Category: God the Father

God Meets Us Where We Are: But Will You Know Him When You Meet Him?

If your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body is full of darkness

kevingdrendel1 Comment

About 5 years ago, I wrote God Meets Us Where We Are. I was impressed then (and I still am) that God who created the Universe stoops to come to us. I was also impressed that finding God is not so much about our seeking, but about our opening up to God Who is ever present to us, but never overbearing.

God seems hidden to many people. If we do not really want to see Him as He is and to embrace Him for Who He is, we may never know He is “there” at all.

When we act contrary to God’s character, our sin hides God from us. (Isaiah 59:1-2) The Prophet, Micah, says God “hides his face” from people, even when they cry to Him, because of the evil, the bad, the harm we do. (Micah 3:4)

The “evil” Micah is talking about in this chapter is injustice – the way we treat other people. The “leaders of Jacob” to whom he was talking were taking advantage of their own people for their own benefit. When people do that, they will cry out to God, but God will not respond.

CS Lewis called God the Great Interferer in his autobiographical book, Surprised by Joy. He didn’t want God to exist. He didn’t want to be interfered with. “He wanted to be left alone, and unconsciously knew that if he denied the existence of some Ultimate Authority, then he himself would be that very authority in his own life. Thus, he could live his life according to his own desires.” (Christ the Great Interferer)

When we live to satisfy our own desires, often at the expense of others, we act out of character with God, and we are blinded by the thrust of our own actions from seeing God. He allows our conduct to separate us and hide us from Him because God does not reward our bad behavior.

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”

Matthew 6:22-23

God desires us to know Him as He is and to desire to be like Him. When we acknowledge our wrong ways (sin) and turn (repent) from them, God is quick to meet us “there”. When we confess our sins, He is just and faithful to forgive us! ( 1 John 1:9)

That is what He is waiting for, but we must come to Him honestly. He isn’t handing out “get out of jail cards” for free. He wants us to desire Him and to desire to be like Him; He isn’t interested in appeasing your conscience for the moment so you can feel better about what you have done and what you will do in the future.

God has given us each other as the testing ground. As Micah indicates, how we treat others determines whether God is hidden to us. Jesus said as much in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats. “‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me,'” (Matt. 25:40) and “‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’” (Matt. 25:45)

It seems to me that God designed the world as He did because God desires relationship with people who desire Him, and He provides us a testing ground for that relationship in other people. God will not force Himself on anyone who does not want to know Him – at least for the time being.

There will come a day when our lives end in the natural course or by circumstance that God does not control. Having set His universe in motion, He rarely interferes. Too much interference would frustrate His purposes.

There will also come a day when the time for human seeking is over, when this Project Earth has come to its appointed end, when the time for ultimate redemption and the perfection of God’s purposes is at hand. At that time – when all people see “the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory” (Luke 21:27) – it will be too late for any seeking

As the Apostle Paul said, “I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Corinthians 6:2) The writer of Hebrews repeats three times for us: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” (Hebrews 3:7-8; 3:15; and 4:7)

God is with us now, and the time of His favor – to seek Him and find Him – is now. There are no guarantees for anyone. In fact, the only guaranty is that our time will end: either at our own natural or untimely death or when day of the Lord comes and the time for choosing is over. Do not harden you heart. Now is the day of your salvation.

Justice and Mercy and the Faithfulness of God

God waits to be gracious

kevingdrendel1 Comment

Isaiah says. “[T]he Lord waits to be gracious to you.” He desires and longs to be gracious. In modern vernacular, we might say that God cannot wait to be gracious to us! 

We may think that God exalts Himself in showing judgment. We might imagine Jesus coming on a white horse judging and making war in righteousness with a sword coming from his mouth as the supreme exaltation of God. (Revelation 19-11-16) But, God doesn’t exalt Himself in showing Judgment. He exalts Himself in showing mercy.

God is God. He could judge the world at any time. He could utterly overwhelm us with presence and power right now. He could wipe humankind off the face of the earth in a moment, but He doesn’t do that.

God waits to be gracious to us, and He exalts Himself by showing mercy. God’s greatness is seen most authentically in showing mercy.

This is because God is a God of justice. We might be tempted to think that justice is the opposite of mercy, but justice turns out to be wrapped up in mercy. The greatest expression of God’s justice is on display in God showing mercy.

Justice, then, is not in opposition to mercy; justice and mercy are not opposites. They are brothers. Justice and mercy are mutually dependent on each other. One does not exist without the other.

For this reason, James says, “Judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has not shown mercy.” James 2:13 We might think we want judgment to come, but it’s justice with mercy that we want and need. If think we do justice without showing mercy, we are do neither, and neither justice nor mercy will be done. 

Mercy triumphs over judgment, according to James. That means that mercy is God’s ultimate goal. Not judgment, but mercy

As Christians, we should know this. Jesus came not to condemn, but to save. He is the Good Shepherd who leaves the 99 in search of the one, lost sheep. Jesus came not for the righteous but for this sick with sin. He came not to judge but to save.

Jesus warned the Pharisees about heaping heavy, cumbersome loads on other people’s shoulders. (Matthew 23:4) He warned them about shutting the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. (Matt. 23:13) And, he warned them about neglecting the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. (Matt. 23:23)

Justice is not justice without mercy. God is just, merciful and faithful. So, we wait – so we trust – in Him. He who is merciful and just is faithful and just to forgive us when we confess our sins (1 John 1:9) because God waits to gracious.

