Category Archives: Scripture

Apr19

Quirky Questions to Make You Think

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I recently took a class through the RZIM Academy called What Does It Mean To Be Human? It was without doubt the best class I’ve ever taken anywhere, with the possible exception of Why Suffering, which was another class offered by the Academy.

Every class I’ve ever taken through the Academy has been exceedingly well done, but this last class was by far the best. I always learn a lot when I take these classes, but this time I learned a lot, and they made me think, probably more than in any other class.

One of the assignments we had to do was to come up with ten questions on what it means to be human. The variety of questions that people came up with was really cool.

I decided I’m going to post my questions here, and then try and come up with answers for each one.

So here goes…

  1. What is it about being human that makes man unique from all other creatures on earth?
  2. What is it about being human that gives man the capacity for spirituality?
  3. What is it about being human that gives man the desire to know and understand truth?
  4. What is it about being human that gives man the craving for beauty, and the ability to pursue perfection in the arts?
  5. What is it about being human that gives man the desire to know his origins, to know where he came from, deeper than just the details about sex?
  6. What is it about being human that gives man the hunger for morality, and the consequent ability to establish governments, and make rules and laws?
  7. What is it about being human that gives man the curiosity to pursue knowledge in the sciences and other fields of inquiry?
  8. What is it about being human that gives man the capacity to love sacrificially, and on the opposite end of the spectrum, to hate absolutely?
  9. What is it about being human that gives man the yearning to find meaning in his life?
  10. What is it about being human that makes people crave to know their destiny? In other words, what happens to us when we die?

So those were my ten questions. I don’t know how good they are, but I like them. The purpose of the assignment was to come up with questions that would make people think about what it means to be human, and to make them think more deeply about the things of the Spirit, and of God.

I want to start by answering the first question in this post, and then answer the questions one or two at a time in successive posts.

So, here I go with Question #1:

What is it about being human that makes man unique from all other creatures on earth?

I think the answer to that question lies more than anything in the idea, corroborated in Scripture, that human beings are created in the image of God. It says in the Book of Genesis,

And God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. ~ Genesis 1:26-27, ESV.

There are a lot of thoughts that run through my mind when I contemplate the idea that God, Master of the Universe, Creator of All Things, would create me in His image. That boggles my mind. As amazing and marvelous and wonderful and mysterious as God is, He created me in His image, and after His likeness.

Then I find myself wondering, what does it mean to be created in the image of someone? Is it about being created like that person, and if it is, like that person in what way? Since this is in reference to God, it can’t have anything to do with physical appearance, because God is Spirit.

Then Kim sent me some helpful ideas. God created us to reflect Him, kind of like a mirror, and He is, at the simplest level, Light, Life, and Love, so we were created to reflect God’s Light, God’s Life, and God’s Love, because those are God’s defining characteristics.

Something else Kim reminded me of: if you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus. Jesus Himself said that,

Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am? Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father! So why are you asking Me to show Him to you?” ~ John 14:8-9, NLT.

First, God is light, as it says in 1 John,

This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. ~ 1 John 1:5, NASB.

Then, God is love, also in 1 John,

The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. ~ 1 John 4:8, NASB.

And also in 1 John,

And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. 1 John 4:16, NKJV.

The idea that God is life is a little more difficult, because there isn’t a scripture that says plainly, God is life, as there are for the other two concepts. But inferences and deductions can be made, and conclusions can be drawn, so I’ll try and do exactly that.

Peter calls Jesus Christ the Author of Life in the Book of Acts. In order for someone to be the author of life, that person has to have life in himself, and Jesus Christ certainly had that, and still does in inexhaustible supply,

You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. And we are witnesses of this fact! ~ Acts 3:15, NLT, NIV, ESV, and RSV.

And “Author of Life” is translated variously, “Prince of Life”, in the KJV, NKJV, NASB, ASV, YLT, WEB, and HNV; “Source of Life” in the CSB; and “Originator of Life” in the NET and the DBY.

All of which means that God is Life because He is the source and originator of life. Plus Jesus said about Himself,

My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are One. ~ John 10:29-30, ESV.

In addition, Jesus says to Martha, the sister of Lazarus who He raised from the dead, in John, Chapter 11,

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies… ~ John 11:25, NASB.

So Jesus says He is the resurrection and the life (resurrection and life used as nouns). He’s saying that He has life, and that He is life.

