For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 2 Cor 4:6
Are you in darkness? What an obscure term, darkness. How would you even know? Darkness cannot define darkness and neither can light define light, it is contrasts that bring definition. For good there must be evil, for right there must be wrong, for up there must be down, for right there must be left, for in there must be out, for truth there must be a lie.
Where does the definition come from? It is God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness. He is commanding us to allow His light to shine out of our darkness. His glory becoming very apparent as His strength is perfected in our weakness.
A child is told to look both ways before crossing the street. Is this right or wrong? The child is not interested in the motive of their instructor; he obeys or disobeys according to his own thoughts. Something else must define the moral or ethical value of their instruction.
While we were yet sinners God sent His Son into the world. Jesus is the visible representation of the invisible God. Everything we know about God must be defined by who Jesus is. If what we know about God is not consistent with whom Jesus is then we must throw it out.
As you look into the face of Jesus you will see the Father and your darkness will be turned into light and you will shine as sons of God.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Free to love Him
Father, I desire. These are the words of Jesus in John 17:24. He goes on to tell us that His desire is for us to be with Him and that we would behold His glory! This amazing statement comes at the end His prayer just prior to being betrayed by Judas. Right before Jesus is taken into custody, right before He is interrogated, mocked, beaten and crucified; His thoughts are on us being with Him. The Lord of all creation is about to face the cruelest suffering and all authority is at His disposal yet He meekly submits in order to secure the love of the very ones who kill Him.
We know that God never changes, if that was His desire at that moment, it is His desire now, and it was His desire in the very beginning; when He warned the man not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We can behold His glory, but we cannot take of His glory and call it ours; not then and not now. To eat of something you are taking it into yourself and it becomes a part of you, it nourishes you, sustains you and makes you grow; unless it is poison, then it will kill you.
We know that God never changes, if that was His desire at that moment, it is His desire now, and it was His desire in the very beginning; when He warned the man not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We can behold His glory, but we cannot take of His glory and call it ours; not then and not now. To eat of something you are taking it into yourself and it becomes a part of you, it nourishes you, sustains you and makes you grow; unless it is poison, then it will kill you.
Being able to freely eat is the crux of this command. God did not erect a fence around the tree, nor did He post a security guard, He even allowed His enemy to lurk in the tree that carried the deadly fruit. God does not change, look at Jesus, he had a thief holding the money bag during His earthly ministry and yet there is no record of a rebuke from Jesus toward Judas. We still have no fences guarding our behavior; if we want to do something He lets us. All things are permissible but not all things are profitable.
You are free, but don't use your freedom as an opportunity to disobey God! It led to death then...It leads to death now. His love is the power to keep you. As weak as you think you are, God is greater than your weakness, and His desire is you.
He created you, He died for you, and He is coming back....for YOU!
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Life in the Garden
“Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’” Gen 2:15-17
We can readily understand the concept of keeping and tending a garden. You have weeds to contend with, making sure it is watered, protecting it from insects and other hungry critters, and making sure it gets the right amount of sun among other things. The interesting thing is man was placed here before the fall. There were no weeds, the earth watered itself from the ground up, animals were subject to man, and this garden was planted by God. What would it have been like?
If we allow our imaginations to soar in God here, we can begin to see how enjoyable work must have been. Some of you enjoy your work now, but most people seem to dislike it at some degree. You never have everything you need, deadlines and other pressures constantly pushing on you, other people getting in the way of what you need to get done, etc... Consider work with no hindrances. I think about when I was doing electrical work, if all my parts and tools were available, the temperature was always right, my thoughts were not cluttered, deadlines did not matter, everyone was joyful and easy to work with and I was not torn by other commitments then it would probably be very fun. Man was created with a work aspect, our work is meant to be enjoyable, tending and keeping the garden was fun.
Everyday man would walk with God in the cool of the day and discuss what was going on in the garden. Man having expanded it, and arranged it and then showing God excitedly what he had done. I picture God with His loving arm around the man, smiling, enjoying every word coming out of his mouth. I see the man running ahead here and there to say look at this and see what I did here, watch how this works, the giraffes really love this spot, and the butterflies swarm over here! God smiles and affirms the man, making small suggestions that go almost unnoticed but plant the seed for the man’s future ideas. A proud father watching his son grasp the family business, ready to make astounding changes and additions. Oh the glory of it all!!
The man was given only one rule. Do not eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There were all kinds of fruit to eat, only one forbidden. I picture God placing the man in the garden and with a sweeping hand motion saying all of this belongs to you! God must have had great joy giving this to the man, showing him the ropes, and warning him of the one and only danger. Look at all of the trees, how beautiful and tasty the fruit is, but this one tree, do not eat it because it will cause you to die.
