Page 60 - eBook Living Water 2

There had also been a “tree of Life” in the garden. If man had
obeyed and eaten freely of every other tree, he would have eventually
eaten of the tree of Life, and entered into God’s eternal family. God
intended for man to be guided by and to trust in His Divine Spirit. In
this way, man would be wholly (holy) prepared to join the heavenly
family for which he had been created. Instead, wanting to be an
autonomous self, through disobedience man came under the power of
sin and separated from God.

In His mercy, God immediately had a plan to redeem man’s
soul back to Himself and back into His rightful family. That plan was
always by faith in God by grace and not by man’s own works. Man
had to learn that He would never be able to obey his way back to God
by his own good works, as many thought they could. He sent His
Son, Jesus, as our substitute, to die on our behalf and pay for our sins,
so we would never have to. He also raised Him from the dead, and in
so doing, raised us up along with Him, replacing our old dead spirit
with the new Spirit of Life in Him. Jesus became our substitute to
pay the debt for our disobedience. For those of us who believe in
Him, God now only sees the Life of Christ in us, not our sins. This
part of our salvation is called justification. He justified us through
faith.

The remainder of our time here on earth will be for the
purpose of progressively seeing Jesus more and more, in ways that
can never be known in heaven. We can experience God on earth as
our strength and comfort through trials and suffering, since those
opportunities will not be available in heaven. As we learn to abide in
Him as a branch abides in a vine, our lives will begin to bear true
fruit, which can fulfill His redemptive purpose of redeeming others
from this dying world and to know Him intimately. This part of our
salvation is called sanctification. He sanctifies us through faith.

The part of salvation that has to do with our leaving this
earthly world with its sorrows, leaving our earthly bodies for new