I don’t know how close I’ve come to answering the question, but at least I’ve made a stab at it. I’m sure there’s more I could say, and I may come back and add more later on.

Apr18

Revenge Is God’s Job, Not Man’s.

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I think I know why vigilante justice is wrong. It occurred to me that vigilante justice is man’s attempt to get revenge when God said specifically that vengeance was His responsibility. It says in the Book of Romans,

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” ~ Romans 12:19, ESV.

And Paul is quoting Moses in the Book of Deuteronomy when he says that (Deuteronomy 32:35).

That says to me that revenge is God’s job, not ours. I often wonder if the reason people practice vigilante justice is because they either don’t believe God exists, so they feel they have to get justice themselves, or they don’t trust that He’ll get the justice they want, or need, or think they deserve for that crime. Either way they’re wresting control of when justice is served out of God’s hands, and into their own hands.

When someone has a vested interest in seeing a particular person convicted for a crime, regardless of that person’s actual guilt or innocence, if the person is acquitted then the one with the personal stake in his conviction can be a prime candidate for vigilante justice because he didn’t get his desired outcome.

God knows the whole story. He can see the whole picture, whereas we only know what we can see and hear and feel. We will never know another person’s motivation for what they did, and we won’t usually know if that person is lying, unless they break down and confess that they lied.

What if the person we’re pursuing is actually innocent of the crime we’re accusing him/her of? Even though we think we know who committed the crime, we don’t know everything, and we might be wrong. There’s no such thing as a perfect murder where God is concerned because God knows everything, EVERYTHING, and even if the real killer is never apprehended here on earth, God still knows who did it. That person will still have to face God’s justice and judgment in the end, regardless of what happens here on earth.

I know it’s hard to trust God about something so personal and painful as when someone dear to you has been attacked and/or murdered. I’ve been a victim of serious crime myself, and I know how difficult it is to trust God when you’ve been deeply wounded.

You might be saying, “How can I trust God when He allowed me to be so savagely hurt?” But I’ve come to know that it was God who protected me from the worst of the abuse. If God hadn’t been there I wouldn’t have survived. I would be dead, because those who were abusing me would have killed me, or I would have succeeded in one of my suicide attempts. And you might respond, “But if God is as powerful and as good as everyone says He is, then why was I abused at all? Why didn’t He stop the abuse from happening altogether?”

Unfortunately, there are some questions for which there just isn’t a satisfactory answer this side of Heaven, and this is one of them. The problem of evil is one of the great mysteries of the Christian faith, and it’s also one of the main reasons people give for doubting God’s existence. The argument usually goes, if God is omnipotent then He could have stopped the evil from happening, and since He didn’t then He must not be omnipotent. And by the same token, if He’s completely good, then He wouldn’t have allowed the evil to happen in the first place, and since the evil did happen, then He must not be completely good.

My response to those arguments is that the people proposing them aren’t considering all the factors. There is the all-important detail of man’s free will. God created every single human being with a free will, and He cannot violate that will in any way at any time, otherwise it wouldn’t be free. God desires humans who will freely choose to fellowship with Him, and He can only get people who will make that choice by creating them with a completely free will. And that means a free will to reject Him just as much as to choose Him.

I can say that God is absolutely faithful, and He solved the problem of evil once for all at the cross. Colossians 2 says,

He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, He disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by His victory over them on the cross. ~ Colossians 2:14-15, NLT.

In addition, it says in the Book of Revelation,

I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. ~ Revelation 1:18, KJV.

Jesus triumphed over Satan at the cross, and took the keys of hell and death away from him at that time, and as a consequence, death has lost its sting, as it says so well in 1 Corinthians,

“O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. ~ 1 Corinthians 15:55-57, ESV.

Even though Christ dealt with Satan at the cross, making a show of him openly as it says in Colossians, we won’t see the complete outworking of that victory until Christ returns at His Second Coming.

I think I’ll stop now. I’ve covered a lot of ground here, and meandered around a bit. I probably could’ve made this into two posts, especially because it got kind of long, plus I ended up on a different topic than I started out on, but I’m not sure I want to. Maybe I can tie it all together.

When someone is seeking their own justice, which is basically what vigilante justice is, they’re committing murder because they don’t trust the criminal justice system. Trying to exact your own justice is the wrong way to go about it. Killing another human being is always wrong no matter what, except if it’s in self defense.

