Opus 2026-360: A Moment Is Not Forever

There is a danger in spiritual snapshots.  We know that is true in our own lives but it is also true in the Bible.  Take for instance Solomon.  He is remembered for his wisdom.  When God gave him the opportunity to choose any gift he wanted, that is what he asked for.  It worked well at first.  Later on, not so much but that is the topic of another day.

What I want to recognize as wisdom and humility comes early in his reign.  He had been told he was to build the temple and was embarking on that challenge.  What hit me as I read was this observation of Solomon:

(2Ch 2:6 KJV)  But who is able to build him an house, seeing the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain him? who am I then, that I should build him an house, save only to burn sacrifice before him?

He had a realistic understanding of the greatness of God and the futility of trying to build Him a house that would contain Him.  In fact, notice the real purpose he lays out for the temple.  It was a focal point for us to come to so that we could offer our sacrifices.

I know there are lots of pictures in the Bible of God’s presence in the temple.  You can’t take away from that but Solomon wisely points out that God was making allowance for our needs rather than His own.  That is typical of the God we serve.  His majesty is beyond us.  His glory would consume us.  His knowledge would trip all the circuit breakers in our brain.  Yet He knows that we need something within our comprehension to grab hold of.  In His plan the temple was that place for Israel.  Since Pentecost the Holy Spirit has been available.  Some say we become the temple.  In Revelation we have this,

(Rev 21:22 KJV)  And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.

Will the temple be rebuilt?  I am not sure why it would need to be but I am not a member of your brand of eschatology.  I can live with these simple Bible statements.

homo unius libri

Opus 2026-323: Glad You Asked

If you attend any format where the Bible is being taught and people can ask questions you know that some of the same topics keep coming up.  I came across a verse in my reading that addresses one of those.

(1Ch 16:26 KJV)  For all the gods of the people are idols: but the LORD made the heavens.

Think back to the Ten Commandments.  What is the first demand of God?

(Exo 20:3 KJV)  Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

The question that arises is, “Is this a declaration that He is the only God in existence or simply a declaration that you are to make Him the top god?”

Of course the answer to that often seems to simply be, “Yes.”

Than we come to passages like I Chronicles which seems to get into more detail.  Other gods are just idols.  That is explained in further detail when you look in Psalms.  Look at Psalm 115 and start in verse 4.  Oh, you don’t have a Bible with you?  All right.  I will print it out.

(Psa 115:4 KJV)  Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.
(Psa 115:5 KJV)  They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not:
(Psa 115:6 KJV)  They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not:
(Psa 115:7 KJV)  They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat.
(Psa 115:8 KJV)  They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.

Notice how idols are described.  This appears in several places.  The earliest I could find was,

(Deu 4:28 KJV)  And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.

So, are the other gods really gods or just wishful thinking on the part of men?  My vote is on wishful thinking.

homo unius libri

Opus 2026-313: Not a Cosmic Engineer

Just the act of creation puts the God of the Bible outside the mold that Calvinists insist He fit into.  While all Christians would maintain that God is unchanging, too many don’t think through what that means.  In typical Biblical logic, unchanging does not mean unchanging.  It refers to His character and attributes.  It means that He will never morph from being a Mother Teresa figure into an Attila the Hun.  It does not mean that He will always prefer blue cheese to thousand Island.

Just creating brings about change.  When God created the heavens and the earth He was not just taking some play dough and reshaping it.  He was not Goodwill repurposing what was discarded from a previous creation.  At least we don’t think so.  He created the heavens and the earth out of nothing.  The entire process was bringing new things into the existence.  It caused change in God because it brought change to His before-time environment.

Without creation God is better defined as an engineer than an Omni. Without change He is coming up with nothing new just reassembling the Lego blocks.

Don’t let people distract you with technical terms like immutable.  You don’t need to read very far in the Bible to see God changing His mind.  Do your own research and don’t turn off your brain or memory.

homo unius libri

Opus 2026-294: OCD Theology

I make no claim to being a pyschologist or understanding all of the categories of human behavior they have developed to sell books and impress laymen.  My understanding of OCD comes from applying it to my daughter and her compulsive use of sticky notes to organize her life and the life of those around her.  To be fair she has made wonderful progress but the omnipresent sticky note was once part of our family tradition.  

My sense of OCD is someone who has to have everything in its proper place.  Variation is sin.  If the wind blows your note across the room and attaches it somewhere else it is immediately noted and dealt with.  Sometimes that dealing is with a smile, sometimes a frown, but it is dealt with.  

