Updates from Edwin Croyle

“And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day:  and Adam and His wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.  And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, ‘Where art thou?’(KJV)

 

From the Scripture above, we get the idea that it was a normal thing for God to walk through the garden with Adam and Eve in the cool of day.  What a joy that must have been for Adam and Eve.  This magnificent God who had created the universe, had created both Adam and Eve, and who had prepared this perfect place for them to live, wanted to spend time with them in the cool of the day.  I can’t help wonder what the conversations were about.  I picture this God who walked with them as Father God, even though all three parts of our triune God were present within the Godhead.  I don’t picture Father God as old and bearded, but I do picture Him as a mature fatherly figure who had a smile on His face as He met with Adam and Eve each day—except for one day.  Earlier that day Adam and Eve had allowed satan to tempt them to break the one rule that God had given them.  

They ate from the forbidden tree, and Father God knew about it before He came to walk with them.   They hid from Him, as I would have.   God gently led them to admit what they had done, and then after forming clothing for them, He told them the bad news.   Because sin is not permitted in God's presence, they had to be expelled from this magnificent garden God had created for them.  Even though He expelled them, He gave them skills necessary to make their way in the outside world.  That’s the story of man, and that is the story of me.  I sin, so I can’t live in the presence of Father God.  Now, the result of sin is not just being expelled from the Garden of Eden, it is assignment to hell for eternity.  So my relationship with Father God must be a sorrowful one for both of us.  His desire to spend time with me is greater than my desire to be with Him.  Father God was so sorrowful over this circumstance that He created once again.  He created a way for me (and you and everybody else) to spend eternity with Him.   He asked His beloved Son, Jesus, to leave His home with Father God, come to earth, take on the life and body of a human, and accept the punishment for the sin of everybody who would ever live.   To do that, Father God had to actually turn His back on His beloved Son.  I believe that necessary action hurt Him as much as it did Jesus, but He did it for me.  You see, I am His favorite.  Wait a minute—you are His favorite, also, and so is Gordon McGyver of Belfast, and so is Manuel Gonzales of Buenos Aires.  

Adam and Eve may have disobeyed God and got the human race expelled from the Garden of Eden, but I have broken many of the rules God gave us since the Graden of Eden.  What makes me think that I wouldn’t have broken that first rule?  Adam and Eve and all of us have been given freedom of choice.  Sometimes I wonder how long Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden before they ate from the forbidden tree.  They exercised their freedom of choice as I do every day.  And I certainly do not have a spotless record in exercising my freedom of choice.  But God is as good to me as He was to Adam and Eve, as He has provided the ONE and ONLY WAY for me to spend eternity with Him.  Thank you God, for being a merciful and loving Father to Adam, Eve, Gordon McGyver, Manuel Gonzales, me, and everybody else.

”These things I have spoken to you, while I am still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.  Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give it to you.  Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (RSV).

 

Before I started writing this, I did some research on “relationship with the Holy Spirit.”  God soon stopped me and told me that no one knows more about my relationship with the Holy Spirit than I do,  “You don’t need their input.  There are two people who intimately know your relationship with the Holy Spirit, you and the Holy Spirit.  So, speak from your heart and ask the Holy Spirit to help you.”  That’s what I am doing, so if it doesn’t match your relationship with Him, that’s okay.  After all, the title of this blog is “My Relationship with the Holy Spirit.”

 

Just as Jesus said He would do, He sent me the Holy Spirit the moment I accepted Jesus as my Savior.  He has been my companion, my guide, and my helper ever since—ever present—always available.  I seem to be most open to the ministering of the Holy Spirit at two different times—after I go to bed and when I am alone in the outdoors, particularly when I am in a quiet wooded area with a stream flowing by.  Those seem to be the times of least distractions from the world.  I think I need to put a pen and paper near my bed at night because the concepts and words He gives me at night seem more focused, to the point, and spoken in beautiful words and phrases that I sometimes forget by the time I wake up in the morning.  In the times I am alone with Him in nature, He directs my thoughts and my heart to the magnificence of creation and the glory of the Creator.   My heart grows in the presence of God.   These times are some of the best and most peaceful moments of my life.

