Imbalances

     Imbalance is lack of stability. A teeter -totter with more weight on one side than the other is imbalanced. So is old-fashioned scales as one side has more weight than another. A fair measure is when the gold is the same amount on one pan as the known weights on the other pan. Most people are familiar with imbalance when only one person rides a merry-go-around. Imbalance can be felt and is responsible for the loss of speed and that slinging-outward affect. Even more people have experienced imbalance after their car wheel has hit a chuck hole. The imbalance causes vibration. Vibration dissipates centricity  which is a lack of harmony.
      Let's examine wheels for just a moment;  I am going somewhere with that: the intention (design intent) is to make car wheels to perfection. Uniform materials are used and processes developed to maintain uniformity in production. Wheels are always perfect on the design board but real materials produced by human hands and extant processes introduce imperfections. Designers know in advance that wheels will be imperfect and design weights in advance to make them more perfect even though perfection is unachievable in an imperfect world.
     Let's stop now with the physical world and look at God's intention: He designed mankind in the  image of God (Gen 1:27). We are the whole wheel - tire, hub, and rim. He even gave us a valve stem for the Holy Spirit to sort of inflate us for the ride in life.  God also said that he made man in "our image" (Gen 1:26). The plural there is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit which in man transforms into mind, body, and soul. Adam was designed perfectly by the divine Designer; His design intent was perfection - man with no imbalance at all. Better than the best radial tire and magnesium rim, our material was designed to last forever! God's Presence made our flesh non-destructible. We were the most glorious wheel in the universe outside of God Himself!
     God knew that although he designed mankind in perfection to roll in His perfect world, He put one nail in the road to test His design: Will it perform to design intent? With God's design, it could have. However, Satan placed a nail in the road. He made himself to look harmless but when the wheel encountered the seemingly harmless serpent, some of God's Spirit leaked out. Mankind was deflated. Man and woman patched their leaks with fig leaves but to no avail. Imbalance was horrible and they were ashamed! God repaired His "wheels" by use of a special patch. He killed a living animal, took it's skin, and repaired man's soul. It was, however, a temporary patch to last only until God devised a perfect patch. He did that with Jesus.
     Jesus is the perfect Patch. Their was no need for another, and no other patch would do. The material for that patch was God Himself, who bled the adhesive to repair mankind's nature. He not only fixed the original "wheels" but every wheel which ever rolled. On the other hand, most wheels are not aware that they are even imbalanced. The old tire is replaced when the "wheel" comes to the realization that it can't fix itself (as Adam tried) but God can. Spiritually that is regeneration which Jesus said that Christians must be.
     Wheels, ever since Adam, have had an imbalance. His gene made the imbalance, specifically the Y-chromosome. Sin was handed down by Adam. On the other hand, Eve was the mother of all the living, and Jesus - the Patch - was born of Mary whose mother did not willingly sin but was deceived. She had never heard of the nail and it's puncture but Adam had. Adam had failed to tell Eve about the subtlety of the "nail".
     That "nail" was a fiery dart of Satan. He tempted Eve and she consumed, and Eve encouraged Adam to take the nail as well. Ironically, Jesus was nailed to the cross, and took the nail for all of mankind. Adam and Even essentially hammered their own nails with disobedience. The tree of knowledge merely handed them the hammer. Truthfully, Adam and Eve hammered a nail in the Tree of Life as they hammered themselves. Mankind always hammers nails in the Tree of Life, and the fatal one was on Calvary as the Tree of Life was hammered to a manmade "tree" - symbolized by a pole and a cross.
     Sin was the nail. There was a stem on the soul for inflating with righteousness. That condition is divine balance. That's what God desires for all the wheels which He ever made. Righteousness is being like God and performing better than Michelin perfect. Sure, the wheel will never be perfect since it is material, but the Holy Ghost will keep it in balance!
     If the tire on the wheel leaks or the valve imperfect, God's "air" will leak out and the world's air will seep in. That is how the soul works. Any sin which enters in displaces some of God's Spirit inside. The two cannot co-exist. At some time with the entry of sin, the Spirit is displaced and the tire is sent to the dump. It becomes reprobate and of no use to God. However, bad "wheels" are still of use to Satan. He uses them as a pattern for other defective wheels. Bad wheels are then put on a different vehicle and drives the highway to Hell, picking up as many passengers as possible. The Highway to Hell has many nails and underperforming wheels will be destroyed.  The performance is based on love; the correction was restores balance and a harmonious ride.
     Christians are to be in harmony with God and in accord with all the other Christians (Acts 2:1). The vehicle then is driven on God's Highway and each "wheel" (Christians) drive the rough terrain in life seeing the destination as already obtained. It is not a vehicle with one wheel but many, and God uses His Holy Spirit to inflate them all to the right proportions (full) and gears them in harmony with each other. The vehicle will drive less smoothly when one wheel or many loses some of its pressure (Spirit). When some are nearly deflated (of faith) the ride is rough. Some wheels are discarded but the vehicle will still arrive even with just a few wheels.
    The "vehicle" is the Church which is imperishable. It will endure forever because it will always have a few faithful "wheels". Of course, the wheels are both the faithful and unfaithful people.  God wants them all to have some faith, or better yet, great faith. Some will entirely deflate and be discarded into the fire. Having Church is the process and progress of God's vehicle. Life is tribulation - many nails in the road - and God allows Satan to puncture as many as will. That tribulation of the vehicle is the Church. The bad wheels will be sorted from the good and trustworthy wheels. It's a type of threshing floor to see who remains good and faithful "wheels".
     That analogy is for individual and corporate balance. God wants the wheels to remain stable and provides sufficient "air" for a successful ride even over bumpy roads. Satan's law of sin is all the nails he strews on the roads. Not only does he do that to the Church and individuals, but also governments, families, and marriages. What is God's will be fired upon. Tomorrow I will write on family imbalances: which is in terrible imbalance these days!