Too much of our historic theology falls into this type of mental condition.  I am not against organization.  I am all in favor of reason and logic.  The issue comes from the first sticky note.  Where do you place it?  Are you willing to move it if it becomes clear it doesn’t work as a foundation?  In this I am much more aware of the mistakes of others than I am of my own suppositions.  I am sure that mine are clear to you.  The biggest difference is, of course, that my foundations are solid and yours are rocky at best.  Maybe I should say “rocking”.

I am at a time in life where the words of Socrates in his Apology are digging in and not letting go.  He said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”  Of course he did not really say that.  He spoke Greek and it probably had nuances that the English misses but we can get the idea and benefit from it.  

I am reflecting on a passage that was quoted on Sunday.

(Rom 9:15 KJV)  For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.

Of course this was understood in the standard Calvinistic way.  It was supposed to emphasize the omnipotence of God and our total lack of input into salvation.  Understood correctly that is a foundation we need.  Understood in the standard way it is a blatant attempt to control the God who is claimed to be uncontrollable.  

What is the problem?  Take a look at the preceding verse,

(Rom 9:14 KJV)  What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.

Calvinists love the KJV because of the way it is translated.  Look at another translation to get a bit of a different angle,

(Rom 9:14 NAS77) What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be!

I don’t know about you but I tend to connect righteousness with morality.  By definition God cannot be unrighteous since He is the one who sets the standards.  Actually that is a big philosophical/theological question that we don’t have energy for today.  Is murder wrong because God says so or does God say so because it is wrong?  

Justice is about making judgments.  It is about following the principles and apply a response.  To me that means that God is going to be a being of reason and use logic in His decisions.  He has a reason for whom He extends His grace to.  There is a basis for His choice.  It is clear that we do not earn it by banking enough merit.  Nothing we could do can atone for our sin.  Only Jesus could do that.  But I have a hard time accepting that a righteous or just God is going to decide to ignore blantant, in-your-face rebellion and just say, “Oh, well.”

Yes, God will extend Mercy to whom He wants.  He will not accept the limitations you put on Him.  He will not let you, or me, put Him in our own prepared box just because it fits our system of theology.  He is the great I AM.  As such He has the final say.

Eternity is going to be a glorious time of learning.

homo unius libri

Opus 2026-264: Does God Have Needs?

The classic answer is that such a thought is heresy.  To declare that God has needs implies that He is incomplete and that makes Him less than the God of the Bible.  Okay.  I won’t make this a statement of doctrine…but I will speculate.

Who are we to declare that God does not have needs?  He is the one who is God.  Sure we were created in His image and that is why we have the potential to ask stupid questions, but that does not make us the Authority.

Did God create us because He craves the unpredictable?  Is that why free will exists and we are confronted with the philosophical problem of evil?  We are obviously not on God’s level but I would imagine that even God might get a bit bored creating universes that are predictable.

My son was postulating that the current discoveries in quantum physics said that even the laws of nature can vary.  To me these ideas are just theories and speculation but he has a point.  I am not confident that some of these things can be proven but evidently they are finding that physical matter acts differently when observed by a conscious mind.  How you would prove that is beyond me but let’s go with that.  It would mean that even the “evolution” of the universe would vary if God is watching.

This could be a feature and not a bug.  We tend to think it limits God’s omni attributes but again, that is our opinion, not necessarily His.  It may be why there are so few who will find the narrow gate of salvation.  It would be the result of a sifting process that produces Olympic athletes with the millions of wannabes dreaming in front of the TV set.

I believe that we bring joy to God’s heart by free will choices to love and obey.  Does God need that joy?  I don’t know that I would go that far but it would seem that He wants it.

homo unius libri

Opus 2026-259: God Filters

I think we all would admit that there are large numbers of people who refuse to listen to what God is trying to tell them.  In Romans, Paul talks about how the glory of God is obvious in creation.  People, if they are listening, will see that there is something bigger than us, what we would call God.  Having said that they refused to listen to His clear statements in scripture and to the voice of the Holy Spirit, trying to guide their lives.

What I hadn’t thought about in those terms before, is that God may also have a filter where He does not listen to what we say.  I have often stated that God does not hear the prayers of the unrighteous.  I think we can document that in several places.  One place,

(Jer 7:16 KJV)  Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear thee.