 

Jesus told us that the Holy Spirit would “bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”  That applies to me in the way that the Holy Spirit brings to my mind appropriate Scripture verses that apply to the concept He is teaching me.  Often He then opens my mind to things I had not previously noticed in the Scripture, even though I may have read it many times before.  He gives me a fresh perspective, applicable to what I may be thinking or writing about.  Those times feel like the newness and promise of spring.

 

There are times when I just can’t find the correct words in my prayers, and those are the times that the Holy Spirit supplies them in a language that I cannot write or even normally speak.  It’s a time when my spirit speaks to the Holy Spirit from deep in my heart in words and concepts beyond my current understanding.  This is commonly known as “speaking in tongues.”   For me it is a time when I know that the inner thoughts that I don’t know how to express through my mind are expressed by my spirit under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  

“And God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.’   So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he them, male and female created he them….And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (KJV).

(Forgive me for posting a picture of myself, but I am an example of a man who was molded by the hands of God, a man who had the breath of life breathed into him by God.   From that moment, the moment of my creation, not the moment of my birth, I became an eternal being loved by God.   Your picture inserted here would be just as valid.)

These three verses seem to establish rather clearly my relationship with God.  I was made in His image.  All of us, men and women, have been made in His image and have had the breath of God breathed into us.  Throughout creation we are told that “God said,” and it came into being.  Not so with the ones chosen to be His companions, the ones with whom He would fellowship.  He molded us with His hands.  With those He molded, you and I, He BREATHED HIS BREATH INTO OUR LUNGS.   How special is that?  We have been formed by the hands of God, and we have had the very breath of life, the breath of God, breathed into our lungs.  When He formed us with His hands, He made us to be like Him, unlike anything else.  We were set apart from the beginning.  And when He breathed His breath into us, He made us His forever.  How can anyone or anything ever be as close to God as those he created for His pleasure.  If we are created for His pleasure, then He desires that we return His love willingly.   Thus He gave us free will—free will to love Him or not.  He also gave free will to the angels.  

When God created the universe, He did not create evil, but evil was present in the mind of satan who exercised his free will to attempt a coup.  He wanted to become god.  From the beginning, satan lost the war and a place was created for him and his followers—a place just about as opposite from the Garden of Eden as possible—a place called hell.  All who choose sin, opposition to God, will be assigned to hell for eternity.  

Soon after Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden of Eden, satan began his scheme.  He tempted them by asking questions about God and what He said.  He pushed for an answer that was not quite what God said, but similar enough that Adam and Eve were deceived and gave the answer he wanted.  They stretched the words God said, and they allowed satan to convince them that God didn’t really mean to keep them from knowing the difference between good and evil.  So they sinned, and by doing so, separated themselves from God.  They were dismissed from the Garden of Eden, and the gate was locked.  

But because God loved mankind, a way back to His side was put into play.  God sent His Son, Jesus, to earth to receive on Himself all the sins of all of mankind and pay the penalty for all of them.  Jesus’ human body died, and He went to hell.  He went there in the place of all of us who have sinned, a unanimous condition of mankind.  What satan saw as his greatest victory, turned out to be his greatest defeat when Jesus came out of the grave in victory, leaving all our sins behind.   Jesus offered this victory over sin, death, and hell to all of us, and those who accept it will not only escape hell, but will go a place better than the Garden of Eden, heaven.

I can sum up my relationship with God as being a beloved son who disobeyed his Father and deserved punishment.  But, my big brother convinced my Father to let Him accept my punishment and let me back into close, loving fellowship with my Father as though I had done no wrong., 

 

To be followed by three additional blogs, my relationship with Father God, my relationship with Jesus, and my relationship with the Holy Spirit.