For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. Hebrews 10:14 ESV
The more I read the scriptures, the more I am amazed at its depth. Growing in maturity causes us to learn to let God be God and let His word speak for itself, even when it proposes two seeming contradictions in passages such as Hebrews 10:14. Think about it. God has already perfected us because of Christ, yet God is also perfecting us who are perfected because of Christ. This is not easy to understand, much less savor and glory in at first glance. It might be easier for some of us to quickly pass over a passage such as this because of its seeming difficulty.
But oh, the loss of great blessings and encouragement! The apostle Paul gives us a great exhortation in 2 Timothy 2:7. "Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything." He says think, reflect, muse, ponder, meditate and the Lord by His Spirit will enable us to understand. In short, we are to think and God will help us through the means of thought to apprehend spiritual truths.
With this in mind, Hebrews 10:14 is well worth pondering. The first blessing here is that Christ has already perfected His people.
"For by a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified." Now consider this wonderful truth. This is in the perfect tense, meaning Jesus Christ has perfected His people. It is complete and finished forever.
What is hard to grasp here is that if this is true, then why am I so imperfect? How can He say I am perfected when I have sinned already several times this morning? Because of what He says in the next clause
"For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified." Who has been perfected? Those who are being sanctified or those who are being perfected! This is in the indicative tense meaning continuous action. So those who are "being sanctified" are not yet fully sanctified in the sense of perfection in this life and ceasing from committing sin. Otherwise they would not need to be ongoing sanctified.
So here we have the both shocking and awesome combination. The very people who are perfect are the very ones who are being perfected! By the work of the cross "for by a single offering"there is total, complete forgiveness (read Hebrews 10:15-18). When He looks at us, He does not impute any of our sins to us-past, present, or future. He does not count our sins against us. In eternity Christ sees you as already perfect, and thus we stand before Him perfected. We can stand before Him with the assurance that you are perfected and complete in the eyes of God.
But in this present time those who are perfect are being perfected. The very reality of our imperfection gives us assurance that we are in this life time are progressing towards our perfection purchased and guaranteed by the blood of Jesus Christ.
God is making us into what He already sees us as being and our experience testifies to it as we trust in this reality by faith and move away from our imperfections and move closer and closer in this lifetime to perfection. Oh what encouragement in our imperfection and what motivation for holiness. Hebrews 10:14 says that you can be assured that you stand perfect in the eyes of God not because you are perfect now, but because in your present imperfection you are being perfected.
Oh reader, consider these promises and let them encourage you today and reinforces Hebrews 10:14 to you. Take heart and fix your eyes on the one who perfected you once for all time and is perfecting you day by day.
Philippians 1:6, "I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ."
Philippians 2:12-13, "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure."
2 Corinthians 3:18, "And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit."
Amazed and full of joy,
Pastor Bill
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
GOD'S PECULIAR GRACE Part 2
According to the American Heritage Dictionary the word “peculiar” means something or someone distinct from all others. Belonging distinctively or primarily to one person, group, or kind; special or unique. That is why I have been speaking of “A Peculiar Grace”, because God is peculiar, unique, and in a category all His own. Therefore, everything about Him and everything He does is “peculiar”. When we begin humbly listening to the Word of God and humbly receiving its truths we learn to live with paradox, unanswered questions, mysteries, assurance, security, and a deep faith in His awesome nature.
This has been my story. For a long time I was like a man who had a tree in his back yard and deep down in that same yard was a buried treasure unknown to him. So, he was content with racking the fallen leaves off the tree making sure the yard looked good. Well, the yard looked good, but the treasure was untapped! Then I read John Piper’s Desiring God and realized that there was a treasure of infinite proportions buried in my backyard that had always been there while I had been raking up the leaves of weak theology, popular teaching, doctrinal pride, and my own immature understanding for so many years.
Then a breakthrough came in my life when God showed me that it was time to go back to the scriptures and to see it with new eyes and hear it with new ears. This blog is a testament of deep devotion. It was birthed during a course of the past few years in my spiritual journey where I experienced major shifts in my theological understanding of God and the Christian life. I heard God speak through the scriptures and the writings of deep thinking, God-saturated, Bible bleeding men of great spiritual insight and devotion. Men like Augustine, Jonathan Edwards, C.S. Lewis, and John piper. How thankful I am for God liberating my thinking and feeling by His grace and mercy.
