Why Does God Allow Us to Have a Sin Nature? :: By David Cogburn

From the Bible, we know that God has created TWO types of sentient beings – angels and human beings. Is there much of a difference between the two? There is a HUGE difference.

Angels are EACH created by God DIRECTLY and are created holy, perfect, and sinless. As with ALL of God’s sentient beings, they have “free will.” They are created in God’s presence and are enjoying all of the wonderful things God has to offer in heaven.

WOW, how cool is that? Angels are not born, of course, but are created IN HEAVEN and are eternal beings living in eternity from the get-go.

What about us humans? Is each one of us created DIRECTLY by God like the angels? No way. We are “born” from human parents. We have free will like the angels do. Are we born holy, perfect, and without sin? No way!

The Bible says we are created in God’s image and are eternal beings, but are we born inside “eternity” like the angels? No way! We are born inside a “universe” that creates TIME which is INSIDE eternity. It is a type of “BUBBLE” inside eternity. TIME is something God created. It is temporary. It has a beginning and an end. It has a purpose since it is part of God’s plan.

God obviously does not NEED TIME since He is eternal. So, who “does” need “time” since God created it? The answer should be obvious – we human beings do because we are all born with a SIN NATURE.

WHAT? WHY? Angels are created Holy, perfect and without sin and live with God in heaven. We human beings are born unholy, imperfect, and with sin, which we call our “sin nature.” We are born on earth separated from God, who is invisible to us, and we are NOT enjoying all of the wonderful things God offers to those who live with Him in heaven.

‘Bummer,’ some might say; ‘That’s NOT FAIR.’ At first glance, it seems obvious that it is much better to be an angel than a human being. BUT is that true? It is also obvious that things are “this way” because it IS part of God’s plan.

The Bible makes it crystal clear that God is Holy, Perfect, and without Sin, and that is His STANDARD. EVERYTHING about God for all eternity means NO SIN, period!

‘Wait – things are really messed up. The Bible tells us that God is a God of love and that He loves us Big Time. How can that be since He HATES sin, and we are ALL sinners born with a sin nature? Did God goof up or something?’

One of the MAIN differences between angels and us is they live in eternity in God’s presence. They EACH have a “personal relationship” with God and are ALL holy without sin. I mean, how LUCKY can you get to be created a holy angel in God’s presence vs a sinful human being not in God’s presence?

Let’s think about this for a moment. God is God and can do “anything” He wants, obviously. He is the one who created angels and human beings this way. From OUR sinful human perspective, we are 100 percent behind the eight ball, and we are getting the short end of the stick. Our sinful human perspective asks why can’t we humans also be born in heaven like the angels.

The biggest problem for us sinful human beings is that our sin nature is anti-God, and the Bible tells us we are by nature children of wrath. And because of that, we don’t look at sin the way God looks at sin. Sin is basically no big deal to the world’s way of thinking. How could it be a big deal? It is who we are. As the Bible says, no one is searching for God because of our sin nature.

So, what is the FIRST THING that an INVISIBLE God HAS TO DO to reach out to a world full of anti-God sinful human beings? He HAS to make Himself VISIBLE in a way that only He can do. I call it VISIBLE INVISIBILITY.

The most OBVIOUS thing that no one can get around is we live in a visible universe that almost seems infinite in size. We live on earth with many millions of forms of life of all types, with us humans at the top of the list since the Bible says we are created in God’s image.

The universe is a big problem for an anti-God world because the first question anyone has to ask is where did it come from‘? It should be obvious to every human being that “something” CANNOT come from “nothing,” period. Something can ONLY come from something. There is a creator for everything visible, whether it is a universe or a chair. There is only ONE exception. God Himself NEVER came from something, regardless of how impossible that seems. God is the SOMETHING that has created EVERYTHING. To say the universe and all life somehow created itself out of chaos is as WRONG as saying something can come from nothing. The universe and all life in it makes God HUGE in a visible invisible way. The universe is number ONE in showing God is REAL and created everything.

That is obviously important. What is equally important is for God to visibly-invisibly SPEAK to us sinful human beings in a way we can UNDERSTAND. How is that possible? God knew the BEST WAY to communicate to humans in “our way of understanding” is to write a Book and let them read it. A book can last thousands of years. God tells us in the Bible that His Word will last forever.

The world says, ‘God wrote a book? Yeah, right! How many millions of books are there?’ It seems that God is “competing” with perhaps an untold number of authors since time began, and how can we separate Him from human authors? How can an invisible God create a Book that reveals His “visible invisibility“? There is only ONE way. He has to make His Book a “Supernatural” book vs a human’s “natural” book.

