God

The Front Row

“Once you become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God, most of life’s problems fall into place of their own accord.” – J.I. Packer

The high priced seats at any concert are those that are closest to the front. Why? True fans want to be up close so they can see and hear everything. And they’ll pay a lot to be able to do that!

When it comes to worshiping God, he has already paid for the high-priced ticket. He invites us to come closer and to experience the awe of his presence.

A. W. Tozer uses the tabernacle in the Old Testament as a picture of doing that*:

The tabernacle courtyard was for everyone. It was wide open space for all who chose to come. It’s where we begin in our relationship with God.

If we want to grow closer, we move to the Holy Place. There the focus was on Torah. In other words, this is the space where we learn about God, and for most of us, that is through the church. If we want to get closer to God, we need to be willing to learn.

The inner room was the Holy of Holies. The encounter there was one-on-one with God. Since Jesus came to make us clean, this inner place is open to us. We can go in alone to meet with God through prayer, meditation on his word, and worship.

I don’t know about you, but I want to spend more time in the Holy of Holies soaking in his presence and bowing in adoration. Why hang around the courtyard when the door is open for us to come inside and be all alone with God?

“. . . in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” – Psalm 16:11b

*From Pursuit of Christian Maturity, A. W. Tozer

Images or Altars?

“If God were small enough to be understood, He would not be big enough to be worshiped.” – Evelyn Underhill

We were designed to worship God, but we all know that sometimes that worship gets diverted into other things. The people of Israel were prone to worshiping idols made of stone, wood, or metal, so God made it clear in the very first of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20) that they were not to make images. Period.

But there was something he did want them to make: Later in the same chapter we find God saying, “. . . an altar of earth you shall make for me”

Don’t make images, but do make altars. And what are altars for? He explains that, too. They are for offering sacrifices in worship of the one true God.

The God we worship is beyond limit. Anything we do to give him shape makes him something less than who he really is.

On the other hand, an altar acknowledges his existence, his presence, his authority, and his worthiness to be worshipped and adored. It sees him to be limitless, all-present, beyond understanding. And it provides a place for us to meet him in all his glory.

Sometimes we all need to examine what goes on in the deepest parts of our minds and hearts. Are we tending more toward seeing God according to our personal definition of him, a being we might be able to bargain with, manipulate, or control? Or do we see him as the transcendent, all encompassing God to be held in awe and reverential fear? To be worshiped and adored. Let’s make altars, not idols.

“The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth. He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding.” – Isaiah 40:28b

Encounters with Jesus

True encounter with Christ liberates something in us, a power we did not know we had, a hope, a capacity for life, a resilience, an ability to bounce back when we thought we were completely defeated, a capacity to grow and change, a power of creative transformation.  
—Thomas Merton 

How can we live in such a way that encounters with Jesus, as Merton describes above, are possible for us?

We start by wanting to know everything we can know about him. As Christians, one of our missions should be to read and reread the Gospels to keep gaining insights into Jesus – not only his teaching, but also his actions, attitudes, and habits.

Then we will want to know him, not just intellectually, but experientially through a one-on-one relationship with him. We will want personal encounters with Jesus – times when we can sense his presence or hear his voice as a thought in our mind or feel his love reaching out for us.

These moments with Jesus are possible, but they cannot be commanded. They can only be received. We can prepare space for them by walking in obedience to Jesus, desiring to please him in every possible way. Such a moment might happen when we pause in our prayer to listen, or when we’re driving to an appointment, or as we sleep at night. Every encounter with Jesus will cut to our heart, it will change us, we will never forget it, and we will want more.

Jesus, in the person of the Holy Spirit, lives within everyone who has put their trust in him. If we tune in to his presence and his power, he will respond in his own way and time.

“. . . “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” – John 14:2

World of Wonders

“If we would venture more upon the naked promise of God, we would enter a world of wonders to which we are yet strangers.” – Charles Spurgeon

It’s a great quote by Spurgeon. Then we look at life and at the world around us and we ask where those wonders are. What are we missing?

Maybe it is the barely-avoided accident on the highway.

Maybe it’s a new-born baby.

Maybe it’s the sickness we didn’t catch.

Maybe it is the peace we feel even when the task in front of us seems too big.

Maybe it’s our friend’s insight into a problem we are trying to solve on our own.