God must be the judge, not man, and He works through the criminal justice system, as flawed as it is because it’s run by human beings. We need to trust that the truth will come out in God’s timing. You can’t hide anything from God. It says in the Book of Numbers,

But if you fail to keep your word, then you will have sinned against the LORD, and you may be sure that your sin will find you out. ~ Numbers 32:23, NLT.

So that’s all, folks!

Apr13

Stunned and Gobsmacked, or, God Must Be Right and I Must Be Wrong.

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Maybe I’m doing better with God than I think I am. I’ve always thought it impossible for me to please God regardless of what I do, say, or think. I realize I’m probably seeing God through the lens of Harry. I wish I could just take the Harry-glasses off and break them into a million pieces and be done with them for good so I can see God as He truly is, but such is not to be, it seems, at least not yet.

But maybe I’m not doing as badly as I think I am. The Bible says,

But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. ~ Hebrews 11:6, NKJV.

Throughout my Christian life my greatest strivings and highest longings have always been to know God and to please Him, but doing that very thing is what has always caused me the greatest anguish, because I’ve felt the most hopeless about being able to do so. But the interesting thing was that in all my struggles and strivings I never stopped believing in God. I always believed that He existed, I always believed that His Word was true, even if I couldn’t believe it was true for me, though I desperately wanted to believe that it was.

If I’ve always believed, and never doubted, that God is, as it says in Hebrews 11:6; in other words, that He exists, seems to me that requires faith. Maybe even a lot of it, given the kinds of experiences I’ve lived through.

The Bible gives the definition of faith as,

Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. ~ Hebrews 11:1, NLT.

So maybe I do have faith, possibly even a lot of it. I’ve been seeking God diligently my whole Christian life, regardless of any memories that were niggling in the background, or that were surfacing, or whatever. It feels scary for me to say that as a statement of fact, even arrogant. There’s a big part of me that wants to qualify it so my faith looks in some way less, but I don’t think I’ll do that, as uncomfortable as not doing so makes me feel.

But maybe God sees me differently than I do. I mean, the Bible says,

For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts. ~ Isaiah 55:8-9, ESV.

So maybe the way God sees me is completely different than the way I see myself, and more importantly, the way Harry portrayed me. The Bible says God created me in His image and after His likeness (see Genesis 1:26). I really like the way that sounds, because God doesn’t create anything ugly or defective or junky. He only makes beautiful things, and I finally figured out that God thinks I’m beautiful.

When I realized that I was utterly stunned and gobsmacked. God sees me as beautiful? Wow!! And God doesn’t make mistakes, so He must be right.

I think I’ll believe Him. He’s smarter than I am.

Which brings me back to whether I have faith or not. I must, if I’m choosing to believe what God thinks about me rather than what I feel about myself.

How cool is that!

 

Mar27

Where Else Would I Go?

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I’ve heard it said that Christianity in America is on dangerous ground these days, because we have so many media choices to choose from that fewer and fewer people will be sharing the same metanarrative. But that’s not only true for Christianity. It’s true for every worldview.

According to The Oxford English Dictionary, a metanarrative is “an overarching account or interpretation of events and circumstances that provides a pattern or structure for people’s beliefs and gives meaning to their experiences.” Media can shape the kind of metanarrative we hold, and the fewer media choices there are, the more likely we are to share metanarratives with those around us. That’s the way things were before the information age arrived.

Now, however, everything is different, because we have the internet.

Now everyone can access information on all the various social, political, and economic systems, not to mention the whole range of religious worldviews, plus we can customize our media consumption to suit our own individual needs and whims. And because we have such a wide variety of choices, and so many different religious and cultural metanarratives to choose from, each different metanarrative, such as Christianity, is less persuasive and influential than ever before.

With all these choices, people are more likely to isolate and construct their own micronarrative, rather than engage in shared narratives with others.

My answer to all this is found in John’s Gospel, Chapter Six,

After this many of His disciples turned back and no longer walked with Him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” ~ John 6:66-68, ESV.

In other words, regardless of how many micronarratives or metanarratives are out there, there’s only one narrative that’s going to save my soul and get me into Heaven, and that’s the Story of Jesus Christ and His death on the cross, and resurrection on the third day.

So no matter how many choices they present me with, my answer will always be, “Where else would I go? Only Jesus has the words of eternal life.”

Feb27

Confronting Evil By Talking About It

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When I was a teenager I was forced into having two abortions by the cult in which I was being abused. Well, first they raped me to get me pregnant, and then they aborted the babies that were the product of the two rapes.

