Shifting Shadows

By Cal Cook

Something happens to us between the age of two and three. Before two we are sweet and innocent and seek to please. Somewhere between two and three we like to see what we can get away with! I can clearly remember both of my boys saying no and reaching for something at the same time…watching me, just to see what I was going to do. Now when I ask my 18 year old son to do something he likes to wait until I freak out and make a big deal of it before he does it! I ask him nicely three, four, sometimes even more times…why does he do that to me? I guess it’s his way of saying, “I’ll do it when I please.” It’s that free will thing running amuck just like it did back in the Garden. Eat of any tree, except the one in the middle of the garden…and they make a bee line right for it!

There has been much debate over the centuries about the idea of original sin and baptism. Many who argue for the baptism of infants speak of washing away the sin of Adam. Yet they almost all agree that Baptism doesn’t prevent you from sinning, or even save you (that is provide salvation) so the statement seems a little silly to me. Yet it does speak of this bent for sin that we all have…

Psalm 51:5 For I was born a sinner—yes, from the moment my mother conceived me.

Yes even in the N.T. it is spoken of:

Ephesians 2:3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

This bent for sinning is at our very core:

Romans 5:12 When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.

It’s been passed down, generation to generation…in our DNA. A desire to be our own God, to choose for ourselves what is right and what is wrong based often times on whether or not it brings us pleasure. Our truth shifts depending on our intentions, like a shadow shifts depending on your relationship with the sun. Not so with the Father of Lights, He is unchanging, never shifting. He gives us a new birth, a new nature, a fresh start through His True Word. It is a gift that is planted like a seed when we first believe…and grows in us as we are transformed by His Grace. He could change us all at once…and in His eyes we are, yet there is a growing and expanding nature to His Grace…just as with His Kingdom. Encompassing more and more as our will aligns with His. Until He brings it all to fruition upon His Glorious Return…

How long must we wait?