Thy will be done...

I am re-reading the book, "The Reason for God," and my eyes are opened wider each time I read it. When I line this book up with scripture and modern thinking, I find it to be filled with truth from God. In the book, Tim Keller quotes C.S. Lewis and it really made me think. Lewis, in summary, says that there are really only two kind of people in the world. There are those that say, "Your will be done," to God. Then there are those to whom God says, "Your will be done." The atheists delusion is that if they glorified God, they would somehow lose power and freedom, but in a supreme and tragic irony, their choice ruins their own potential for greatness. Hell is, as CS Lewis says, "the greatest monument to human freedom." In the end, God gives people what they most want--whether that be their desires or Him.

God--The Maker

The Sun. The Moon. The Stars. The Skies. Did you or I create these things? The Mountains. The Forests. Rain. Wind. Did you or I create these things? The Animals that tread the land. The animals that swim in the seas and oceans. Man. Woman. Did you or I create these things? No we did not. If you are a follower of Christ, you believe that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and in six days (with a 7th day of rest) He created all of these other things. So, if YOU or I did not create these things, and we believe God created them, who gave us the right to tell God who He is? We have adopted this poisonous “My God. My Rules,” belief in the Church today.  We say things such as, “I don’t believe in that part of the Bible.” We continue on with things such as, “Well that part was just their culture and is not relevant for today.” We have fallen into this arrogant belief system that our culture has advanced so far that some things do not apply to us anymore. Let’s shift gears for a second. Some of us believe in this way, “This is the way it has been since I was a child, so it must be true,” or “This is what my parents believe, so it must be the truth.” We try to humanize the God of the Universe. We dismiss commandments of God as suggestions. When the Bible says “Go into all the world…” we say, “That’s for the missionaries.” When the Bible says, “Make disciples of all nations…baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…” we say, “That’s for the Pastors.” When the Bible says to train up your children in the ways of Christ…in things such as prayer, we say “We need to vote so that the school’s can teach them how to pray.”
    When we take the word of God and cut away at some of it to fit into our mold we have rejected the ENTIRE word of God. The word of God comes as a package deal, not a plan with options. If you have taken bits and pieces of the word of God and applied them but dismissed others, I’d like to welcome you to the Gospel of Personal Preference. This is not the gospel of Christ. This is not belief in Christ. This is a selfish, prideful, arrogant belief system that is serving no one but the Enemy that demands repentance. These ideologies have spread like wildfire among young and old believers alike. People who claim that they are followers of the Way have begun to try and squeeze God into their mold. Last time I checked the word of God, we were made in His image, not vice versa. It was God who knew us even before we were in our mother’s womb. It is only God who is good and righteous, not us. The Bible says that “no one is righteous...not one.” Who are we to try and create God in our image. When has a clay pot ever molded the potter? When has a painting ever created an artist? When has a building ever drawn out the plans for an architect? When has anything created ever been able to limit their creator? Never. Not in the past. Not in present. Not in the future. God CANNOT fit into our self-righteous molds. To try to contain God is like a flea trying to hold back a lion…it can’t be done. To try to contain God is to place yourself on a pedestal higher than God. If you place yourself, your opinions, or your so-called beliefs, your comfort on this pedestal higher than God then you have just fallen into idolatry…and what a hard, painful fall it will be. Have no other gods before me. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Christianity and Peach Preserves

     I have been reading, quite literally all day, Bob George's "Classic Christianity." At the rate I am going, I should be done with the book by this weekend at which point I will give a complete review. However, I wanted to share one part of the book which has finally explained what I have been feeling about faith in a very simple and yet profound way. I have been feeling lately, as I study scripture, that we are giving an incomplete gospel to people when we merely preach accept Jesus and ask forgiveness. It seems that we may even be teaching believe Jesus and fix yourself. But the gospel is not simply about being forgiven and going to heaven. The gospel is about new life. George had this (in summary) to say about preaching a half-gospel...
     The process of canning is an excellent illustration of the two parts of the gospel. Let's say you are going to preserve some peaches, what is the first thing you have to do? Sterilize the jars. Imagine a husband walks into his home and his wife is boiling jars. He asks her what she is doing and she replies, "Sterilizing jars." He then asks what she plans to do with the sterilized jars and she replies, "Keep them clean." That does not make sense right? The only reason one would sterilize jars is to fill them with something. We would not expect a person to be apart of simply half of the canning process by only sterilizing jars. However, this is what we do with the gospel! We have separated God's sterilizing process--the cross--from His filling process--Christ coming to live in us through His resurrection. By separating the forgiveness of sin from the message of receiving the life of Christ, we have not only missed out on life, but also on the purpose of forgiveness in the first place. The reason one sterilizes a jar is to prevent spoiling in the preserves. The reason God had to deal with sin once and for all was so that we could be filled with Christ "without spoiling." As a matter of fact, there is one more step after sterilizing and filling--sealing. After sterilizing the jars and filling them with preserves they are sealed. Sealing keeps the good things inside and keep the bad things from entering. The scriptures say that having believed in Him, we have been marked with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit. Cleansing, filling, and sealing is a wonderful picture of the full picture of salvation. Once we see that the whole purpose is not simply forgiveness, but bringing the dead to life, it is easy to see why Christ had to deal with sin issue once and for all.
     All throughout the Bible, from the Old to the New Testament, there is one theme that runs throughout and that is new life--restoration and resurrection. Don't miss out on the life Christ wants to live through you.