The first one happened when I was about thirteen, and the pregnancy was terminated in an abortion at about three months, before the baby was viable outside the womb. It was a boy, whom I named David Adam Christopher.

The second one, when I was about fifteen, was terminated somewhere between four and five months, at a point when they knew the baby would be viable long enough for me to be able to bond with her before she was murdered. And yes, it was a girl. I named her Emily Margaret Rose. For both babies I tried to pick the most beautiful names I could think of, names that were not only beautiful, but were also at least partly biblical with good meanings.

In the abortion that killed David Adam Christopher, I have a very clear picture in my mind of a machine that I’m assuming was an abortion machine. It was a large blue rectangular box with a clear plastic dome on top, and as they were sucking the baby from my body I can see his tiny body parts mixed with blood swirling in the dome as the machine was running.

With Emily Margaret Rose it was even worse. I was the one who had to kill her, though in reality it was murder. I had no choice; they forced me.

After she was born they made me hold her, and they forced me to nurse her. At the time I didn’t understand exactly what they had planned, and I didn’t know why they made me bond with her, but I was glad for it. Then they took her away and put her on a table, which turned out to be an altar. She was naked, and they made me take off my clothes as well, something I always hated doing.

Then they made me go to the altar and they put a dagger in my hand. The dagger had a special kind of double-edged blade that had a thick electrical cable coming out of the handle. The cable was hooked up to a machine that generated electrical current, and as long as the machine was on, current flowed into the knife. As long as current was flowing I couldn’t let go of it because my muscles couldn’t stop contracting. The only way they would allow me to drop the dagger was if I stabbed Emily until she was dead. I had no choice. Not physically, nor emotionally, mentally, or spiritually.

I can see very clearly in my mind’s eye the images of having to do this to my beautiful baby girl. And I can distinctly hear her shrieks of agony as I plunged the dagger into her tiny body.

I take great comfort in Psalm 139:8 when I contemplate this horrific memory, because I believe what it says, that I was not alone in that Hell-on-earth, that God didn’t abandon me even there,

“If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.” ~ Psalm 139:8, NKJV.

I also believe I will one day meet both my beautiful babies when I get to Heaven. I hope they can forgive me for what I was forced to do to them. I’ve often felt that I should have been willing to die myself rather than allow them to be aborted and murdered like that, though if I had died I wouldn’t have saved them from anything. They were created by the cult for abuse, and they would have been sacrificed before very long, as appalling and unspeakable as that is.

I feel so many things as I relive this event. I don’t go back to it very often, and  I didn’t expect to do so today, but it came out as I was talking to McT about other things in therapy. And once I start talking about it, it doesn’t take much to take me right back to that scene again.

I don’t know if that means I haven’t truly put it behind me or what. I’ve repented to God over and over again, and asked His forgiveness for every aspect of it, but it’s just such a horrific thing, it feels like I can never repent enough, even though I know that Christ’s work on the Cross was completely sufficient to cover even this awful sin. I know, at least in my mind, that I had no control over what happened, that I was forced into it, but I’m not sure if I know that deep down inside.

I say that because whenever I think of it my feelings get all jumbled up and chaotic inside. They kind of flit and fly all over the place and I have a hard time catching them so I can look at them. It’s like they’re trying to escape detection so I don’t have to deal with the underlying issues.

The problem is, I want to deal with those issues. I need to deal with them.

I do feel a great deal of guilt and shame about what happened, and I also feel a huge amount of sorrow, grief, and distress about it ~ sorrow and grief at what might have been for those two babies had they survived and escaped the cult, and distress at what I put them through in the process of aborting (David), and killing them (Emily).

Of course there’s absolutely no guarantee that they would have been able to escape. Given that they were created by the cult for child sacrifice ~ the reason they raped me in the first place was to get me pregnant so they could use the baby that was the product of each rape in rituals, with the ultimate goal of sacrificing the baby’s life ~ something expressly forbidden by God in the Bible,

They have built high places to Baal on which to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, something I have never commanded or mentioned; I never entertained the thought. ~ Jeremiah 19:5, CSB.

They have built the high places of Baal in Ben Hinnom Valley to sacrifice their sons and daughters in the fire to Molech ​— ​something I had not commanded them. I had never entertained the thought that they do this detestable act causing Judah to sin! ~ Jeremiah 32:35, CSB.