The Bible tells us we humans are just dust. Some call us “mud people”. Yes, mud people in whose life is the breath of God making us into someone he loves, adores, cares for, and nurtures. He takes us by the hand, leading us step by step. That, in itself, is a wonder! There is nothing too hard for God. He is the God of wonders, working them every day in our world.

Some of them are small. We have to be paying close attention to see them. Others are big -like when we get an unexpected gift that is just exactly what we needed, or someone we’ve been praying for is healed in a way that can only be be supernatural, or someone we love suddenly sees the truth of who Jesus is. These wonders do happen. Let’s look for them and then stand in awe at what we see. G. K. Chesterton said it best: “We are perishing for lack of wonder, not for lack of wonders”.

“Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually! Remember the wondrous works that he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he uttered,” – Psalm 105:4-5

How well do you know him?

“We are all desperate, and that is in fact the only state appropriate to a human being who wants to know God. Having fallen from the absolute ideal, we have nowhere to land but in the safety net of absolute grace.” Philip Yancey

Jesus, when you were on earth, you were busy, but never hurried. You stayed calm even when your closest disciples didn’t understand what you were trying to teach. How did you do it?

Even as a human, I knew the Father better than you do. I went to him all the time when I was tired or stressed or afraid. Yes, I was afraid. Remember Gethsemane?

And there were times I was so frustrated, like when I saw God’s people as sheep without a shepherd. Their shepherds were their religious leaders and they were leading people away from the Father, not toward him. I was angry!

And many times, I just needed help making decisions, trying to understand what the Father wanted. So I went to him a lot. Praying, asking, listening for direction. It always came and, when it did, I acted. I wanted nothing more than to do what he wanted, not what I, as a human being, wanted.

So, little one, if you are frustrated by what you see in the world around you, or angry at injustices, or afraid of what is to come, turn to the Father. Turning to him will help you know him better and the better you know him, the more you will rely on him and the more you will want to please him.

Let him love, lead, encourage, and correct you. That’s what loving fathers do. And our Father in heaven does all those things perfectly!

“Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.” – Psalm 68:19

The View from Above

“God wants us to choose to love him freely, even when that choice involves pain.” – Philip Yancey

Why is life so hard? What have I done to deserve this? Why doesn’t God do something?

Job asked those questions, too. At the beginning of his story he had it all. Then everything began to fall apart. He lost his wealth, his children, and, finally, his health. His friends insisted God wouldn’t be doing this to him if he hadn’t sinned. If he would just admit his sin, everything would be OK.

So Job began to pray asking what he had done wrong and what he could do to appease God and get the pain to stop. No answer. What he doesn’t know is that God didn’t do any of this to him. Satan did – with God’s permission. It was not punishment, it was a test to see if he would trust and serve God even when things didn’t go his way.

There are some standard take-aways from Job’s story including that God doesn’t always protect us from the evil in this world and that trouble isn’t always (maybe seldom actually) a punishment for sin.

Those are good points, but, in my mind, the greatest lesson from Job’s story is this: Though others criticized, condemned, and shamed him, it is what God said about him that mattered. And God said he was blameless and upright.

When we choose to trust Jesus with our lives, God sees us as one of his beloved children. When we focus too much on what others think of us, or what Satan says about us, maybe the story of Job will remind us to ask God what he thinks*. That’s all that matters really.

” . . . you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you (Isaiah 43:4a)

*Hint: He tells us in his word.

This Present Moment

“Leave the broken, irreversible past in God’s hands, and step out into the invincible future with him.” – Oswald Chambers

I heard someone say, “A truly happy person is someone who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.” Can we live fully in the present moment even it’s not what we planned? Do we spend too much time in the past or the future and miss engaging with the now? What can we do to change that?

The Past

We can all look at our past and find things we don’t like. Things we said. Things we did. Things that happened to us that changed the trajectory of our lives: Hurts, rejection, unresolved relationships.

Wise counselors tell us to acknowledge that these things are painful, but unchangeable. We can’t redo life. We can, though, forgive those who have hurt us. And we can confess our own mistakes and sins and receive God’s forgiveness. When we do that, we will feel that a weight has been taken away and this present life is refreshed.