I am calling for a challenge, a call, a pastoral plea for a fresh hearing from God from His divine perspective concerning His own “peculiar” truths. The Apostle Paul says, “Consider what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything” (2 Timothy 2:7).
My blog is meant to provoke worship. I have discovered that there is a kind of hearing that leads to worship or as John Piper calls it “exaltation”. When the mind is engaged with the spirit of God, when reflection is joined with divine illumination, worship results. Jonathan Edwards puts it like this:
God glorifies Himself towards the creatures in two ways: 1. By appearing…to their understanding. 2. In communicating Himself to their hearts, and in their rejoicing and delighting in and enjoying in the manifestations which He makes of Himself…God is glorified not only by His glory being seen, but in its being rejoiced in. When those that see it delight in it, God will be more glorified than if they only had seen it. His glory is then received by the whole soul, both in understanding and by the heart.”
I have discovered that there are two components to real worship. First, there is a kind of seeing God like Paul teaches, But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18 ) Second, there is a supreme valuing of what you see of God. When the face is unveiled and God shows Christ for His exceeding great worth, beauty, preciousness, and supremacy; we value or treasure Him. You must truly see God in order to value Him. The fact is you cannot truly see God without savoring Him. It would be like seeing a Kauai sunset and thinking about the ghetto. To see God without savoring Him would be a gross insult to His glory.
True worship involves understanding with the mind and feeling a passion of the heart. For most of my Christian journey I had been taught the importance of orthodoxy, which is right doctrine; orthopraxy, right practice or living according to right doctrine; but I had never been taught, orthopathos, having a right passion based upon the truth revealed in Christ. I’ve discovered that Christianity involves thinking and feeling, study and reflection, understanding and affections. That is why the Bible commands us to think, consider, understand, and meditate, on one hand, and to rejoice, fear, mourn, delight, feel, and be glad on the other hand. Both are critical for true worship.
my blog is therefore, about Orthopathos, gaining a right “peculiar” passion; the kind of passion that glorifies God and gladdens the soul. Oh how God wants to inspire a kind of passion that revolutionizes lives, churches, nations, and history. The kind of passion that sends out devoted men and women to sacrifice everything for the glory of Christ and the salvation of the nations. A passion that comes when a person falls in love, or discovers buried treasure, or the cure for AIDS. It is the passion that was the oxygen in the souls of men like the Apostle Paul, Augustine of Hippo, Bernard of Clairveux, Martin Luther, George Whitefield, John Wesley, Jonathan and Sarah Edwards, John Owen, David Brainerd, John Newton, John Bunyan, William Carey, Hudson Taylor, Charles Simeon, John Paton, Charles Spurgeon, Richard Wurmbrand, Jim Elliot, Mary Slessor, Amy Carmichael, R.C Sproul, C.J. Mahaney, John Piper, and a vast number of ordinary, devoted men and women. These are the great cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12:1).
May this blog light a passion within you like it has for me. Please take a new fresh look at the peculiar grace of Jesus Christ. First, I would like to stir you to see God in ways perhaps you have never seen Him. Second, I long to see you moved to cherish God for all He really is and to enjoy God with fresh experiences of delight in Him. Finally, I pray for you to be a fountain of God’s peculiar grace to a graceless, hungry, and thirsty world.
May Christ get all the glory and you get all the joy!
Pastor Bill
A Prayer
Day by day, Day by day
Oh Dear Lord Three things I pray:
To See thee more clearly
To Love thee more dearly
To Follow thee more nearly Day by day
This has been my story. For a long time I was like a man who had a tree in his back yard and deep down in that same yard was a buried treasure unknown to him. So, he was content with racking the fallen leaves off the tree making sure the yard looked good. Well, the yard looked good, but the treasure was untapped! Then I read John Piper’s Desiring God and realized that there was a treasure of infinite proportions buried in my backyard that had always been there while I had been raking up the leaves of weak theology, popular teaching, doctrinal pride, and my own immature understanding for so many years.