How can He do that? How do you make a book Supernatural vs natural? There is only one major way. You have to have things in it that are Supernatural that ONLY God can do. Like what? Like making the Bible called the Word of God actually BE the Word of God by causing one-third of the Bible to be prophecy-filled. Prophecy is simply telling us the FUTURE WRITTEN IN ADVANCE.

Do we humans know the future in advance? Can we 100 percent of the time accurately forecast future events? NO WAY! And people like Nostradamus and Jean Dixon don’t even come close.

So, we worldly sinful humans who avoid God with our sin nature have a MAJOR HURDLE that is impossible to overcome. We see a Supernatural universe that God created to reveal Himself, and we see a Supernatural Book that God wrote to see what God wants us to know.

So, now let’s get to what this article is all about. Why does God allow us to have a sin nature? It is all about one thing – relationship. God Himself is a three-in-one Relationship composed of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is a Divine Intimate Relationship within Himself, and His Trinity Relationship has been that way since the beginning. What brings God His greatest joy is “relationship,” starting with Himself from the beginning.

He loves it so much He created angels to have a personal relationship with Himself and with each other. After one-third of God’s angels used their free will to reject God and His best He had to offer, God then created a totally opposite type of being – human beings to also have a relationship with Him but a little DIFFERENT type of relationship with Himself compared to angels.

Angels have a personal relationship with God. We humans have a personal INTIMATE relationship with God. What is the BIGGEST difference between a personal relationship and a personal “intimate” relationship? CONNECTION. What do I mean by “connection”? Since an intimate relationship involves “connection,” how does that work, and how is that possible?

When God created us humans, He obviously knew Adam and Eve would sin and that each human being would then be born with a sin nature through man’s SEED – Adam’s seed. In Genesis 3:15, after Adam and Eve sinned, God is talking with Satan disguised as a serpent who deceived Eve into eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And He tells Satan that He, God, in the future, will come “between” His seed – Satan’s seed – and woman’s seed. Because of mankind’s sin nature, many choose to reject God and follow the god of this world, Satan. Those who choose to reject God’s offer of salvation are following the god of this world and are Satan’s spiritual seed.

This explains why Jesus could not be born from a human father’s seed. He had to have God the Holy Spirit be His biological Father in order to be born of a woman with a sin nature, yet Jesus be born without a sin nature. Our sin nature comes ONLY from the father’s seed. I explained this to show where our sin nature comes from and WHY there is no way to get rid of it. We all sin with our sin nature, which brings us physical and spiritual death. Eternity is about only two things – sin or no sin.

Also, everything that “happens” inside eternity STAYS inside eternity. This is why the angels that fell have no way to get right with God again. There is no physical or annihilation type of death in eternity – only a separation type of death from God. Physical death can only occur inside the universe, which has TIME. Eternity equals LIFE, as there is no death, and the Universe equals DEATH, as “everything” in the universe is DYING. Nothing survives TIME – not the planets and stars and certainly not us.

To keep this article shorter, God sent His Son Jesus, who is also God in the flesh, to earth to die on a cross to pay the price for our sins so that each person who recognizes who Jesus is and what He has done to save us can now enter into a personal “intimate” relationship with God through Himself. Intimate, once again, means a “connection.

When we repent of our sins and invite Jesus to be our Lord and Savior, God the Holy Spirit enters into us, and we become CONNECTED to God through the Holy Spirit. We become “born again,” where we go from being children of Satan to children of God, and we go from being spiritually dead forever to being spiritually alive forever. We still have a sin nature, but we now have a NEW God nature in us also to teach us and guide us as to the things of God. There is then a spiritual war going on inside each believer. Our sin nature battles against our new God nature, but our goal and desire is to serve and please the Lord, for our God nature to overpower our sin nature.

In John 14:20, Jesus says: “In that day you will know that I am in my Father and you are in me and I am in you.”

Trinity God is a three-in-one Divine Personal Intimate Relationship with Himself. God, through Jesus, has now ALLOWED born-again believers to be “connected” to Himself through Jesus. Think of God as Windows and angels as Mac. Angels are separate from God but serve God. We born-again believers are a Windows UPGRADE! We are now a small part of God by being connected to Him through the Holy Spirit.

As human beings, the most INTIMATE personal relationship God has “created” for us is MARRIAGE, where two become one. That is usually thought of as sexual, but it is far “greater” than that. It is two become one in going through LIFE TOGETHER. When done God’s way, the intimacy between a born-again husband and wife is the MOST intimacy God has created for us.

