How to minister like Jesus can be pretty deep and yet pretty simple. If you have been following this series of posts, it will give you a deeper understanding. In simple words, God was well pleased with His creation of mankind. They had everything they needed. I will also note that there was no death or decay in their lives at this point. But then everything came undone. Let’s take a look at what did in fact come undone.
What Led To Coming Undone
I started this series How to Minister Like Jesus with our (you and me) purpose, the Purpose of Mankind. We were created to be in relationship with God. To reflect and reproduce His image, and more. Then last week we covered The Fall of Mankind. With that, we looked at the consequences of that fall.
The consequences include a now broken relationship with God: God’s image through us becoming shattered; death and decay being set in motion; the rule of Satan unleashed and how world(ly) thinking (apart from God’s word) is now prevalent due to Satan’s influence. So with these consequences in force, sickness is a natural consequence. We’ve come UNDONE.
UN…
In becoming UNdone, we have become Unregenerative, Unforgiving, Unhealthy, Unprotected, and now experience Untimely death. Becoming undone is summed up in sickness. Sickness is summed up in five areas of our UNdone lives.
Unregenerative
UNregenerative in my words, “sickness of our spirit.” We are not whole because in our fall we were alienated or separated from God. The results of this are confusion, and a lack of clarity, significance, and purpose. This causes guilt, shame, fear, and emptiness.
Unforgiving
To me, this is what I will call the ‘sickness of our emotions and our mind.’ When separated from God and having an unregenerated spirit, our emotions and thoughts get out of whack. This is when people begin lashing out, harboring bitterness, having resentment toward others, and even being angry with God. Turmoil ensues over our memories. When others hurt us, it can spiral out of control.
Unhealthy
This is something we more easily see, sickness of the body. This really needs no explanation as we are all aware of the breakdown of our bodies. Some folk’s bodies break down way sooner than others. Whether through accidents or infections, diseases, viruses, and who knows what else, many people experience the malfunctioning of various body parts.
Unprotected
We have left ourselves open to the dark side. In blunt terms, we have left ourselves open to the influences of demons. Or in a nice way, we have left ourselves open to worldly thinking. This comes pretty simply. It comes through lies, temptations, infliction of sickness or injuries, inciting wrongs, and the control of others. Since unprotected, sin is repeated over and over. After a while, it all seems to make sense because we justify it. When you catch yourself doing this, beware!
Untimely
This specifically refers to death. Death came through sin. Mankind was originally meant to live forever with God. But now according to Hebrews 9:27, everyone has an appointed time to die. But know this – the devil is trying to do everything in his power to take your life from you before your appointed time (John 10:10).
Wardrobe Malfunction, “She’s Come Undone.”
This heading has several references some are not aware of. The first part of this phrase we are familiar with in our own lives probably at some point, but also with famous people. Quite literally, if we have a button or zipper fail, we’ve come undone! But also the Guess Who’s song, She’s Come Undone. A sad song about a girl who didn’t realize she was coming undone until it was too late.
What is the parallel of this? We have life malfunctions. We do things not realizing it until it’s too late. The consequences are not good. We’ve come undone.
Undone Wrap-up and Next Week
It’s essential to understand what our original purpose was and what has been undone due to the fall of mankind. This will give us a greater understanding of Jesus and how to minister like Jesus.
Stay tuned in for the next two week’s blog posts. The next two weeks’ topics are:
- The Good News! and,
- Restoration!
Challenge of the Week
What needs to be fixed in your life this week before your life goes any further? Is it your spirit? Your need of a new (born again) spirit? Is it your soul, mind, and emotions related to unforgiveness with either yourself or toward others? What about your body, your health, and your need and desire to be whole? How about living in fear and feeling unprotected and needing security? Maybe it’s all of the above including the fear of untimely death. These are the issues. Discuss them with the Father. Discuss them with those who follow Jesus and who have much wisdom (experience and knowledge) from the Word of God. The Father has an answer for you. So be it!
