The work of the Spirit of God did not commence with the “Birth of Christ” or the “Incarnation of God” into a man called Jesus of Nazareth, but in the commencing of creation. The Spirit of God, who is God in plural (Elohim-more than one), was and is the source of all life that exists in the universe. Without the Spirit of God or without His Breath (oxygen) no life, of any kind, can exist. Death occurs when the body (human, animal, bird, or plant) can no longer provide and sustain the housing for the Spirit God has put into everything that lives on earth. The Spirit of God can only live in a healthy and well-maintained body. Deterioration and sin, instigated by human error and transgression, shortens the stay of the Spirit. The ailing and declining of the body are the work of an evil spirit that has separated from God and is responsible for the chaos and for the suffering in the world. God’s Spirit does not make us sick! God cannot make us sick because God is good! It is impossible for God to do anything bad. Please follow my trail, as I understand the Spirit of God at work in all of us, in saint and in sinners. It is the “Spirit” and the “Breath of God” in man that decides and chooses between right and wrong. The idea that a person receives a new spirit when change occurs is not feasible or necessary. It is the spirit in man that has the ability to change and adapt to good or bad:
And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
“Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, And the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.
They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.
Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them!
But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you!
He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.”
When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the desert, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent’s reach. Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent. But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring—those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And the dragon stood on the shore of the sea (Revelation 12:7-17).
On the Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from you infirmity.” Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.
Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath the synagogue ruler said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.”
The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie his own or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?” (Luke 13:10-16).
As Jesus started on his way, a man run up to him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good — except God” (Mark 10:17-18).
Do not be deceived, my dear brothers. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created (James 1:16-18).
There is an “evil head-spirit” in the world with a host of followers who play havoc with all of us. They do more damage than the followers of Jesus and even good worldly people can repair. Jesus, Himself, was sceptical about His own disciples as to whether their faith in Him would survive. “However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8).
How Christmas Came About
The Bible speaks of two creations! In the first act, God created the world with man in it. By definition, God is “Spirit” and “Breath” that energised and released the creative force that brought the universe in place and sustains it. The Spirit of God “hovered” and “supervised” the becoming and the forming of the world. Light was called forth first. God created by commanding all things to appear:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty; darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
And God said, “Let there be light, and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light”day” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day (Genesis 1:1-5).
The earth needed caretakers and God called forth for man to appear and so man did:
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (Genesis 1:27-28).
A mystery surrounds this race that lived in the land of Nod, where Cain found a wife and where God protected him from being executed for murdering his brother Abel. The Nods were nomads and Cain turned them into city dwellers:
Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is more than I can bear. Today you are driving me from the land (Eden), and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”
But the LORD said to him, “Not so; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. So Can went out from the LORD’S presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
Cain lay with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch (Genesis 4:13-17).
The first set of humans were commanded to manage and to subdue the earth, but instead they became wanderers (Nods) (Genesis 1:28; 4:14-16). They, like Cain, had lost their fellowship with their Creator. In Genesis, chapter two, the Lord God (Yahweh Elohim), not the plural Creators (Elohim), took charge and took part of the earth and made it into a paradise for a new man, and the Lord God called it “Eden.” The new man, whom history calls Adam and his wife Eve were made by the Lord God Himself and the Lord God blew His Breath, His Spirit into the man to give him life:
The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.
Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden, and there he put the man he had formed. And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the round—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:7-9).
The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”
The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.
But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame (Genesis 2:15-25).
All this time the Lord God appeared to watch how the couple began to break His Heart.
Stop and Think - Rev Dr. Daniel Kolke 