The Bible calls us born-again believers the BRIDE of Christ. Father God wants born-again believers who are now connected to Himself through the Holy Spirit to become a bride and WIFE to His Son, Jesus. And here is the main point of my article. WHY? Why us? Why not angels?

There is a saying that opposites attract. Angels are too much like God in terms of holiness and living with Him in heaven. They have NEVER had it HARD or had to have faith or anything like that. We humans are 100 percent the opposite of God and angels. We are spiritually dead from the get-go.

Do you think it is EASIER for an angel to be SAVED than a human being? Yes, because angels are created SAVED in holy heaven. We humans are born UNSAVED on sinful earth.

In Hosea 2:16-19, God says in that day you will call me HUSBAND and no longer Master, and you shall be my WIFE FOREVER. It doesn’t get any clearer than that. God Jesus is telling us “directly” in His word that He will be our Husband forever, and we will be His wife forever.

It is NOW clear from God’s Word in the Bible that God’s plan is for His Son, Jesus, to have a personal, intimate relationship with human born-again believers. He wants born-again believers to be a two become one intimate relationship with Jesus through His MARRIAGE covenant.

Let me repeat this again because for us to truly comprehend what this means is NOT possible until we enter eternity and learn what it means through experience. But we are NOW TWO BECOME ONE WITH GOD THROUGH HOLY SPIRIT GOD, and we are connected to God FOREVER. WOW!

Angels do NOT have this type of relationship with God. This appears to be why the Bible says we shall rule over angels.

It appears that God wants to REWARD us “previously sinful human born-again believers” with a connection to Himself because of how hard and difficult it is for humans to come to KNOW Him through Christ Jesus.

We know one-third of the angels fell with Lucifer using their free will, but two-thirds of God’s saved angels remain saved. It appears that around only one-third of unsaved humans will become saved, and the remaining two-thirds will remain lost.

Somehow that does not seem fair from our human perspective. But it DOES PROVE how difficult it truly is for humans with a sin nature to overcome that sin nature and enter into a personal, intimate relationship with Jesus.

God obviously knew all of this would happen. Is God saddened that around two-thirds of the human race will be lost forever compared to only one-third of the angels who will be lost forever? You KNOW He is, but the PLEASURE He gains from the one-third that become connected to Himself is far greater than the sadness of the two-thirds that don’t.

Here is the bottom line: God, who is a Three-In-One Relationship and who loves relationships above all things, DESIRES to be connected to the sinful human race through born-again believers who become two become one MARRIED to Jesus while the 7-year tribulation period is going on. We now think of Triune God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but due to what God has done, God is now Father, Son, Holy Spirit with Adopted Children. Technically, we could say that Father God will be our Father-In-Law, and we will be the Wife of Jesus. And I believe Holy Spirit God will be our CONNECTOR and COMMUNICATOR between us and Father and Son God.

I recently wrote a book entitled God’s Plan for Heaven, Eternity, and the Universe Explained. For anyone interested, I will post a link here to the book that goes into a LOT more detail about ALL of God’s plan. I hope you check it out and share it if you think it might help someone to know more about God.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gZ7seyAQmJsrpe5OusC49DYRg3qsCITp/view?usp=sharing

But to realize God has “transformed” some of the world’s sin-natured human beings to become a PART of Him really is beyond human understanding. I mean, who could ever imagine God wanting to do such a thing with ANYONE! We are not sure what all of this will mean in eternity, but we can know that since God did it, it will be more important than we can imagine, and we have ALL eternity to enjoy it.

I hope this article has been helpful and a blessing to you. Some point to around Rosh Hashanah (which occurs in September or October of each year) to be a time when the rapture could possibly occur. If that’s correct, it could even be this year. But the rapture could happen at any moment, and with the prophesied signs already converging and increasing in intensity and frequency, it appears we don’t have long to wait.

Blessings and Maranatha,

David Cogburn

dcogburn789@gmail.com

 

Rest For The Weary :: By Holly Spate

With all that’s going on in the world, I find myself reminding myself that I need to refocus my attention. It is easy to be distracted by everything; it is exhausting as well. The negative news can take a real toll. The bombardment of continuous manufactured noise and planned chaos can have me running to find a quiet corner … a place where I can have a moment of solace and experience much-needed calm and rest.

Everyone needs to find time to recharge … to make a conscious effort to unplug and experience rejuvenation.

This world has no shortage of news and noise, much of which can bear down heavily and cause us to worry, feel worn, and overwhelmed. It can mentally and physically, and even spiritually take a toll if we let it.