What the Christian Standard Bible (aka CSB) calls a detestable act the King James Version calls an abomination, which the dictionary defines as an atrocity, a horror, an obscenity, an evil, a crime, an outrage, and a monstrosity. In Hebrew this word means a morally disgusting thing, ethically wicked, and an abhorrence.

It’s good to know that God finds what happened to my two babies as morally repugnant as I do. I just wish I hadn’t been forced to participate in it.

I guess what I’m getting at with all of this is that, even though I’ve made a lot of progress, it’s obvious that I still have a whole lot of work to do. Thankfully, God is able and He’s still on the throne of my life. He’s been doing miracles in my life from the beginning on, and I don’t expect He’ll stop now.

I thank God for that!!

Feb1

I’m Perverting God’s Word. Moi? But Yes!

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It occurred to me recently that I’m twisting God’s Word. It says in the Book of Hebrews,

And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who diligently seek him. ~ Hebrews 11:6.

But I leave half that verse off all the time, because I’m terrified that I’m not pleasing God. This is the Book of Hebrews according to Sarah,

It’s impossible for me to please God no matter hard I diligently seek Him ~ Hebrews 11:6, Sarah’s Word.

That’s a hard truth to accept about myself, but there it is. Something I never want to be guilty of doing is adding to or subtracting from God’s Word! I love the Bible, more than any other book I’ve ever read or known of.

The Bible has some severe things to say about people who pervert God’s Word. Like, if you add to it then God will add all the curses listed therein to your life, and there are a LOT of curses in the the Bible. And if you take any words away from the Bible then God will take your name out of the Lamb’s Book of Life.

I REALLY don’t want that to happen! I like being in the Lamb’s Book of Life a LOT!!

Of course my version of Hebrews 11:6 assumes that I have no faith, which would be why God can’t be pleased with me, according to the real version of the verse, as quoted above. Also, I realize that I’m basing that perception of God on the fact that it was forever and always absolutely and completely impossible to please Harry, and it also felt like it was futile to try and please my stepdad as well.

An example of that futility was one time after I had graduated from a program in medical assisting. I got the highest overall score that anyone had ever gotten at that school ~ a 99.25%, and when I told my stepdad about my amazing score, all he could say about it was, “Why didn’t you get 100%?”

I felt SOOO ANGRY when he said that!!

I had worked so hard to get that score, slaving night after night memorizing volumes of material that I didn’t think I’d ever use.

And all he could say was why didn’t I get a 100?!?

DAMN!!

I think he thought he was encouraging me, but he wasn’t. What he said cut me deeply. It made me feel like nothing I did was good enough.

I had to forgive him. I didn’t want to but I had to. It wasn’t for his good, but rather mine, so I did.

This is a hard thing for me. It’s so difficult for me to differentiate between God and my father, to separate them and put them in unrelated categories. I have to detach, disengage, and disentangle God from my father in my mind, will, and emotions so that God no longer comes to mind when I think of my father. So that the only reason my father might come to mind when I think of God is because I want to pray for him.

That’s my goal, and I know it’s doable.

Aug7

God’s Definition of Good

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What is God’s definition of good?

Someone asked that question on the radio recently, and it really made me think, mostly because I’m just about positive God’s definition is different than man’s.

The Bible says,

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” ~ Isaiah 55:8-9, ESV.

What that tells me is that God sees things differently than we do. In addition, God is completely good, and we are the antithesis of good. The Bible says our righteousness is as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). All of which makes sense, because we’re separated from God as a result of our sin ~ and as a result of Adam and Eve’s original sin ~ thus necessitating the need for a savior. Which is why Jesus Christ came and died on the cross ~ to atone once for all for our rebellion, and pay the ransom to remove the wall of separation between us and God.

Humans may have good parts; we may do good deeds. But bottom line, we are an evil lot, and without Jesus Christ’s saving work on the cross we would have no hope of anything other than eternity in Hell.

So God, and of course Christ, are wholly other than humanity, completely separate.

With all of that said, good from God’s point of view might be seen as that which is morally pure, just, and right, and also truthful ~ in the way that Jesus is the Truth (John 14:6, Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” ~ NKJV). I capitalized Truth because it’s not the kind of truth you see in today’s culture, with moral relativism and relative truth. It’s the absolute Truth that’s found in God’s Word, and that’s embodied in Jesus Christ.

I think the concept of good is also seen in everything that’s beautiful. The Bible says,

Oh, worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness! Tremble before Him, all the earth. ~ Psalm 96:8, NKJV.

