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Service: Women and the Work of God, Part 1
In our last exercise, Service: Interrupted…By Devilish Design, we learned how Satan, in his drive to establish his kingdom’s rule over the earth, has been at work trying to prevent the establishment of God’s Kingdom on the earth. We discovered that from the beginning of human history to the present time he has… Grown his kingdom by alienating people from God, taking and keeping them captive through sin; Limited the growth of God’s Kingdom by keeping those under his dominion ignorant of God’s goodness, as well as the freedom they could be enjoying as members of His Kingdom; and, Hindered the advancement of the Kingdom of God by means…
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The Fruit of the Fall
When we last saw Adam and Eve—at the end of Vignette #3 of God’s One Big Story—they were being evicted from their Garden home for violating God’s one and only condition in their lease agreement, which was to not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. This tree was one of two special ones located in the middle of the Garden and by partaking of its fruit, they became guilty of disobeying God, sinners with a firsthand knowledge of Evil. This meant that they could no longer stay in the Garden where they would have continued access to the other tree at the Garden’s center, the…
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The Perils of Personal Autonomy
When the last installment of God’s One Big Story ended, here is where we were in the Story: God had created a beautiful world and designed it perfectly to sustain the lives of the people He would soon be creating. When this earthly home was completed, God created Man, a being so much like Himself that he would have no problem in being adopted as one of God’s Sons. Next, God created a Garden Sanctuary where He and the Man could meet regularly for fellowship, and upon its completion, He placed the man in the Garden and designated it as his new home. As it was a grace gift…
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Another Learning Interlude
With Vignette #2 just ending and with Vignette #3 not quite ready to start, we find ourselves here at Stage #1 of God’s One Big Story, once again using this brief interlude between Vignettes to study the Story we have seen so far: looking at it specifically for… Any Life Lessons that this part of the Story has to teach us; Any Contributions that this part of the Earthly Story has to make to the Heavenly Story taking place at the same time; and, Any new Revelations of God that this part of the Story has to offer us. Life Lessons to Be Learned from Genesis 2 Before…
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Tree Treasures, Part II
Trees—who knew there was so much treasure to be found in them; I mean, how were we supposed to know that hidden behind all of those leaves, there would be so much rich spiritual truth just waiting to be uncovered? And yet, as we learned in Romans 1: 19-20, hiding truth in a tree was all part of God’s plan to make known to us such otherwise unknowable things as “…his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature…” through the things that He had made. This would seem to imply that all of creation is just one huge treasure trove of divine truth waiting to be discovered,…