We are living in a remarkable time as we see the stage being set and watch in real-time the birth pains the Bible clearly conveys will come. Birth pains that we are seeing come at an alarming rate – fast and furious.

It is clear we are living in the last days, and although it can be an exciting time given the fact that our redemption draweth nigh, it can also be challenging for many if we let our guard down and take our focus off the Savior.

God wants us to confidently continue on, doing good, sharing the hope we have with others, and putting our complete trust and confidence in Him.

He also wants us to be refreshed, rested, and resting in His peace during this time.

How? First, by keeping our eyes on Him. If we don’t guard our hearts and mind, we can easily become weary of doing good. We can make the mistake of taking our eyes off Christ and instead putting them onto our circumstances and what’s taking place in the world around us.

We can become so entrenched in the daily headlines and our forever-long “to-do” lists that we forget to stop, praise, worship, and look up. We have to intentionally decide to unplug and refocus our focus on what really matters.

When we decide to keep focused on what truly matters, we can find much-needed rest to quiet ourselves, and in so doing, we can be at peace. Full reliance on our Heavenly Father allows us the ability to find true rest.

Trusting in Him and His promise to care for us despite what we may feel or see is crucial.

Looking up when it’s often easier to look around is key to getting off the emotional rollercoaster. Deciding to look at life from an eternal perspective, with Christ always at the center, allows us to focus. And, when we practice focusing on the right things, we can enter into His remarkable rest.

The song “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” comes to mind as I’m writing this. Think about the words for a moment:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in His wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace.

When we focus on Him, everything better comes into focus. Amen?

Keep in mind also that the changes we see all around us are not a surprise to our Father. Things may be changing at a fast pace, but our loving Father never changes, ever. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is constant. He is true.

These revelations we hold in our hearts and the promises we carry with us, which He made, are what allow us to truly rest. In Him, we find our comfort, which enables each of us to take a deep breath, to rest, and to sleep soundly when our head hits the pillow.

It is interesting how our heavenly Father makes a point (several times in His Word) concerning resting and being still.

Psalm 46:10 beautifully portrays His desire: “Be still, and know that I am God.”

There are many verses calling us to pause and remember the importance of simply resting:

Proverbs 3:24 “When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid: yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet.”

Jeremiah 31:25-26 “For I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul. Upon this I awaked, and beheld; and my sleep was sweet unto me.”

Psalm 4:8 “I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety.”

Hebrews 4:9-10 “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.”

Matthew 11:28-30 “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Psalm 127:2 “…he giveth his beloved sleep.”

Other verses remind us we can rest in Him because of His promises to His beloved children:

John 14:27 “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

2 Timothy 1:7 “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”

1 John 4:4 “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.”

John 16:33 “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”

Philippians 4:6-7 “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

Psalms 27:1 “The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”

Psalm 23:1-3 “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”

2 Corinthians 12:9 “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

Are you truly resting today? It’s not enough to just catch some sleep when your head hits the pillow each evening. Rather, it’s an intentional unplugging from the world and plugging into the Savior on a daily basis.

The act of simply being still before the Lord and intentionally unplugging from the world and plugging into Him can provide fresh perspective and a reset that rejuvenates.

We can rest easy and sleep well when we remember our Savior is at the helm and is in complete control — of everything!

He wants us faithful. He wants us excited about our relationship with Him. He desires our praise, our worship, our obedience, our trust. He wants us looking up for His soon return. He wants us sharing the hope we have with others. He wants us approaching and viewing each day from an eternal, not an earthly perspective. And, He wants us at peace so we can truly enter into His rest.

Remember: With Him at the helm, we should not be a fearful people.

He is in control of everything, and He invites you to find peace and rest in Him!

Psalm 37:7 says, “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.”

I wanted to share a poem God put on my heart to write many years ago. I hope it brings encouragement to your heart today as you walk the path He’s laid out for you.

Remember, friend: The King is Coming!

Let Him find you obediently serving … well rested, refreshed, and ready.

Galatians 6:9 “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”

spate.holly@gmail.com

Rekindled Strength By Holly Spate

This flower now wilted
I give up to You
To bring it to health
To make it renewed.

To water by grace
Surrounded with care
To bring back the glow of beauty
It usually wears.

For life can be draining
With all its demands
It steals of energy
Through its various commands.

Yet, the flower grows strong
When standing still
Its beauty brilliant
From rest revealed.

To slow this life
For warmth to embrace
To enjoy its purpose
In spite of its pace.

This flower now rekindled
Grown through Your strength alone
Refresh daily my soul
So I may be all for Your own.