One Small Seed Newsletter – Edition #265, May 2023
Greetings in the name of all that is Holy,
Holiness is an attribute of God, who is our supreme example and is Sovereign in every aspect of His Being. The “name” refers to his attributes and every attribute is a part of his name. Every part of that name he has given us the opportunity to call our own. He made this possible through the attribute of Love and the attribute of Longsuffering when he sent his only begotten offspring (Jesus) into the environment of mankind to die, to reattach the fellowship of God to the souls of mankind. In modern hillbilly language this is a way of saying, plugging in the light cord that Adam and Eve unplugged in the Garden of Eden. By the way, this is what the devil is trying to do in our day, but we can be victors if we resist his attempts by drawing nigh to God the Omnipotent One.
Another list of God’s attributes is listed in Philippians 4:8, “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things”. By giving this list Paul is defining the word Holiness.
In another place (Galatians 5:22-23 there is another list of attributes that contribute to the value of the name and supplies an abundance of blessings when we submit ourselves to them. “But the Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance against such there is no law”. If we live by the compulsion of these righteous fruit, our spirit being is strengthened and enabled with God’s divine omnipotent power to resist our greatest enemy, Satan.
Some may say, I don’t believe there is a devil or Satan, because I have never seen him, but when was the last time you saw the air that we breathe? Since it is a natural product of God’s creation, which he gave to man for an environment for his existence while on Earth, it can be unstable as the oceans. This is why the Bible says that the devil was the prince of the air, because it is an unstable factor of life that can be swayed by good and evil, but it is up to us to resist, with our spiritual being, the influences of a natural will and draw closer to the Spirit of Truth.
The Apostle Paul gave us a clue in Romans 1:20 “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse”. This verse points out the fact that there are things that are not seen (especially in Paul’s day) that affect us (the general population of man) but we shouldn’t be oblivious to their presence. The key in the verse is, “are clearly seen, being understood”.
If you live on a sandy beach because you enjoy the sea breezes that blow, you should also know or have the knowledge of the fact that the gentle breeze can go from one mile per hour to 180 miles per hour. This is a fact that is not seen often but it should be understood because the knowledge is passed down from one generation to the next. This same invisible force affects someone who wants to sail out twenty miles in a sailboat. Compare these things to someone who builds their house close to a volcano, which hadn’t erupted for several years. A good example was passed to me early in life, when I was old enough to understand, that my grandfather was killed in a slatefall in a coal mine, when he was twenty seven years old. The invisible factor in coal mines was gravity beside the presence of gases, the possibility of having no oxygen and etc. In his case it was gravity that was pulling at any object over his head, that hadn’t been stabilized with props, and the affects of the invisible took his life.
Maybe there should be a class in any learning institute that is titled “The invisible things in the natural environment”. The invisible things are the woes of darkness that combats the visible things that are exposed by light, understanding, and truth. Those that say that “ignorance is bliss” are asking for the downside of life. They are asking for the cursings of the Satanic forces to overcome them. Those that sow to the wind will reap the whirlwind. God created the universe, but he didn’t establish the affects to be evil or good. He left this up to man to determine for himself how to judge what was good or evil; of course mankind failed miserably.
In the garden, or pleasure of God, Adam and Eve were living in innocence with joy and peace. But God had given to them a mind to reason, to think, to study cause and effect and to become wise. They even were given a law and a consequence. From that point it was all downhill for them. They rebelled against the law and the invisible thing (death or separation from God) rushed over them and the rest of humanity forever. They pulled their natural mind down to the same degree while leaving their spiritual mind in a void. But God knew what was going to happen all the time, so in the same environment they had pulled themselves down to, he promised a day of Jubilee.
Genesis 3 (which is a lesson itself), verse 15, God put a curse on the serpent and said “and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed (the carnal mind) and her seed (the spiritual mind of Christ); it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heal”. This verse is to explain the coming of the Messiah to reconcile all of mankind and give to them the opportunity to live in God’s pleasure again. The opportunity came on the day of Pentecost, fifty days after the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. Whosoever will, may come. Amen.
Your friend in Christ,
Rodney Roberts