Why would God put this tree here? The garden was perfect, but why did God include something that could mess it all up, that would mess it all up? Love! He was saying to the man that there is no part of Himself that He would make inaccessible. I give you all of Myself Son, there is nothing that I will hold back from you, but this one area you are not able to take upon yourself, you can do whatever your heart desires, just do not eat this one fruit. It is the knowledge of good and evil that sets God apart as God. He is the only judge and if we try to take that into ourselves we become corrupted, evil and under the power of death. God has no obligation to come into agreement with our understanding of good and evil, but we have every obligation to submit to His if we desire life.
The stage is now set: God, the man, a garden and one command. There was no time frame set on the command, and at this point there was no woman present. All of history lay before the man. Would he remain faithful? He did not. The whole race is corrupted.
Now we have a similar choice to make. This first command was a warning about the entrance of death, but now we have a command that will encourage us into life. Now the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. The garden is desolate, and we are born under a curse, no matter what we do or “eat” we will die. Of all the trees in the garden of this fallen world you must not eat, but of the tree of My Son you may freely eat, for in the day that you eat of it you will live.
There is no greater day than when we realize that once again we have been given access to the tree of life. No greater moment than when we realize that ONE has taken the penalty of death for us. No greater time then when we say yes to Jesus and no to the world. If you’ve not eaten of the tree of life, today is that day. Jesus stands with life in His hand to give you; will you taste and see that the Lord is good?
We can readily understand the concept of keeping and tending a garden. You have weeds to contend with, making sure it is watered, protecting it from insects and other hungry critters, and making sure it gets the right amount of sun among other things. The interesting thing is man was placed here before the fall. There were no weeds, the earth watered itself from the ground up, animals were subject to man, and this garden was planted by God. What would it have been like?
If we allow our imaginations to soar in God here, we can begin to see how enjoyable work must have been. Some of you enjoy your work now, but most people seem to dislike it at some degree. You never have everything you need, deadlines and other pressures constantly pushing on you, other people getting in the way of what you need to get done, etc... Consider work with no hindrances. I think about when I was doing electrical work, if all my parts and tools were available, the temperature was always right, my thoughts were not cluttered, deadlines did not matter, everyone was joyful and easy to work with and I was not torn by other commitments then it would probably be very fun. Man was created with a work aspect, our work is meant to be enjoyable, tending and keeping the garden was fun.
Everyday man would walk with God in the cool of the day and discuss what was going on in the garden. Man having expanded it, and arranged it and then showing God excitedly what he had done. I picture God with His loving arm around the man, smiling, enjoying every word coming out of his mouth. I see the man running ahead here and there to say look at this and see what I did here, watch how this works, the giraffes really love this spot, and the butterflies swarm over here! God smiles and affirms the man, making small suggestions that go almost unnoticed but plant the seed for the man’s future ideas. A proud father watching his son grasp the family business, ready to make astounding changes and additions. Oh the glory of it all!!
The man was given only one rule. Do not eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There were all kinds of fruit to eat, only one forbidden. I picture God placing the man in the garden and with a sweeping hand motion saying all of this belongs to you! God must have had great joy giving this to the man, showing him the ropes, and warning him of the one and only danger. Look at all of the trees, how beautiful and tasty the fruit is, but this one tree, do not eat it because it will cause you to die.
Why would God put this tree here? The garden was perfect, but why did God include something that could mess it all up, that would mess it all up? Love! He was saying to the man that there is no part of Himself that He would make inaccessible. I give you all of Myself Son, there is nothing that I will hold back from you, but this one area you are not able to take upon yourself, you can do whatever your heart desires, just do not eat this one fruit. It is the knowledge of good and evil that sets God apart as God. He is the only judge and if we try to take that into ourselves we become corrupted, evil and under the power of death. God has no obligation to come into agreement with our understanding of good and evil, but we have every obligation to submit to His if we desire life.
The stage is now set: God, the man, a garden and one command. There was no time frame set on the command, and at this point there was no woman present. All of history lay before the man. Would he remain faithful? He did not. The whole race is corrupted.
Now we have a similar choice to make. This first command was a warning about the entrance of death, but now we have a command that will encourage us into life. Now the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. The garden is desolate, and we are born under a curse, no matter what we do or “eat” we will die. Of all the trees in the garden of this fallen world you must not eat, but of the tree of My Son you may freely eat, for in the day that you eat of it you will live.
