Break the Spell
Many of our own personal issues are often too deep and too many to sort through in our minds, especially if they spring from earthly family of origin woundings and the playbook of patterns that typically follows. Seeking the root of our generational woundings can sometimes seem like a journey into a bottomless pit. But I believe there is a root to which an axe can be laid: the delusion of Man’s spiritual separation from His Maker.
Myriads of problems arise from the core issue of separation from Love. For centuries, elements of western Christianity have been teaching that Man was/is banished and cut off from God’s Spirit and presence because of Adam and Eve’s so called “rebellion” in the Garden. But if you read these Genesis passages with fresh eyes and ears (minus an angry over-dub that misrepresents God’s heart) I hardly think you will find a “rebellion.” Read the scriptures carefully in the revealing light of the original language meanings, and you may, in fact, find another story altogether, one quite different to the stuck rhetoric that tends to habitually fall from our cellular memories and lips.
In looking at Man’s beginnings, it behooves us to remember that the Lamb of God was slain from the foundation of the world - before Man even arrived on the scene. (Revelation 13:8) For any grave errors that were made since then, I believe atonement was already appropriated by the One who transcends time - the One is, and was, and is to come. In the fullness of time about 2000 years ago, the Word became flesh and dwelt in (“en” in Greek) or among us, (John 1:14) as a physical embodiment of the Godhead revealed in Jesus Christ. Messiah, the anointed One, healed the sick, raised the dead, and taught us about the Kingdom of God. And He taught us where the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of heaven actually are: within us and at hand, here and now. Jesus also revealed to us the Father, and He reestablished us in our royal, co-heir glory (worth) for the purpose of oneness relationship and kingdom administration. (John 17:21-23, Ephesians 3:9)
Every man’s sin, and every man’s death penalty is officially appropriated to Jesus’s cross and resurrection. In Christ, we are raised, revivified and freed from death’s decomposing restrictions upon our souls. (Death, in Hebrew, is mwuth - contrary to Genesis 1:26 “likeness” - d’mwuth. It’s important to note that “mwuth” also includes the idea of being worthy of death.)
Also important for us to note concerning Man’s origin and makeup is God’s statement in Genesis 3: 22: “Man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil.” Read that again! The word “knowing,” here, means awareness - an ability to distinguish (in this case) between good/evil/light/darkness - the polar extremes of the Earth’s design as well as everything in between. This is altogether a good thing, wouldn’t you agree? And who wouldn’t want to be wholly like “Us?” Surely Man has obtained a tool for his “consciousness in awareness” Earth-school experience through this “like God” knowing and distinguishing ability. (Read more on these details in my book “EDENSONG - Revelations of Identity.” http://www.michelefrancesca.com/books )
As we consider these important scriptural facts along with Paul’s statement of persuasion in Romans 8:38: “NOTHING can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus,” (our Creator) and the statement in Psalm 139, “there is no place I can go from your Spirit” (which some say was written by David, but according to the Midrash Shocher Tov, was written by Adam), we realize that any concept of a Genesis 3 “separation” is a separation of Man from the Garden, for it cannot be a separation of Man from God who is the “one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:6).
To further substantiate this thought (and as EdenSong explains in detail), whatever God created, He spoke to the substance, the essence, of its derivation and life source. “Let the earth bring forth vegetation” God said. “Let the waters teem with living creatures….” Take a fish out of water and it will surely die. Take a plant out of the Earth and it will no longer live or thrive…
When God made (asah - bore, became, appointed) Man, He did as He did when creating all that had gone before: God spoke to the substance and essence of Man’s derivation and life Source. When God made/bore Man, he did not speak to the waters or the earth. When God bore Man, He spoke to Himself. God Himself is the essence and the substance of Man’s derivation. And He blessed His (spiritual) creation/offspring/extension of Himself and called it “very good.” (Genesis 1:30)
THIS is the starting point of the history of mankind: Genesis 1:26. Man, made in God’s image and likeness, blessed and established as “very good.” (Please note that Man’s earth suit was created after his placement near the two Trees in Genesis chapter 2. (I use the words “Earth suit” because of the extraordinary design of this body/soul equipment, which houses Spirit during Man’s time on the planet.)
And so we see from these basic fundamental scriptures, a legitimate separation from our birth Father, the omnipresent Spirit out of Whom we are made (asah - born, become, appointed) is impossible, EXCEPT in one specific way: as a delusion within our own minds.
It’s not difficult to understand that a delusion of separation and the emphasis that we are “born bad” can foster many other debilitating issues within the psyche of mankind such as of rejection, abandonment, estrangement, low self-worth, double-mindedness, self-abasement, insecurity, and more. Such a root within our souls bears the appropriate fruit of one who perceives their self to be cut off from Love. (No wonder we see the repeat of detrimental toxic patterns when true spiritual origin, identity, and worth is not established.)
This delusion of separation is in the blinded mind, which “the god of this world,” this (passing) eon, has helped to perpetuate, ignorantly or otherwise. (2 Corinthian 4:4) The Divine heart cry, “Have no other gods before Me,” (Exodus 20:3) is certainly appropriate considering the myriads of religious versions of Christ our minds entertain that keep us in ‘forms of godliness that deny the Power thereof” (2 Timothy 3:5) and blockade us from the fullness of God that we’re called to experience (Ephesians 3:19).