And even in the book of Proverbs, it seems to say that after a lifetime of thumbing our nose of God if we then decide to get desperate and calm on Him there’s a good chance He will thumb His nose at us.

(Pro 1:26-28 KJV)  I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.  Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:

So I was thinking this morning about how grateful I am for the blessings of God and, the best way I can explain it is, I am emoted my feelings towards Him.  I have to believe that when I do that He picks up on that and I like to think it brings Him pleasure.  If that’s true, and it is a big if, God would also be receptive to the pain, agony and suffering of human beings.  Which brings me to the idea of filters.  I think it’s very easy to accept the idea that God filters out the agony that people go through when they are responsible for the agony.

Consider the difference between a masculine approach and a feminine approach.  Women tend to feel your pain.  Men want you to walk it off.  I mean that as a generalization, not a stereotype.  Women tend to be more into feelings and emotions.  Men tend to be into action and strength.  One of the problems we’re having in education and society is a whole is that it’s becoming feminized.  We’re more concerned about someone’s feelings than we are about whether they got the job done and did it right.

God is love.  We know that.  Words like loving kindness and mercy are common in the Old Testament.  The first part of the definition of love is patience, and if God is love than God is patient.  There are all indications that God wants to give people blessings and the joys of life.  There are even more indications that those people keep filtering out God’s directions and insist on going their own way.  Was Israel deported?  We all know it was.  The northern Kingdom was so evil that we don’t even know what happened to them.  The southern Kingdom seem to have enough of a remnant left that God brought them back later.  The reason for all this is their continued and repetitive insistence that their way was more important than God’s way.

So I would submit for today that yes, God filters out a lot of the pain and suffering that people go through.  There’s not much He can do for us if we refuse to respond.  He can make all kinds of offers, promises, procedures, priorities but if we don’t respond, there’s little He can do to solve our problems.

I for one want to do everything I can to make it so that God will be blessed by my obedience and my attitude.

homo unius libri

Opus 2026-235: Morning Crutches

To be honest, every morning does not start with me leaping out of bed with praises and songs bursting from my lips.  Often, usually, I am in a state of neutrality.  I am somewhere between mildly positive and vaguely negative.  Because I don’t want to drift I try to find habits that will get me moving in the right direction.

Today in my usual routine I was reading Psalm 33.  As I read I was splashed with views of the God I worship.  It was a joyful picture.  After reading the entire chapter and looking over some of the terminology, I found myself thinking about how Yahweh contrasts with other gods of the world.  I will confess I have not studied those gods with any depth but I have been listening to discussions of them all my life.  They have a different set of adjectives.

The adjectives I would use to describe the gods of Greece, Scandanavia, nomads of the steppes, Africa and such start with powerful, that is a given, but from there the choices go downhill.  Can you say narcissistic?  How about capricious?  Childish also fits the bill.  They definitely tend to be immoral by the standards of the Bible.

I would assume there are some deep thinkers in their followers who go beyond that but that summarizes my knowledge.  When I say “deep thinkers” I mean people like Marcus Aurelius who wrote a famous book on Philosophy, Meditations. Being deep does not mean being consistent.  Depending on where you read, he sounds in one place like a traditional Roman with the fickle gods and at another place like a Bhuddist who believes in reincarnation.  Some places he writes like a monotheist and even sound like a Christian.  You can find anything you want, kind of like Alice’s Restaurant.

When I think of Yahweh as He is revealed in the OT and in the person of Jesus I think of a whole different set of words.  Yes, you have power but from there you follow a different branch.  In the OT a key concept if loving kindness and mercy.  The NT has agape, love.  Love is defined with such words as patience and kindness.  These are not momentary weaknesses like the Roman gods but basic parts of His personhood.

I rejoice that I live in a society that was at one time based on those values.  Whether the future will continue that way or we will descend into the world of Conan the Barbarian remains to be seen.  Either way I expect that the real, living God will not change and His promises to the faithful remnant will stay in effect.

homo unius libri

Opus 2026-231: Strong Silent Type

Why don’t we experience regular conversations with God?

By regular I mean two things. First, regular in the sense of frequent and commonplace.  Second, in the sense of conversations that are oral and clear.

I started thinking about the times that God seemed to meet with specific individuals.  The Patriarchs would be an example.  He spoke verbally with Abraham at the beginning.  Later the trinity stopped by his tent for lunch.  God wrestled with Jacob.  He had regular dialogues with Moses.

