumcised than break it circumcised. Don’t you see: It’s not the cut of a knife that makes a Jew. You become a Jew by who you are. It’s the mark of God on your heart, not of a knife on your skin, that makes a Jew. And recognition comes from God, not legalistic critics." (Romans 2:25–29)

      And a little further down:

      So where does that put us? Do we Jews get a better break than the others? Not really. Basically, all of us, whether insiders or outsiders, start out in identical conditions, which is to say that we all start out as sinners. Scripture leaves no doubt about it: There’s nobody living right, not even one, nobody who knows the score, nobody alert for God. They’ve all taken the wrong turn; they’ve all wandered down blind alleys. No one’s living right; I can’t find a single one. Their throats are gaping graves, their tongues slick as mudslides. Every word they speak is tinged with poison. They open their mouths and pollute the air. They race for the honor of sinner-of-the-year, litter the land with heartbreak and ruin, Don’t know the first thing about living with others. They never give God the time of day. This makes it clear, doesn’t it, that whatever is written in these Scriptures is not what God says about others but to us to whom these Scriptures were addressed in the first place! And it’s clear enough, isn’t it, that we’re sinners, every one of us, in the same sinking boat with everybody else? Our involvement with God’s revelation doesn’t put us right with God. What it does is force us to face our complicity in everyone else’s sin. (Romans 3:9–20)

      It sounds like there were Jews judging non-Jews saying that they are all fine and good because they were given the law and are circumcised, not realizing that they also need a propitiation for themselves just as much as the non-Jew. But why? They followed the law and yet still sinned (missed the mark/self-empowerment). Remember the rich man who followed the law completely until he was asked to give all he had to the poor and follow Jesus. He couldn’t do it. We all have our places where we fail to follow the law (of the Old Testament). Paul was making it very clear the law nor their personal behavior could ever make them righteous, because there would always be an area of failure in every single person’s life no matter if they are Jewish or not, circumcised or not, taught the commandments or not. We all fall short of the glory of God. The law is put in our conscience from the beginning of conception. It is written in the fabric of our being because of Adam and Eve. When they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it was implanted in them, and as we are born from the seed of Adam, we also have the understanding of good and evil in each of us. The law comes from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Pure and simple. Otherwise, how could Hammurabi come up with some of the same laws more than three hundred years before Moses wrote them down for the Israelites?

      Paul makes it clear that we all have a conscience that has been written on what is right and what is wrong. That is why you would see the uncircumcised following the law without ever hearing of the law. The law just makes known that we know what is right and wrong, and we, in and of our own selves, can never do what is right and avoid what is wrong 100 percent of the time nor has God ever believed we could! That is why he had to set things right. Here is the scripture that follows right after the above:

      But in our time something new has been added. What Moses and the prophets witnessed to all those years has happened. The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us. And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in him. For there is no difference between us and them in this. Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ. (Romans 3:21–24)

      Okay, the question I have today to many in the church body is the same question Paul asked the Galatians in chapter 3 of his letter to them:

      You crazy Galatians! Did someone put a hex on you? Have you taken leave of your senses? Something crazy has happened, for it’s obvious that you no longer have the crucified Jesus in clear focus in your lives. His sacrifice on the cross was certainly set before you clearly enough. Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God’s message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren’t smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it? Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up!

      Selah (Hebrew for lift up, exalt or pause). Please pause and think about the above statement Paul made.

      The Galatians, like many Christians today, were trying to perfect what God had already done. They were working their heads off to please God. Remember the list above I had made of the dos and don’ts? Those things are common sense things. Some are just rules that are said to keep us safe. But in the end,

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