Romans 8: 28 - 29 NKJV
I've heard enough. I'm so finished with this whole cliche, catch phrase driven christianity. An aquaintance this week posted a few pictures of a few fun filled days at the Oregon coast. However, along with his pictures of his vacation he headlined his post "God is good all the time." Really? So, my question to those who adhere to this saying would be this...when exactly did our heavenly stop being good? Indeed, we trump this motivational saying as if God has suddenly come to His senses and proclaimed for all to hear, "Ya know what? I AM good after all!" To me, the issue is not that God has suddenly decided to be "good" but that we ourselves have forgotten just how good He is. This isn't a God issue, but a "us" issue. For we are the ones who have somehow forgotten love, grace and kindness of our Lord. either that or we don't put much faith in Him so we need to keep reminding ourselves that He is always good. Make no mistake, it is teachings like this which we hear every week in our institutional churches. So, in order to somehow convince ourselves that He is good...we dutifully recite our motivational sayings. I get it. I've often told the story of just how difficult I've found it to wrap my understanding around that fact that a God whom I cannot see could today live through me {Galations 2:20}. Yet the apostle Paul reassures us that this is indeed the case. It's much easier for me to trust in something that I can see physically. My neighbor, my coworkers, the man at the local store. All of these I can see in front of me. God? Not so much. Or can I?
9Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!” 10But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
Job 2: 9 - 10 NKJV
One of the most difficult times I endured during my mothers illness was hearing her forgett those things which I knew she believed to be true in her own heart. She knew Jesus, she loved Him and knew where she stood with God. Yet she often would ask me if I felt that God would let her into heaven. She had simply forgotten what she already knew to be true. Why do I mention this? Because I feel that we can take a lesson from one who spent a good portion of her life loving Jesus and yet forgot what she already knew. Many a christian has heard of how Jesus gave Himself for us that we might be saved {2 Corinthians 5:21}. We've heard that He wiped all of our sins away as He die don that cross. Of how He won the final victory over death when He rose three days later. Yet all too often we forget that which we already know. See, I know in my heart that Christ Jesus lives through me today. I know in my heart that my sins have been wiped away, no longer to be counted against me. Not only that, I trust that not only has each and every sin been wiped clean, but that I am no longer a slave to those sins which once defined me {Romans 6:6}. Yet every now and then I will feel that twinge of condemnation over something I long ago died to. Have I Fallen back into sin? No, I have simply forgotten who it is that I really am inside. I am no longer condemnation. I am not just a sinner saved by grace. Sin no longer defines me. Paul assures me that I am now dead to that. This is who I really am. We do well to remember that not only is God good all the time, but that He never stopped being so. He is the Alpha and the Omega...He never changes. If anything has changed, it is our own understanding of who God truly is.
8Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Hebrews 13: 8 NKJV
~Scott~
2 comments:
If we see evil then God is suspect. "If your eye is (single).." i.e. only seeing good then everything including God is good. What we see is what we become.
Interesting :)
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