Give unto the LORD the glory due to His name; Worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness. ~ Psalm 29:2, NKJV.

Not only are God and His holiness beautiful, but His creation is beautiful as well, and the world He created is chock-full of examples. In fact, His Word says that evidence of His existence can be clearly seen in His creation. It says in the book of Romans,

For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made they can clearly see His invisible qualities ~ His eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God. ~ Romans 1:20, NLT.

I also think God sees suffering as good, even beautiful, as paradoxical as that may sound. Jesus’ work of salvation on the cross was the best possible good that any person could have done for humanity throughout all of eternity, and yet the agony He suffered ~ physically, emotionally, and spiritually ~ was probably as much suffering as any person has ever had to go through.

He bore the sin of the whole world in His body, and worst of all, He had to endure God’s abandonment, because God cannot look on sin, so while Jesus hung on the cross God had to turn His back on Jesus. That must have been the most agonizingly painful suffering of all for Him, and He showed it with His words,

And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means,” My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” ~ Mark 15:34, ESV.

When Jesus uttered that anguished cry He was actually quoting Psalm 22:1,

My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? ~ Psalm 22:1, NIV.

Another detail of Christi’s suffering that I remembered as I was writing this post is that He actually benefitted from it as well, as everyone else did, something that I’ve never understood very well. It says in Hebrews,

While Jesus was here on earth, He offered prayers and pleadings, with a loud cry and tears, to the One who could rescue Him from death. And God heard His prayers because of His deep reverence for God. Even though Jesus was God’s Son, He learned obedience from the things He suffered. ~ Hebrews 5:7-8, NLT.

That idea has always puzzled me. Why would Jesus Christ, the Son of God, have to learn to be obedient before He could go to the cross? Maybe it was because He was human as well as divine, and the human part had to learn obedience. That makes sense to me. That I can understand.

Curiouser and more wonderful too!

His humanity taught His divinity what it meant to suffer, and how hard it was for humans to be obedient in the process.

Maybe that’s why He makes such a good High Priest!

I like to think so…

Jul30

Jesus Is the Only Way to God Because He Is God.

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Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” ~ John 14:6, NKJV.

I’ve heard many people object that Christians have no right to say that Jesus is the only way to God. I’ve also heard people say that Jesus never said He was God (not true, He said it many times in a number of different contexts). Seems to me, if people would recognize that He said He was God, then they would realize that, of course He was the only way to God, because He was God. He was the only way to reach Himself.

In addition, Jesus was the only figure representing a religion who called Himself God. Mohammed said he was Allah/God’s messenger, Buddhism has no gods, and Hinduism has 33 million gods.

“I and My Father are one.” ~ John 10:30, NKJV.

Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know Me, Philip? Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say ‘Show us the Father’?” ~ John 14:8-9, ESV.

It would be true that Jesus couldn’t say that He’s the only way to access God if He weren’t God but He is. He said He was God on many different occasions, as illustrated by the two instances above.

Additionally, when He was on the cross, one of the last things Jesus said was, “It is finished.” ~ John 19:30, NKJV. Then He died, after which the veil in the temple that separated the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place was torn in two from top to bottom. This was no mean feat, because the veil was reported to be sixty feet high and fifteen feet wide, and four inches thick. (some sources say it was thirty feet high and fifteen feet wide). Plus it was torn from top to bottom, sixty feet in the air, something no human being could have accomplished.

The veil was significant because it separated the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place in the temple, and originally in the tabernacle, and God was thought to have resided in the Most Holy Place. So if the veil separating the two was gone, then the wall closing off humanity from relationship with God was now removed, giving man access to God for the very first time since Adam’s sin way back in the beginning.

The upshot of all this is that if Jesus said He’s the way to reach God, and He speaks only the truth, then He must be the way to reach God because He was the only human to ever walk the earth who lived a perfect, sinless life. So He’s the only one who could be a bridge between us and a Holy God.

And He is exactly that!

Jul3

God Is God, So He Doesn’t Have to Play God.

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I had an interesting insight on the sovereignty of God recently.

I used to have big problems with God’s sovereignty in my life, because it seemed like it was God’s sovereignty that allowed me to be abused. And it used to make me SOOO ANGRY, because it felt like God wanted me to be abused, and it felt like cosmic child abuse.