We should wait always to be gracious and merciful because God is merciful in His justice with us.

Comments on Why God Became Incarnate and Died for Our Sins

kevingdrendel3 Comments

Daniel Mann does a good job of explaining Why Christ, as God Incarnate, Had to Die for Our Sins. In reading his explanation, my mind goes to statements like God’s “transcendent love” and “total abhorrence for sin”, God’s “righteousness” and “divine forbearance” for sin, and the price that had to be paid “to satisfy God’s righteous character”.

Daniel describes his own reaction to these concepts formerly, as a non-Christian. He felt God was a “deceiving sadist” until one day he realized that Jesus was God incarnate, that God did not merely sacrifice a created being – God sacrificed Himself in human form!

Indeed, that is the central point of Christian belief, which is described beautifully and poignantly in Paul’s letter to the Philippians (2:5-8):

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature [form of] God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature [form] of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

These things would be small consolation, also, if not for the victory on the other side of the cross (Phil. 2:9-11)

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

That Jesus was fully man and fully God incarnated into a man is key to the understanding of Christianity. That God is three “persons” in one is also key, as it provides some explanation how God can incarnate Himself into the form of a man and die (in human flesh), though God remains self-existent and eternal, the Creator (and not a created being).

Not that there is no mystery in this. I concede this is hard for creatures who are limited dimensionally to wrap our heads around these ideas.

Finally, it explains how (and why) death to Jesus in the flesh had no power over him. As God incarnate, death “could not hold him”. (Acts 2:24)

But, I am not writing to clarify these aspects of Christian doctrine. I want to focus on Daniel Mann’s personal revelation that Jesus was God incarnate, and his death was voluntary – God sacrificing Himself, and not God sacrificing some created being.

This realization made all the difference for him. When he really understood this distinction, he began to see the love of God that was demonstrated in that act of self-sacrifice – something God did not have to to, but He did it for us because He loves us.

Other people, I know, are not convinced. Indeed, if a person understands Jesus to be human only, and not God incarnate, the story makes no sense.

Another stumbling block is God’s “abhorrence for sin” and the need to satiate a “righteous” God. These Christian concepts are foreign territory for many people. Why, if God is so loving, does He demand sacrifices for sin?

Continue reading “Comments on Why God Became Incarnate and Died for Our Sins” →

What Are We Missing in the Story of the Garden of Eden?

Why did God place the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden and forbid Adam to eat it?

kevingdrendel3 Comments

Once again, I am reading the epic of Eden by Sandra Richter. She takes the orthodox, traditional position that Eden was perfect, man fell, bringing God’s creation down with him, and God is redeeming man with creation so that man will live forever in perfection, again, after redemption is complete. I am indebted to her and other scholars, and I greatly appreciated her book.

I wrote recently, on the question, Was the Garden of Eden Really Perfect? With due respect to Sandra Richter, I am leaning in the direction of no, the Garden of Eden wasn’t perfect. I explain my thinking in the article linked in this paragraph, and today I want to explore something that may be missing from the traditional narrative (at least as I understand it).

Today, I am posing some questions that occur to me as I continue to read through Sandra Richter’s fine book. Why did God place the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden? Did God know men would eat from it? What is the point of the fall and the long road back to redemption?

I don’t claim to have all the answers, or at least not all the right answers. We may not know, and may never know, the answers in their nuanced details. I think that is ok, though we should strive to know as best as we can.

Maybe some things are not meant for us to know; or at least we are not meant to know that we know. We have a strong tendency to become proud and self-righteous and to start relying on our own understanding, rather than remaining humble before God and our fellow man.

Yet, I think God wants us to seek to understand. “It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.” (Proverbs 25:2) Thus, my article today is an attempt at better understanding God’s redemption story and searching out these things.

Surely, God had purpose in placing that tree in the garden, right? God is sovereign and all-knowing, right? Thus, I think the questions I pose today are good for us to consider.

Continue reading “What Are We Missing in the Story of the Garden of Eden?” →

Was the Garden of Eden Really Perfect?

Six times in the creation narrative God reviews His creation in different stages, and He calls it “good”.

kevingdrendel3 Comments

Sandra Richter in her book, The Epic of Eden, toes the orthodox, evangelical line, that the Garden of Eden was created perfect by God. This echoes the orthodox, western position that Eden was perfect, and Adam (and Eve) ruined the perfection of Eden in rebellion against God.

This is the traditional view: that God’s world was perfect until man ruined it by sinning.

Not that Adam didn’t have some help in this rebellion. I am using Adam in the generic sense, meaning those initial humans who made that one fateful choice that God prohibited, committing the first sin that led to death and banishment from the Edenic paradise God gave man.

This is what I learned as a new Christian. Sandra Richter is a theologian, and I am not. At least, I am not a theologian by trade, academic degree, or career.  I respect Richter, which is why I am reading her book, but I am not sure this view is exactly right.

At least, there is another view that I think has some merit. I have come to see some nuance in Genesis that I had not seen before, and it gives me pause when I hear the traditional line. I don’t think I have ever written on it, so here goes.

Continue reading “Was the Garden of Eden Really Perfect?” →