If the Lamb of God was slain from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8)… If “all have sinned” and missed the mark of their sonship stature in Christ BUT “all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:23-24)… and if God “was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them” (2 Corinthians 5:19), then I truly believe our only work is to wholeheartedly receive this all-inclusive redemption (John 6:29) and to happen as we are, in our Creator’s image and likeness (Genesis 1:26).
Within a receptive moment of grace, the spell of blindness and delusion can be broken; the eyes of our hearts can be opened, and our souls can be saved from the degenerating lie of separation and estrangement. We can be born again through renewed, enlightened minds (Ephesians 1:18) to be who we really are: God’s inseparable offspring. (Ephesians 3:15) With regard to Man’s “banishment from the Garden of Eden, the poorly chosen English translation “banished” in chapter 3 of the Garden narrative tends to lead us toward a deep-rooted, subconscious sense of rejection, while the Hebrew word it replaces is actually shalach, which means “bid farewell, sent, sent forth.” There is a joyfulness to this dispatching and releasing, not an angry slamming of a door.
All this said, the degree to which we experience a salvation of our souls (minds, wills, emotions) correlates to the degree to which we reckon ourselves dead to sin, sickness, death (and its decaying attributes), and how much we truly, experientially consider ourselves complete and alive to God in Christ (Romans 6:11) Why is it, I wonder, that those who choose to fully lay hold (lambano) of Christ’s redemption and their Genesis 1:30 goodness and creative sovereignty are often labeled mystics, heretics, or rebels? Yet exposing the delusion of separation seems to mark us. We no longer fit in to the group that prefers to maintain its identity as “sinner” or unworthy worm (though completely revivified by grace).
Religious begging cloaks and victim mentalities fall from the minds of those who embrace their worth. We truly become in our minds, hearts, and emotions, the “new creature,” the new wineskin, every part of us beloved and empowered by God. As we think of ourselves in our hearts, so are we, (Proverbs 23:7) and so we do happen on Earth as in heaven - “blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly realms” and given “everything pertaining to life and godliness” (God-likeness) (Ephesians 1:3, 2 Peter 1:3). As Jesus is, so are we in this world. (1 John 4:17) We receive fully the statement: “You are the Body of Christ, and individual members of it.” (1 Corinthians 12:27)
Shame is often thrust upon the “wholehearted, single-eyed believer” as he is misunderstood for thinking of himself more highly than he ought, when in fact, in humble willingness, he is allowing his “faith to become effective by the acknowledging of every good thing that is in him in Christ” (or for Christ’s sake) (Philemon 1:6). Such shame must be shaken off, for it too is a needless barrier to experiencing the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:19)
When our minds embrace our sonship stature in Christ, we do as Paul did; we stop evaluating from a human point of view. “At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view,” Paul says. How differently we know him now!” (1 Corinthians 5:16, NLT) “We regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.” (ESV)
Those who make this leap to live life fully in their redeemed Genesis 1:26 identity, clothed in the new wineskin of Christ-conscious mindfulness break the spell of duality’s illusionary matrix game. They allow for the powerful integration of their creative body-soul-spirit vessel and learn to do what they see their Father doing (John 5:19), calling those things that are not as though they are (Romans 4:17). Yet they are often slighted and ridiculed by those who live in mixtures, derided, just as the early reformers were, and burned at the stakes of resistant “Pharisaical” mindsets.
When self-condemnation takes its foothold in the wake of a “mistake,” the diablos of accusation floods in, attempting to sever the holy child of God’s oneness relationship with Source/themselves. Much of this severing accusation comes through the hearts and mouths of those who are in incarcerated in their own mental bondage. That is why many have to step away from the traditional church setting for a time to reset according to their single eye, divine nature. (Matthew 6:22, 2 Peter 1:4) They have to spend time in the “wilderness of Arabia,” no longer to be reminded of their former name “sinner” but reinstated in awareness that they are Christ’s sacred Body on Earth.
Imagine a world in which all people realize their God-birthed identity, design, and purpose. Imagine a world where there’s no delusion of separation from the One who bore us in His image and likeness… where and all know they are connected and beloved, NEVER rejected by their Spiritual Love-Source, Father, and Creator. Imagine a world where all understand their origin and worth so they never look for love in all the wrong places. Imagine a world where all know THE God who never leaves or forsakes His children, not at any times, or under any circumstances. Imagine if the lie of separation was exposed, and the world was filled with people living the abundant life, clothed in Christ and in their renewed right mind.
If mankind’s core issue is the delusion of separation, I believe the greatest expression of that delusion is self-condemnation and low self worth.
When it all boils down, we must know that in Christ Jesus, all shame is removed. And when I say “Christ,” I do not mean a religious thought form about Christ or a religious reasoning or computation (2 Corinthians 10:5) but the ascended Christ in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily. This is the Christ in Whom we are complete (Colossians 2:9) - The Christ in Whom dwells the One God and Father of all (John 17:21) - the Source and Creator who is over all, through all, and in ALL (Ephesians 4:1).
When our consciousness surrenders to the unstoppable Love of God in Christ, our shame is swallowed up; we become and walk as Light in the Lord (1 John 1:7, Ephesians 5:8). We take a final breath as the “old man,” warring against his God-given origin and design.” Spirit, soul, and body greet each other with welcoming joy, making fresh acquaintance, as we plant our beautiful feet of peace upon the Earth ship and realize, “I AM home.”