One example of regular communication would be Jesus.  We have no credible accounts of His childhood so it must have been as normal as you could expect from the Incarnate One.  Remember how he went to Mary and Martha’s house for dinner.  Children would come and climb on Him.  When you think about it there were large parts of Jesus’ life that we have no record of.  So I guess you could say that God did have regular communication.

I am aware that God does communicate.  We have the written word, interpreted by the Holy Spirit.  We have the Holy Spirit Himself who can speak to us.  I am aware of that.

Why does God not make appearances more often?  I would suggest that it is for our benefit.  I can’t claim to have divine insight into the effects of such access but God, who is capable of appearing, refrains.  As in so many questions I have the concept of being created in His image and having free will comes to the fore.  God wants us to serve out of love and personal decisions, not because we have been coerced into it.  That is, at least, my opinion.  God may feel different about it and I wait to learn.

homo unius libri

Opus 2026-221: Reciprocity

I continue to meditate on the attributes of God.  I am not sure I am making any progress.  At times it is like trying to climb the sheer face of a mountain.  You know there is a peak.  You can get different clues about it but you just can’t get very far off the ground.  Part of that is because He is God, with all that involves, and you are not.

At the same time I wonder how much reciprocity there is in the statement that we were created in His image.  We look at Him and strive to grow in His image.  How much of understanding ourselves can help us understand the Almighty.

Personhood is an example.  I flinch when I say that God has three persons, not because of the
mystery of the trinity but because it seems so insulting to limit Him by what we would consider a mark of humanity.  But again, we were created in His image so maybe the concept that we are individual, self aware, free willed beings comes to us because we are like Him.

Curiosity would not be one of those but creativity might.  Remember what curiosity did to the kitty cat.  Animals have curiosity.  Creativity not so much.  I was watching a video that said some animals make tools.  Okay.  They learn to push a stick down a crack to force a bug out.  They have been doing that trick as long as there have been bugs hiding in the ground.  When will they turn the stick into a spear?  When will they glue to sticks together at one end to make tweezers?

I can communicate with God.  I cannot communicate with a worm.  That should tell me something about myself, God and worms.

The quest to know and understand God continues.  It will be eternal and that’s a good thing.  It does not mean eternal frustration but eternal discovery.

homo unius libri

Opus 2026-201: Making Use of Leftovers

I just finished reading the passages relating the exploits of Jehu in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. What I had missed in earlier reading was the things he did to advance the northern kingdom. I had only had the evil in my mind.

2 Kings 10:26-32 (KJV) 26 And they brought forth the images out of the house of Baal, and burned them. 27 And they brake down the image of Baal, and brake down the house of Baal, and made it a draught house unto this day. 28 Thus Jehu destroyed Baal out of Israel.

But that was not good enough and we should take that lesson to heart. Here is what God had to say,

29 Howbeit from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, Jehu departed not from after them, to wit, the golden calves that were in Bethel, and that were in Dan. 30 And the LORD said unto Jehu, Because thou hast done well in executing that which is right in mine eyes, and hast done unto the house of Ahab according to all that was in mine heart, thy children of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel.

God was willing to work with Jehu but the man did not want to make a full commitment.

31 But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the LORD God of Israel with all his heart: for he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, which made Israel to sin. 32 In those days the LORD began to cut Israel short: and Hazael smote them in all the coasts of Israel;

God is not willing to settle for leftovers. Picture having the president of the United States over for dinner and you serve him reheated tuna casserole. Pick your president. Make it someone you want to impress. It is a strong possibility he will get the impression you were not doing your best. Being polite he might not say anything. Don’t count on the same from God because He can see your heart.

God will not be content with second place. He doesn’t want your spare time. He knows half-hearted when He sees it. Take a lesson from Jehu and if you are trying to get by, reconsider. Eternity is a long time.

homo unius libri

Opus 2026-172: Quite an Accomplishment

I sometimes wonder if we can make God weary.  I understand that God is omnipotent, and that the thought of us wearing Him down is rather ridiculous, but at the same time, I wonder if there isn’t a bit of peevishness or frustration the creeps in at times.  What brought this to mind was some of the prayer request that we are constantly sending up to Him.  I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but most of the prayer requests that are brought up have to do with the illness of people who are not part of the congregation.  We hear about cousins and friends and distant relatives that are going through really difficult times . Our heart goes out to them.  We put them on our prayer list.  And we pray for them.

Which brings up that eternal question, “Don’t you think God already knows about this?”