Then a breakthrough came in my life when God showed me that it was time to go back to the scriptures and to see it with new eyes and hear it with new ears. This blog is a testament of deep devotion. It was birthed during a course of the past few years in my spiritual journey where I experienced major shifts in my theological understanding of God and the Christian life. I heard God speak through the scriptures and the writings of deep thinking, God-saturated, Bible bleeding men of great spiritual insight and devotion. Men like Augustine, Jonathan Edwards, C.S. Lewis, and John piper. How thankful I am for God liberating my thinking and feeling by His grace and mercy.
I am calling for a challenge, a call, a pastoral plea for a fresh hearing from God from His divine perspective concerning His own “peculiar” truths. The Apostle Paul says, “Consider what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything” (2 Timothy 2:7).
My blog is meant to provoke worship. I have discovered that there is a kind of hearing that leads to worship or as John Piper calls it “exaltation”. When the mind is engaged with the spirit of God, when reflection is joined with divine illumination, worship results. Jonathan Edwards puts it like this:
God glorifies Himself towards the creatures in two ways: 1. By appearing…to their understanding. 2. In communicating Himself to their hearts, and in their rejoicing and delighting in and enjoying in the manifestations which He makes of Himself…God is glorified not only by His glory being seen, but in its being rejoiced in. When those that see it delight in it, God will be more glorified than if they only had seen it. His glory is then received by the whole soul, both in understanding and by the heart.”
I have discovered that there are two components to real worship. First, there is a kind of seeing God like Paul teaches, But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18 ) Second, there is a supreme valuing of what you see of God. When the face is unveiled and God shows Christ for His exceeding great worth, beauty, preciousness, and supremacy; we value or treasure Him. You must truly see God in order to value Him. The fact is you cannot truly see God without savoring Him. It would be like seeing a Kauai sunset and thinking about the ghetto. To see God without savoring Him would be a gross insult to His glory.
True worship involves understanding with the mind and feeling a passion of the heart. For most of my Christian journey I had been taught the importance of orthodoxy, which is right doctrine; orthopraxy, right practice or living according to right doctrine; but I had never been taught, orthopathos, having a right passion based upon the truth revealed in Christ. I’ve discovered that Christianity involves thinking and feeling, study and reflection, understanding and affections. That is why the Bible commands us to think, consider, understand, and meditate, on one hand, and to rejoice, fear, mourn, delight, feel, and be glad on the other hand. Both are critical for true worship.
my blog is therefore, about Orthopathos, gaining a right “peculiar” passion; the kind of passion that glorifies God and gladdens the soul. Oh how God wants to inspire a kind of passion that revolutionizes lives, churches, nations, and history. The kind of passion that sends out devoted men and women to sacrifice everything for the glory of Christ and the salvation of the nations. A passion that comes when a person falls in love, or discovers buried treasure, or the cure for AIDS. It is the passion that was the oxygen in the souls of men like the Apostle Paul, Augustine of Hippo, Bernard of Clairveux, Martin Luther, George Whitefield, John Wesley, Jonathan and Sarah Edwards, John Owen, David Brainerd, John Newton, John Bunyan, William Carey, Hudson Taylor, Charles Simeon, John Paton, Charles Spurgeon, Richard Wurmbrand, Jim Elliot, Mary Slessor, Amy Carmichael, R.C Sproul, C.J. Mahaney, John Piper, and a vast number of ordinary, devoted men and women. These are the great cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12:1).
May this blog light a passion within you like it has for me. Please take a new fresh look at the peculiar grace of Jesus Christ. First, I would like to stir you to see God in ways perhaps you have never seen Him. Second, I long to see you moved to cherish God for all He really is and to enjoy God with fresh experiences of delight in Him. Finally, I pray for you to be a fountain of God’s peculiar grace to a graceless, hungry, and thirsty world.
May Christ get all the glory and you get all the joy!
