Wrapped in Trinitarian Love

The essence of the Fall is spelled out in Is. 53:6: “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way . . . ”

Having turned away from God as the source, the center, and the meaning of life, man gropes for other “ways.” Created to stand upright, eye-to-eye with God, he has now bent away like a hunchback spirit seeking his wholeness in the created rather than the Creator.

“For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.” Romans 1:25

The heart of sin is believing that an alternative to total dependency on and intimacy with God exists as a viable way of life, and setting out to find it.

Man in general and the Church in particular have labeled the alternatives man has turned to as “sin”; and in doing so, they have missed what sin really is. Created to submit to the God who loves him, man has turned to other roads for the fulfillment of the devil’s lie. It may be a lifetime before he discovers he was cruelly tricked and is on a path going nowhere but to destruction.

Man has moved from the Spirit, the God in contact with him, to his own flesh; a flesh man instead of a spirit man. He is seeking his meaning in other created things and persons. In that he is severed from the only Source of life, this man is described in Scripture as dead. By this, we simply mean that man is left in a disintegrated wasteland in his head and heart. He is confused as to who he is and where he came from. Through emotional torment, mental disorder, and a disease-prone body, this wreck thinks he can be a god in himself, and seeks to fulfill and promote his latest answer to the confusion.

Webster’s dictionary defines “integrate” as “to be made whole, renew, by adding or bringing together parts.” The Fall has left man without the focus that will bring him together, make him whole. Man knows his need, and searches for a focal point that will draw him into inner harmony. He constantly seeks to find it by adding to his life what he believes must be missing, or by finding some focus that will bring all his inner turmoil together.

One of those additions is alcohol, hence the text in Ephesians (referenced in Part 1). But there are plenty of other vehicles to which we seek to harness our fragmented lives that are a lot more acceptable to society. You must understand that the vehicle through which we grasp for a sense of wholeness does not have to be wrong in itself; the problem is that we have given it a wrong place in our lives.

For example, there is nothing wrong with sports; only one made in God’s image can be involved in them. Yet there are millions who have made their team, or their particular sport, the integrating focus on their life. Their well-being hinges on it. There are cities in the United States that find their identity in their team. Sex is created by God and ordained for procreation and pleasure. But if it is made the focus of life, it becomes an idol, a substitute for God, who alone can give meaning in the madness of this world. Eating is given by God for fueling the body with energy, but it can become the way in which we find peace and tranquility in the stress of life. Another way of saying “compulsive eating” is “idolatry.” Drugs, compulsive television viewing – all these are methods the flesh takes hold of to bring integration into the disintegration of life. With others, a long held bitterness becomes the controller of all their thoughts and actions and, in some devilish way, become their integration point.

Closer to home, it can be the striving for success in a business or chosen profession. Many times in these days it is a ministry, a church building project, or the religious rituals that have long ago taken the place of the God they claim to glorify. Many times it is something we don’t have! We worship at the altar of fantasy, believing that if we had it then our lives would come together. It is the desire for it that holds us now, and drives us on. Some of the most covetous people I have met have been the poor. They have believed that money would solve their problems, and so they lust for it every day.

Only God is big enough to fill man’s inner person. No thing, no person, no relationship can ever do it. Man is dangerous to himself and to all he touches while he seeks to find meaning in the created; only when he has found integration in God can he safely enjoy all of life.

And so, says the Ephesians 5:18 text, do not seek to find wholeness, harmony, and focus in alcohol that will only waste you. Find it in being filled with the Spirit. And please pay special attention to this … in the New Testament, living in the condition of Spirit fullness was not equated with being a member of the fanatical fringe … and it was certainly a lot more than some kind of spiritual gift like speaking in tongues! Being filled with the Spirit is being fully human, fully alive … spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and even physically. It is the way man was made to be.

(to be continued)