On Wednesday nights we are working through Jeremiah.  We started months ago and that caused me to read through the book plus some of the other prophets.  One of the things that comes through repeatedly is the incredible patience that God has towards people who think they are in the inner circle.  He is continually calling on Israel to repent, and with some basic guidelines.  He offers to forgive.  He offers to restore.  He bends over backwards for a bunch of unworthy and ungrateful semi pagans.  

I’m not sure which would be more frustrating. Our prayer request or our disobedience.

When given a chance I will ask about the spiritual condition of the person.  Sometimes there is no knowledge.  It troubles me that it doesn’t seem to be the concern.  What is the gain if someone is cured of cancer and continues in disobedience?  I guess it gives them another chance to repent but the destination has not been changed by a healthy scan.

homo unius libri

Opus 2026-152: Uncharted Revelation: God Colors

In verse 2 of Revelation 4 you come across a description of “one” who is sitting on a throne in heaven.  You assume it is God but don’t get a confirmation until the last verse in the chapter.  In verse 3 John tries to describe what he sees,

(Rev 4:3 KJV)  And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.

We already went over the earlier description of Jesus which did not make sense and we will have more confusion on that later but close your eyes and think about the picture we have of God, I assume the Father, at this point.  I had to do some research because I had never heard of a sardine stone.  Fish, yes, stones no.  It might help to see modern translations changing it to sardius or camelian.  That gave me something to go on.  

The sardius stone is in a range from orange/brown to what I would call redish/chocolate.  That is an interesting way to describe God on the throne.  That made me check the other colors.  I thought of jaspar as green but it comes also in red, brown, blue and yellow.  Emeralds usually have some kind of blue to them.

So what does God look like?  Not a lot of detail but a lot of color.  He certainly doesn’t look like the vision on the Sistine Chapel.  I am afraid if the KKK ever read this with their brain turned on it would have ended up fried.

It may not make any sense but it is interesting.

homo unius libri

Opus 2026-132: The Change That Isn’t

I continue to think about God changing His mind and yet claiming to not change.  I reprint a key verse to refresh your memory.

Malachi 3:6 (KJV) For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.

At this point I am toying with how someone can change and yet not.  It is because the basic value remains the same but the environment in which it is expressed looks for a loophole.  If you are charged with raising responsible children and keeping them alive in the process, then the child might focus on the idea that you are there to see that they grow safely and ignore the real purpose of the guardian.  So the child might do something that is mildly dangerous but is necessary to develop an independent adult.  The guardian might let them fall out of a tree or skate into a wall.  When it happens the child might accuse the guardian of failing them.  The guardian did not change.  His purpose remained steadfast.  The accuser was manipulating the situation for their own purposes.

This is what some people do with God.  They take the part of His character that they think will get them what they want and think they are so clever they can manipulate Him into a corner.  It is like eating a bag of candy that says “fat free” and getting upset when you gain weight.

The nature of God does not change.  The purpose of God does not change.  The fact that His response varies reflects that lack of change.  I like to say that God does not play games.  While that is still my view I would accept that when He does join the game He plays by the rules that He wrote, not the ones you want to play by.

homo unius libri

Opus 2026-103: Celestial Changing Room

One of the controversial concepts we have in the Christian world is, “Does God change?’  It’s not a fair question because it has so many nuances and so many different understandings that it became useless.  As in the question of, “It all depends what the meaning of ‘is’ is…”  This all depends on what you mean by change and what aspect of God is changing.

We have this simple statement,

(Mal 3:6 KJV)  For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.

That could be taken in a simple, literal, and biblical sense and the way it is quoted shows that it is taken that way.  What confuses me is the refusal to keep reading.  Just a few verses further we have the familiar,

(Mal 3:10 KJV)  Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

Notice that God is saying if Israel will obey then He will change what He is doing.  Change?  Sounds like it to me.

You also run into problems in other places.  Take for instance, the announcement by God in Genesis 6, 

(Gen 6:6 KJV)  And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

That seems clear to me but my son said his pastor went to great lengths to say something different.

He then proclaimed He is going to destroy the entire human race and just a few versus later, we find that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.  Either these blanket declarations are hyperbole, God wasn’t aware of Noah, or God changed his mind.

A way of approaching that occurred to me today is that we keep wanting to look at God in His dealings with us as a complete picture.  That cannot be.  God is so universal and complex that we can’t even begin to approach His total reality.  Jesus told us that if we have seen Him, we’ve seen the Father, but even there we don’t know the depths of Jesus.