Pastor Bill
A Prayer
Day by day, Day by day
Oh Dear Lord Three things I pray:
To See thee more clearly
To Love thee more dearly
To Follow thee more nearly Day by day
Thursday, October 18, 2007
GOD'S "PECULIAR GRACE" Part 1
In the beginning God…
Genesis 1:1
The LORD executes righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel.
Psalm 103:6-7
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable His judgments, and His paths beyond tracing out! "Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor?" "Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?" For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen. Romans 11:33-36
And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
John 17:3-4
“There is no more important issue in life than seeing Jesus for who He really is and savoring what we see above all else.”
John Piper
It has been said that in the beginning God created man in His own image and that man has been returning the favor ever since by creating God in his own image. In my own Christian journey I have discovered a huge chasm between the God who is revealed in the Bible and the God whom I was taught of in church and seminary. Too often instead of learning by hearing from Jesus and the scriptures, we have brought our views of God from outside of the Bible into the Bible.
The prophet Jeremiah wrote:
Thus says the LORD: "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, Let not the mighty man glory in his might, Nor let the rich man glory in his riches; But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, That I am the LORD, exercising loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight," says the LORD.
Jeremiah 9:23-24
In his oracle the prophet rebukes every facet of man’s pride of self-reliance, self-centeredness, and self-sufficiency manifested in glorying in his wisdom, might, and wealth. Instead, he commends the man who glories in one key thing: that he understands and knows the Lord. But what is this knowing that Jeremiah spoke of? There is a kind of knowing that comes out of logic, reason, philosophy, and religion that is rooted in man’s own pride and self-exaltation. It is a knowing rooted in man’s own intuition, reasoning, worldview, and feeble attempts apart from grace, to understand infinite and multidimensional realities. It would be like a two dimensional being trying to understand from its own extremely limited reasoning and his two dimensional world, three dimensional realities. The only frame of reference it would have is to project its reality upon these higher or different realities.
Fallen man constantly tries to tame Jesus Christ. We revise Him according to our image to fit Him into our religion, lifestyle, philosophy, or political platform. We trivialize Him, attempt to tame Him, control Him, contain Him, neuter Him, create arguments in order to explain Him, apologize for parts of Him that make us uncomfortable, redefine Him, argue His existence, Unfortunately, all of man’s attempts fall exceedingly short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23). Without God’s help man will always come up with a perspective of God who is dramatically less than God.
But with God, there is another kind of knowing that comes from His passion, desire, and willingness to reveal Himself as He is and His world truly as it is. God has given man a path to knowing Him. The Apostle Paul described it in 2 Corinthians 4:4-6:
“The god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God…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.”
It is God who does a work in men’s hearts to be able to comprehend “the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” He makes this path possible by His Holy Spirit and the portrait of Him through the Scriptures. (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:21; John 1:14, 18; Hebrews 1:1-2). God not only reveals Himself, but also enables us to see, hear, and receive the glory and worth of what He has revealed. This is called illumination; God’s gracious enabling of His creation to see what is really there.
No wonder the Psalmist prayed,
“Open my eyes, that I may see wondrous things from Your law.”
Psalm 119:18
The Psalmist knew that without God’s help, he would not be able to see “wondrous” things; that is to say, the “peculiar” things of God and His world. How else could he describe God as anything but “wondrous”?
Hudson Taylor said that “The great need of every Christian is to know God. Indeed, this is the purpose for which he has given us eternal life.”[i]
Jesus himself said:
“And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent…Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” John 17:3, 24-25
I am convinced that we need a fresh understanding of God’s nature as revealed in scripture. What pleasure there is in knowing Him by seeing His exceeding beauty and greatness, savoring His ultimate worth and preciousness, being satisfied in Him alone, and showing His glory to all the nations, thus fulfilling His eternal purposes. In short, what we need is a fresh infusion of God’s “peculiar grace”. According to John Piper, this “grace is the pleasure of God to magnify the worth of God by giving sinners the right and power to delight in God without obscuring the glory of God.”
The grace that comes from God is a kind of “peculiar” grace that frees and empowers us to enjoy Him by making much of Him. This grace comes directly from his world, the biblical world. This grace cannot be found or replicated by man. All attempts end up with a Christianity that makes much of man and little of God.
