The Beginning

Have you ever come in to a movie at the very end? Seen the conclusion of the story and didn't get any plot? You don't get the character development; you have no emotional attachment to the characters, but you have an idea of the story because of the way it ends. Every eye in the place is "leaking" because the main character has died (Or even a volleyball that floated away like in Cast Away) but you can't seem to find the emotion, because there's no connection there. On a side note, have you ever tried to conjure up some tears in that situation simply to fit in? I know I have.
Recently, I have been taking a class on the Torah(I know I'm a geek, but it's very interesting to me) also known as the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy). I have been enjoying it immensely, it is so interesting. Everyone knows the major stories in the Old Testament i.e.- Adam and Eve, Noah and the Flood,Moses, Parting of the Red Sea, etc. Usually they know them from kids books, with cute little baby animals piling in to a cute little boat with Noah and his wife looking on approvingly. But have you ever actually thought about that story realistically? It's not so cute, if you think about it. Every human except for eight people and probably thousands and thousands of animals as well were drowned.
Not such a cute little story, but let me get back to my point. So far I am only in to Genesis 9 and already I have gotten an incredible amount of insight in to the background story of Jesus. Yes, Genesis is all a background for Jesus and God's ultimate plan. Suddenly, I understand so much more about Jesus and how amazingly powerful His ministry must have been to those in that time. Our Christian culture focuses entirely on the end of the book. This is a good focal point obviously, but if there's no background in to the whole story, then it has little meaning to anyone who reads it. Like me. I had no idea the huge impact Jesus had on the culture and beliefs, and why He should have such an impact on me personally. Any emotion I portrayed for a long time was because everyone around me was emotional, so I conjured up something to fit in. That does not mean God didn't do actual works in me, I still grew, I still recieved Revelations from the Holy Spirt through the Scriptures, but I was missing something. It still wasn't rooted in me. I had walked in on the end of the movie and knew that Jesus did something incredible, but I didn't know why it was incredible, or why everyone was crying and laughing and dancing and singing and praying and dying because of this Man.
Maybe this is just me. Maybe God made me specifically this way. Because I see others around me who are content just to know the end of the story and thats what they live off of. That's fine, but something in me knew there was more to the story. So I decided to start at the beginning, literally. "In the Beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth." The ending has already been given away to me and so now I am on a journey to find out what this Jesus guy was really saying and why He was so controversial to the culture back then. It has been mind;blowing so far. The course is taught by a believer in Jesus and so everything is put in to context of ultimately leading to Jesus. It's like watching a movie for the second time now that you know how it ends and catching all the parts that are foreshadowing the end.
I have started saying lately, that "every revelation, every word of doctrine or theology about Jesus and God in the New Testament written by Paul or Luke or John came from revelations they recieved through the Holy Spirit from the Old Testament. Every time the word "scriptures" is mentioned in the New Testament it is talking about the Old Testament." I have a ton of revelations from the Old Testament that I would like to share, but because this is getting quite long right now, I will share some in my next blog. God bless everyone!!