We see what we need.  God never changes in the sense that all of the things that we need are present, along with all of the things that the rest of humanity needs, and everything that the universe needs, and all those things that God has in reserve that we will never know about.

So, no, God doesn’t change.  What changes is our view of him and what he chooses to reveal to us.  It sounds like word games to me and it probably is but the question remains.  I hope you find an answer for yourself.

homo unius libri

Opus 2026-016: It’s Not the Same

Did God create the world for us, for Himself or for both?  I’ve always assumed that the world was made for us to subdue and act  as stewards.  But this thought came to me in the dark of the morning.  It may be God enjoys nature as much as we do.  That may be why he created it the way he did.

Notice the first part of this verse,

Genesis 3:8 (KJV) And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.

I’ve always had the impression that God would come and walk through the garden on a regular basis and spend time with Adam and Eve. Of course, that impression may come from the song that we often sing, 

I come to the garden alone, 
While the dew is still on the roses;
And the voice I hear, Falling on my ear, 
The Son of God discloses.

    And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
    And He tells me I am His own;
    And the joy we share as we tarry there,
    None other has ever known.

But it’s supported by these concepts, here, of walking and the cool of the day.

I wonder if God still enjoys walking in the world that He created.  Is it better than cruising the galaxies?  I’m thinking that perhaps the sin of Adam and Eve as it spread through all the creation, polluted creation in such a way that God gets no joy in walking through it.  I remember working one summer in Sequoia National Park.  It was an awesome experience.  What would happen if there was a fire that burned out all those ancient redwoods and left nothing but charcoal and rubble?  Somehow, I don’t think I would enjoy the experience of walking through it.  The location would be the same.  The atmosphere would be totally different.

People are waiting for the return of Jesus.  We have the picture of the new heaven and the new Earth.  We envision the New Jerusalem descending from heaven and we see the child playing with the viper.  It is a glorious picture that we anticipate.  Perhaps God looks forward to it also.

Can God come down and walk on the surface of the Earth now?  I would answer that with a big resounding, “Of course He could.  Who’s going to tell Him He can’t?”  The thing is where before He came to enjoy not only the fellowship of His creatures, but the surrounding of the rest of creation.  It’s very possible that He will not be able to enjoy that again until it is restored.

It’s just not the same.

May you find it encouraging that God is looking forward to restoring His creation as much as we are.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-575: The Push of God

How can God be considered pure, holy, righteous, and still interact with sinful man and a fallen world?  You would think the mirror contact with human beings in their natural state would introduce an element of pollution.  That is certainly the way it is in our experience.  Think of the plants that produce computer chips.  Think of laboratories that are doing research on viral contamination.  The big problem is being touched by that which is deadly poison.

My thinking is that the solution for God is the same one that the scientist have used in some of their laboratories.  I’m not sure what the actual term is, but I think of a concept of a positive pressure atmosphere.  In many labs, they make sure that the air pressure is higher inside the lab than it is outside.  That way any contaminated air will be pushed out and cannot find a way in.  That is if they are worried about contamination from outside.  If the problem was inside, reverse the pressure.

I’m thinking that there may be a divine principal on that line.  What brought me to this was the thought of the radiance of God.You don’t find it in the King James, but the quote came to me from the NASB,

Hebrews 1:3 (KJV) Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;

Hebrews 1:3 (NASB95) And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

Noticed the word radiance in the modern translation.  It doesn’t appear at all in the KJV, it’s always brightness.  Even the NASB uses the turn brightness frequently. When you look at the theological definition in the Greek, it’s hard to get the nuance.  It’s only used once in the New Testament.  The old testament equivalent is a little more frequent .  The idea is that the radiance is pushing out, is beaming out.

The power of God’s holiness and purity is a radiating factor.  When God touches us in the redemption process or even just listening to the prayers of a sinner, He is aware, but He is untouched and unpolluted.  I think this is one reason why it is so important for us not to just receive the Holy Spirit as the disciples did before the crucifixion, but to be filled with the Holy Spirit as they did on Pentecost.

It is important to each of us to allow God to reach out to us with His full power and His full purity.  Let Him live within us in such a way that the evils of the world have a hard time penetrating.  We are not God.  We will never be perfect like He is.  And because of our frailties, we will probably never be able to put up a barrier totally to all negative influence.  At the same time we can live in the presence of the holy God and have His radiating influence inside us.