When we receive this “peculiar grace” something wonderful happens within a person’s soul. Paul describes it in 2 Corinthians 3:18:
“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.”
We begin “seeing” Jesus for who He really is and as we begin seeing Him, a miracle begins to take place and we progressively become like Him. A change takes place that comes from a gaze, a look, a beholding. We fall in love with the Beautiful One and our lives change. The beholding doesn’t change us; it is the beauty and glory of the One whom we behold. We are not transformed by an idea or a concept. We are transformed by beholding the glory of God in the face of Jesus. Someday when Christ finally appears, we will see Him not only in the fullness of his beauty and glory but forever and ever. And the Bible makes us a wonderful promise:
Yes, dear friends, we are already God's children, and we can't even imagine what we will be like when Christ returns. But we do know that when He comes we will be like Him, for we will see him as He really is.
1 John 3:2 NLT
One day we will be completely transformed and it will be the glory of Jesus that does it. On earth His glory is often eclipsed, dimmed, blurred, fleeting, and distorted when we are left to ourselves and our vision. But God gives us “peculiar grace” to slow us down and see His wondrous glory.
To be continued...
Genesis 1:1
The LORD executes righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel.
Psalm 103:6-7
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable His judgments, and His paths beyond tracing out! "Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor?" "Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?" For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen. Romans 11:33-36
And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
John 17:3-4
“There is no more important issue in life than seeing Jesus for who He really is and savoring what we see above all else.”
John Piper
It has been said that in the beginning God created man in His own image and that man has been returning the favor ever since by creating God in his own image. In my own Christian journey I have discovered a huge chasm between the God who is revealed in the Bible and the God whom I was taught of in church and seminary. Too often instead of learning by hearing from Jesus and the scriptures, we have brought our views of God from outside of the Bible into the Bible.
The prophet Jeremiah wrote:
Thus says the LORD: "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, Let not the mighty man glory in his might, Nor let the rich man glory in his riches; But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, That I am the LORD, exercising loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight," says the LORD.
Jeremiah 9:23-24
In his oracle the prophet rebukes every facet of man’s pride of self-reliance, self-centeredness, and self-sufficiency manifested in glorying in his wisdom, might, and wealth. Instead, he commends the man who glories in one key thing: that he understands and knows the Lord. But what is this knowing that Jeremiah spoke of? There is a kind of knowing that comes out of logic, reason, philosophy, and religion that is rooted in man’s own pride and self-exaltation. It is a knowing rooted in man’s own intuition, reasoning, worldview, and feeble attempts apart from grace, to understand infinite and multidimensional realities. It would be like a two dimensional being trying to understand from its own extremely limited reasoning and his two dimensional world, three dimensional realities. The only frame of reference it would have is to project its reality upon these higher or different realities.
Fallen man constantly tries to tame Jesus Christ. We revise Him according to our image to fit Him into our religion, lifestyle, philosophy, or political platform. We trivialize Him, attempt to tame Him, control Him, contain Him, neuter Him, create arguments in order to explain Him, apologize for parts of Him that make us uncomfortable, redefine Him, argue His existence, Unfortunately, all of man’s attempts fall exceedingly short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23). Without God’s help man will always come up with a perspective of God who is dramatically less than God.
But with God, there is another kind of knowing that comes from His passion, desire, and willingness to reveal Himself as He is and His world truly as it is. God has given man a path to knowing Him. The Apostle Paul described it in 2 Corinthians 4:4-6:
“The god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God…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.”
It is God who does a work in men’s hearts to be able to comprehend “the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” He makes this path possible by His Holy Spirit and the portrait of Him through the Scriptures. (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:21; John 1:14, 18; Hebrews 1:1-2). God not only reveals Himself, but also enables us to see, hear, and receive the glory and worth of what He has revealed. This is called illumination; God’s gracious enabling of His creation to see what is really there.
No wonder the Psalmist prayed,
“Open my eyes, that I may see wondrous things from Your law.”