The Future

When we look ahead, we can fall into worry far too easily, anticipating what could possibly happen that will be hard. And there will be those things. But that’s what the life of faith is all about: Trusting God even when we don’t understand. Trusting him because we know his character is good, kind, loving, powerful, just. The future is full of his promises, his presence, and his protection. Let’s choose to believe that!

The Present

When we let go of the past and trust God for the future, we will be fully alive to today. We can count on it!

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” – Romans 15:13

It’ll be OK.

“God did not say: You will not be assailed, you will not be belabored, you will not be disquieted, but he said: You will not be overcome. God loves us and delights in us, and so he wishes us to love him and delight in him and trust greatly in him, and all will be well.”  
—Julian of Norwich 

Sometimes we feel like we pray and nothing happens. We’re not sure God is listening and we wish we could somehow get his attention. Maybe the key to connecting with God’s attention is giving him ours. How do we do that:

Focus: Set a time to give full attention to God. During this time, there is no multi-tasking. There is only one goal: To think about God, what he’s like, who he is, and what a privilege it is to worship him, to be allowed to talk to him.

Listen: Being very conscious of his presence, we turn to his word to read. We focus on taking it in, thinking about how it may apply to us, sensing something he really wants us to see this day. Then write it down. We may remember it, but we’re more likely to remember accurately if we write it down

Do: If he tells us something to do, we do it as soon as reasonably possible. A delay shows lack of priority. The urgency will get lost the longer we wait.

When we shut out everything but God, give him our full attention, and obey what he says, he will listen when we call, and we will know, without doubt, that whatever happens in our circumstance, he is working in the middle of it – no matter the outcome. All will be well.

“But know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself; the Lord hears when I call to him”. – Psalm 4:3

Things God Never Says #5

“All my knowledge of him depends on his sustained initiative in knowing me.” – J. I. Packer

We humans tend to think of God as human-like – just bigger, stronger, wiser, and holier. But that’s not good thinking. He is so, so different from us.

I hope this short series of “things God never says” helps us realize that God doesn’t say the things humans say or think the way humans think. Our Creator is different, and he’s outside of anything he’s created – including us.

So, when God, a being we cannot even imagine let alone understand, wants to communicate with us, is it any wonder we don’t always “get it”? Even when God took on a human body and came to earth to help us understand him and his plan for us, his disciples often misunderstood. They didn’t really grasp Jesus’s mission until after his resurrection.

God doesn’t give up. He continues to teach and reveal and guide. Jesus is the bridge between the knowable and unknowable God, the Holy Spirit enlightens us, and the Bible is God’s revelation of himself, and still he says, “. . . my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways . . .” (Isaiah 55:8).

But, what he never says to us as we struggle to know him is, “Why can’t you understand?” He knows all our limitations and views us with compassionate patience.

Paul says it’s like we’re looking into a mirror now, seeing images and reflections, but someday we’ll see face-to-face. Then things will become clear. Until then, we’re grateful that God still communicates, and that he’s patient with our dusty efforts to understand.

“As a father shows compassion to his children,
    so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.
For he knows our frame;
    he remembers that we are dust.” – Psalm 103:13-14

Things God Never Says #1

“Almost certainly God is not in time. His life does not consist of moments one following another…Ten-thirty– and every other moment from the beginning of the world–is always Present for Him. If you like to put it this way, He has all eternity in which to listen to the split second of prayer put up by a pilot as his plane crashes in flames.” – C. S. Lewis

Do you ever wonder how God does it? How he can listen to thousands of prayers at the same time and be personally involved in every one of them? How he can care, truly care, about every human being ever created? He is never like the frazzled parent who says to a demanding child, “Sorry, I’m busy right now.”

Why does God never say that? He’s eternal. He’s not hampered by 24-hour days or frustrated at having only 60-minutes in an hour. He doesn’t have a calendar with appointments on it. God created time when he created the earth with a sun to mark the days and years. He can enter time whenever he chooses, but it does not restrict him. He actually can answer our prayers before we pray them because being outside of time means he already knows what we will ask for.

Do you find that hard to wrap your mind around? I hope so! If we can fully understand God, he’s not God. But we do know he always has time for us. We never have to stand in line to talk to him. The instant we begin to think of him or talk to him, he responds – always willing to listen. Always caring. Never impatient. Never in a hurry.

“Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” – 1 Timothy 1:17