I think the Spanish phrase, “Vaya con Dios”, means go with God.  It might have originally meant may God go with you.  It may still mean that.  That’s an even better way to translate it.  Let the radiance of God’s holiness make evil flee from you.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-508: Monday Pulpit: To Change or Not to Change, That Is the Question

In our Sunday school discussion we came across two different passages of scripture, which in my mind set up a tension.  They were quoted far enough part that I don’t think anybody else noticed it, but the first one was,

(Rom 3:10 KJV)  As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

And a big thing was made over how no one could be righteous.  OK.  Later on as the subject changed and the topic went on a different path, somebody quoted the passage from James,

(Jas 5:16 KJV)  Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

Now we have a problem.  If the prayer of a righteous man is effective and no one can be righteous then it’s impossible for prayer to be answered.

Seems logical to me.  It seems logical because there’s a fallacy in the application of the verses.

And this got me thinking about how people try to take God and put Him into a box and force Him to be what they want Him to be.  This morning as I was on the porch thinking about how God is dynamic and not static, it came to me through several jumps that there’s a reason why God is considered a spirit.

Now we get into physics.  There are four phases of matter that I’m aware of.  One of them, plasma, I know little about and does not exist on the planet Earth in its natural form.  We are familiar with the other three.  We have solids, liquids, and gases.  Each one has different attributes.

Most people want to make God in the image of the solid.  They like to quote verses which say that God does not change; that He is always the same.  They like to quote how He is a rock.  And there are some interesting parallels there.

Unfortunately, the Bible tells us that God is spirit, not a rock.  What are the differences?  A rock cannot change its mass nor its shape, nor its volume.  It is static.  While we’re on it, we might as well look at the attributes of liquids.  Liquids do not generally change their mass nor their volume, but they can change their shape.  God is not a liquid nor a solid.  He is a spirit, which literally means gas.

Gas does not change its mass.  That stays the same, but it can adjust its volume and its shape.  It can expand and contract without changing its mass.  It can bend and fill crevices without changing its mass, so in a very real sense spirit can change and stay the same.

Such is God.  I hate to tell you, but He is able to get out of the box that you put him in.  That’s something rejoice about.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-495: Growing in Fear

One of the mysterious expressions in the Bible is the admonition that we should fear God, and it’s given as if this is a good thing.  Fear is good?  It can be.

When I was first born I was probably pretty much startled by everything.  You could think of it as a form of fear.  My brain was just a bunch of mush.  My physical coordination was not even a dream because I didn’t know such a thing existed.  My eyes couldn’t focus.  I saw this something waving around in front of me.  Little did I know it was my own hand, and I knew so little that I probably didn’t even know to be afraid.  But I was capable of being startled and surprised.  I would cry or laugh, depending on how the gas was moving through my body.

When I got to be a toddler, I could be startled again.  You could jump out of the corner and scare me.  My grandchildren do this to me all the time.  They love to catch me napping in my chair.  Yesterday my granddaughter just came up and stood about 6 inches away and stared at me until I woke up.  I won’t say I was afraid, but I was certainly scared.  When I hide around the corner and catch them unexpectedly we have the same scenario.  Again, this is a type of fear, but it’s based on knowledge that I’m secure.

All of that changed as I moved into being an older child and adolescence.  Suddenly, my fear of my father became a very real thing.  I knew that if I stepped out of line there would be repercussions.  I was spanked a few times, but being a good child, it wasn’t a big issue.  One thing that kept me in line was a dread of my father’s anger.

Let’s fast forward to my adulthood . I still had a lot of respect and fear of my father, but since I could out run him and had my own car, I wasn’t particularly afraid.  As I moved onward in adulthood, there was a less and less reason for me to have any reason to run away.  I see a very real parallel between that and the relationship between my son and I.

Fearing God goes through these stages.  As a child, I would sing the song, “Jesus loves me” and have a lot of fun with it.  I might sing father Abraham, and dance in circles.  It never occurred to me that the God of the universe might someday be mad at me.  I have gone through the different stages and I’m now at that point where I can sit down in the presence of the Creator of the universe and not even think about lightning bolts.  I don’t worry about swarms of locust coming out of the dark in the morning.  I don’t expect a plague to hit me.

Fear can be a wonderful thing when you know the source of that fear and know about His loving kindness.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-469: Is Not Jealous...