There is no greater day than when we realize that once again we have been given access to the tree of life. No greater moment than when we realize that ONE has taken the penalty of death for us. No greater time then when we say yes to Jesus and no to the world. If you’ve not eaten of the tree of life, today is that day. Jesus stands with life in His hand to give you; will you taste and see that the Lord is good?
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Mystery of His Will
“…having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation on the fullness of the times He might gather in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth-in Him.” Eph 1:9-10
His desire is to bring us into intimate understanding of who He is. Not just a wish list item, but a thing that brings Him great pleasure. No one Has seen God, but that is not the plan, in Christ we are being made into those who can see God in every way possible. This hidden mystery is being revealed in Christ. In this He is deriving pleasure. Are you as pleased to be with Him like He is pleased to be with you? To what extent are you willing to go to receive His love? We should be at least as willing to go as far as He went, and He went all the way through death.
In Jesus, He gave up all of His splendor and majesty to take on the form of a man (our form) in order to fully redeem us from the power of death, the grip of sin and the curse of the law (the law being a curse because none could keep it). Now we are at the crossroads and we ask ourselves, do I live for myself or do I live for another; namely Him who died for us.
We fight and bicker over the nature and existence of God through our different religions and sciences and yet all these are founded upon our finite understanding. Whether or not we can prove God does nothing to add to or detract from the truth of His existence, any more that counting proves the validity of our mathematics. What we can prove by our own observation is only provable in our own imaginations and though we call it fact, it is only fact in the sense of our experience and knowledge but cannot be weighed against what is yet unknown.
The question is not whether or not God exists, but whether or not our observations are based on all knowledge. We can all readily admit that no man has attained to all knowledge and therefore we must agree that nothing we know by understanding can be considered absolute, but only clues, glimpses into what is. If we can agree that our knowledge is an imperfect foundation for our knowledge (just because something is our only tool does not make it the right tool) then we can allow ourselves to jump off of the “concrete” diving board into the vast realm of the unknown. This is the essence of mystery, and Paul is claiming that Jesus is the key to this mystery of God and a glimpse of His plan to bring the invisible unknowable into the realm of the observable natural elements.
We still don’t know how it all plays out, but we do know that in Christ we are safe, and this we know by faith and not by knowledge. It then becomes an issue of trust. Can we truly give ourselves to trust in the validity of a God that reveals Himself in pieces through broken people, a God who claims to have come in the form of a man as Jesus and rose from the dead, a God who is going to return to the earth a second time to set up His throne? I do. Faith is His marriage vow, I DO, LORD, And I DO!
His desire is to bring us into intimate understanding of who He is. Not just a wish list item, but a thing that brings Him great pleasure. No one Has seen God, but that is not the plan, in Christ we are being made into those who can see God in every way possible. This hidden mystery is being revealed in Christ. In this He is deriving pleasure. Are you as pleased to be with Him like He is pleased to be with you? To what extent are you willing to go to receive His love? We should be at least as willing to go as far as He went, and He went all the way through death.
In Jesus, He gave up all of His splendor and majesty to take on the form of a man (our form) in order to fully redeem us from the power of death, the grip of sin and the curse of the law (the law being a curse because none could keep it). Now we are at the crossroads and we ask ourselves, do I live for myself or do I live for another; namely Him who died for us.
We fight and bicker over the nature and existence of God through our different religions and sciences and yet all these are founded upon our finite understanding. Whether or not we can prove God does nothing to add to or detract from the truth of His existence, any more that counting proves the validity of our mathematics. What we can prove by our own observation is only provable in our own imaginations and though we call it fact, it is only fact in the sense of our experience and knowledge but cannot be weighed against what is yet unknown.
The question is not whether or not God exists, but whether or not our observations are based on all knowledge. We can all readily admit that no man has attained to all knowledge and therefore we must agree that nothing we know by understanding can be considered absolute, but only clues, glimpses into what is. If we can agree that our knowledge is an imperfect foundation for our knowledge (just because something is our only tool does not make it the right tool) then we can allow ourselves to jump off of the “concrete” diving board into the vast realm of the unknown. This is the essence of mystery, and Paul is claiming that Jesus is the key to this mystery of God and a glimpse of His plan to bring the invisible unknowable into the realm of the observable natural elements.
We still don’t know how it all plays out, but we do know that in Christ we are safe, and this we know by faith and not by knowledge. It then becomes an issue of trust. Can we truly give ourselves to trust in the validity of a God that reveals Himself in pieces through broken people, a God who claims to have come in the form of a man as Jesus and rose from the dead, a God who is going to return to the earth a second time to set up His throne? I do. Faith is His marriage vow, I DO, LORD, And I DO!
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