I went through a whole seven-year period where I was enraged at God because of that, until I finally realized I was barking up the wrong tree ~ I was asking the wrong questions. I should have been asking who, what, and where questions instead of why questions. And once I started asking the right questions I actually got answers. God showed me where He was while I was being abused ~ which was all I really wanted to know in the first place.

But I realized recently that when someone is demanding that God explain Himself about something He’s done in that person’s life, what they’re really saying is, “How dare You play god with my life!” That made me laugh when I thought about it. How dare God play god with someone’s life? He IS God! He isn’t playing god, He’s BEING God! There’s a significant difference. The Apostle Paul says in Romans,

But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? ~ Romans 9: 20-21, ESV.

It seems to me Paul is saying here that God, because He is the Creator, has the right to do whatever He wants with the people He creates, and while those people can ask questions of Him, and pray for answers, they don’t have the right to demand explanations for His decisions.

You wouldn’t like it if your son demanded to know why you were taking him to the doctor’s office if his ear hurt, and then refused to go because he didn’t like the prick of needle from the shot. You would know why you were doing it ~ because the kid has an ear infection that needs to be healed, and if the doctor doesn’t give him an injection he could go deaf, or even die if it gets bad enough. You can see the big picture. You can see the end result, whereas the child can’t. The same holds true for God. The Bible says,

Only I can tell you the future before it even happens. Everything I plan will come to pass, for I do whatever I wish. ~ Isaiah 46:10, NLT.

I like the way the NIV says it as well,

I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’ ~ Isaiah 46:10, NIV.

What that says to me is that God knew everything that would ever happen to me before I was ever a thought in anyone’s mind. He knew every decision I would make, and every thought I would think. He also knew every decision He would make about me. The Bible also says He knows the day I’m going to die, something I find quite comforting.

Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. ~ Psalm 139:16, NIV.

The reason I find that comforting is because now that I know that, it’s something I don’t have to worry about anymore. It’s God’s problem, not mine. All I have to do is go through my days doing my best to glorify God in all I do, basing my life on His Word, and God will take care of the rest.

Such a deal!

May27

Beauty Shouts of God’s Existence…

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Give unto the LORD the glory due to His name; worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness. ~ Psalm 29:2, NKJV.

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. ~ Psalm 19:1, NKJV.

I’ve been fascinated by all aspects of beauty for a long time, especially with regard to Christian apologetics and the existence of God.

God’s creation is awash with examples of beauty that He’s created to give us reasons to worship Him, from the microscopic to the hugely macroscopic in outer space. There’s even a nebula that’s shaped like a horsehead! How cool is that?

Horsehead

And then there are diatoms. Diatoms are tiny, microscopic, one-celled organisms that have a glass (silica) shell, and there are about 250,000 different species, each with a different shell. They’re kind of like snowflakes, because no two are alike, and they’re all amazingly beautiful. Here are some examples:

Different Kinds of Diatoms

And there are things like the beautiful symmetry of the hemoglobin molecule, and the almost identical symmetry of the chlorophyll molecule, and considering the roles those two molecules play in the biochemistry of plants and animals, it just shows how wonderful and amazing God is.

The hemoglobin molecule:

Heme b of the Hemoglobin Molecule

The chlorophyll molecule:

Chlorophyll_f.svg

And then there are fractals, and the many fractal designs that can be found in nature.

An aloe plant:

Aloe Spiral Fractal

Mathematics is another example, with the Fibonacci sequence being a good illustration of the beauty to be found therein. The Fibonacci sequence is a series of integers characterized by the fact that every number after the first two is the sum of the two preceding ones: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, . . . A gorgeous example in nature of the Fibonacci sequence is the chambered Nautilus:

Nautilus With Connections Between Chambers

And aside from all the other examples that can be found in nature, God created human beings with the ability to perceive and appreciate beauty, as well as create beautiful things. He constructed our bodies with five senses, each of which can perceive a different kind of beauty.

Our ears can hear beautiful music, as well as a baby’s first words. Our taste buds can taste the most amazing desserts. Our noses can smell the scent of the sweetest flower, and the most fragrant perfume. Our hands can feel the softness of a baby’s skin. And with our eyes we can see the richness of color in a beautiful Van Gogh painting, or a vivid Hawaiian sunset.

All of that is to say that God has given us clear evidence of His existence through His creation, and, I believe, specifically through the beauty in His creation. It says as much in the book of Romans:

For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God. ~ Romans 1:20, NLT.