One of the insights I had a while back was that if God is love, and that is one of His attributes, then looking at Paul’s definition of love in I Corinthians 13 would be a good way to get insights into God’s character.  I’ve already talked about that first quality of patience or long suffering.  God is definitely patient with us.  He was patient with Israel.

This morning, as I was basking in the presence of the living God, and reaching out to receive His blessing, it occurred to me that the Holy Spirit already lives within me.  Why would I be reaching out to receive something when God is already here?  That got me to wondering if God the Father would get a little upset if I prayed to God the Spirit?  That made me think of a professor who once shared that we are to pray to the Father, in the name of the Son and in the power of the Spirit but if we got them mixed up God would understand.  

One of the things I’ve heard expressed by different writers and speakers is that the Trinity demonstrates this concept of love and also shows us that God does not need fellowship with human beings because He already has fellowship within Himself.  I don’t know how biblical that is, but it’s an interesting way of looking at it.  As I was thinking about that the phase from I Corinthians 13 came to my mind, “and is not jealous....”  Beautiful.

It’s hard for us to understand in our competitive world what it means to be not jealous.  We always have this attitude of getting ahead of the other guy.  Why is it when someone passes you on the interstate that you feel like you have to get ahead of them again?  Why is it when I stop because someone in the car has to go to the bathroom I look at all those people I’ve already passed and it occurs to me that I’m now going to have to get ahead of them again?  I know I am not the only one.  Competition rears its head everywhere.

A spirit of competitiveness is one of the blocks in our lives when we seek to not be jealous.  I should use God‘s Trinity as an example of what it means to not be jealous, to not worry about who gets first credit on the billing.  Someone once said it’s amazing what you can get done if you don’t worry about who gets the credit.  I think that’s kind of where God is.

A friend wants made a big deal about who we were praying to when we prayed to the capitalized LORD (Yahweh) in the OT.  I told him it didn’t really matter.  Yahweh is the name that God gave us to call Him, and I tend to think of it as the Father, but if it includes all three, so much the better.  He wasn’t happy with that because he was trying to convince me of some eschatological point.  I wasn’t buying and I stood by my position.  I’m not sure what my position was but I still stand by it.

So God is not jealous.  He doesn’t mind when Jesus gets top billing and He doesn’t mind when the Holy Spirit moves to the front of the pack.  They may be three persons, but they are one God and They are united in purpose and love.

Always something to rejoice about.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-466: From Boxing Day to Christmas Morning

In England they have a holiday we don’t celebrate.  I believe it’s called Boxing Day.  This is not where they put on the gloves and come out swinging.  I believe it’s the day where they wrap their Christmas gifts.  It might be the beginning of the musical 12 days of Christmas.

It is the day where you take your glorious gifts that you have brought for people you love, and you put them in a box, wrap it in pretty paper, if you’re in touch with your feminine side, you have ribbons and bows, and you put it under the tree.  If you live in a house like mine you hide it in the closet because my children used to love to almost destroy the package, trying to figure out what was in it.

This is where a lot of us are when it comes to understanding or trying to understand God himself.  Let it be stated at the beginning that God is beyond our comprehension in His totality.  We are told that we can know Him through Jesus and that opens the door and gives us access.  However, as long as we are in this flesh, there are severe limitations.

My encouragement is that you take God out of the box and let Him be God.  This comes from my thinking this morning, as I am reflecting on the nature of God, and trying to understand Him, and realizing how petty my gestures are.  Don’t get me wrong, I believe He welcomes those gestures.  I believe He encourages those gestures.  The point is that we need to realize God does not fit in our box and that our attempts are gestures.  We need to take all of the preconceived notions we have about God and put them over to the side in case somebody needs them someday.  Wouldn’t it be great if we had a local thrift store that could take preconceived notions?  But I digress.

This does not mean that you just wander off into total ignorant speculation.  It means that you take literally the very clear teachings of the Bible about the character and attributes of God.  Start with the statement in John that God is love.  You can observe how repeatedly He demonstrates His patience.  You can see how He has let His wrath go.  In all of these things you build up a picture of God, but just be careful that you don’t put Him back in the box and define Him just by your chosen terms.

As I look in the morning sky and I see a star that is there on a regular basis, I picture a box around that star, and in my mind I reach out and open that box, drop it into the horizon and then sit back and allow the Holy Spirit to bring to mind what the Bible tells me about God.

We’re still a long way from Christmas Day but it’s never too early to let God out of His box.  He wasn’t in there anyway.

homo unius libri