Psalm 119:18
The Psalmist knew that without God’s help, he would not be able to see “wondrous” things; that is to say, the “peculiar” things of God and His world. How else could he describe God as anything but “wondrous”?
Hudson Taylor said that “The great need of every Christian is to know God. Indeed, this is the purpose for which he has given us eternal life.”[i]
Jesus himself said:
“And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent…Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” John 17:3, 24-25
I am convinced that we need a fresh understanding of God’s nature as revealed in scripture. What pleasure there is in knowing Him by seeing His exceeding beauty and greatness, savoring His ultimate worth and preciousness, being satisfied in Him alone, and showing His glory to all the nations, thus fulfilling His eternal purposes. In short, what we need is a fresh infusion of God’s “peculiar grace”. According to John Piper, this “grace is the pleasure of God to magnify the worth of God by giving sinners the right and power to delight in God without obscuring the glory of God.”
The grace that comes from God is a kind of “peculiar” grace that frees and empowers us to enjoy Him by making much of Him. This grace comes directly from his world, the biblical world. This grace cannot be found or replicated by man. All attempts end up with a Christianity that makes much of man and little of God.
When we receive this “peculiar grace” something wonderful happens within a person’s soul. Paul describes it in 2 Corinthians 3:18:
“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.”
We begin “seeing” Jesus for who He really is and as we begin seeing Him, a miracle begins to take place and we progressively become like Him. A change takes place that comes from a gaze, a look, a beholding. We fall in love with the Beautiful One and our lives change. The beholding doesn’t change us; it is the beauty and glory of the One whom we behold. We are not transformed by an idea or a concept. We are transformed by beholding the glory of God in the face of Jesus. Someday when Christ finally appears, we will see Him not only in the fullness of his beauty and glory but forever and ever. And the Bible makes us a wonderful promise:
Yes, dear friends, we are already God's children, and we can't even imagine what we will be like when Christ returns. But we do know that when He comes we will be like Him, for we will see him as He really is.
1 John 3:2 NLT
One day we will be completely transformed and it will be the glory of Jesus that does it. On earth His glory is often eclipsed, dimmed, blurred, fleeting, and distorted when we are left to ourselves and our vision. But God gives us “peculiar grace” to slow us down and see His wondrous glory.
To be continued...
Thursday, October 11, 2007
SAVORING THE "GODNESS" OF GOD
“By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, "Through Isaac shall your offspring be named." He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.” Hebrews 11:18-19
Do you believe in the Godness of God? Do you believe in a God like Abraham’s God? When you are put to the test, when adversity comes, when the bottom falls, your theology will be the only thing left. And it will either be the life preserver that keeps you afloat or it will be the weights under your feet that pull you under.
The story of Abraham is a story about God and a man who learned to trust in Him as God. Abraham to leave his family and his home, and to follow God to a new place, God’s place. Would Abraham trust Him? Abraham did, partially. He left Ur of the Chaldees, but he took his father with him, settled in another place until his father died, and then proceeded on with his relative, Lot. Through all of this, God was trying to teach Abraham how to believe in His provision. God promised Abraham an heir. But then God waited for years without fulfilling that promise. Would Abraham trust God? He did, partially. But he also tried to help God fulfill God’s promise. He and his wife devised a scheme whereby Abraham would bring forth an heir through Sarah’s handmaiden. Thus, Ishmael was born. But that was not the child of God’s promise. God said that He would, through Abraham and Sarah, bring forth an heir. This was a lesson in trusting God’s provision for them. Finally they saw that promise fulfilled in the birth of Isaac.
But then in Genesis 22:2 we read, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you." Now, God was asking Abraham to give up the son who was the very answer to his prayers. It must have seemed illogical, but then, what had seemed logical was not always God’s will. Had Abraham learned to trust in God’s promise more than in his own logic? Had he learned that if he would trust in God’s word, God would take care of all his needs? This, I believe, was the real test Abraham faced. It was a test of faith.
Abraham had come to the place in his faith where he trusted that God was even able to raise Isaac from the dead. God would provide. Abraham had come to believe this. Why? Because we read in Romans 4:17-18 that Abraham believed in God “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, "So shall your offspring be." and that Abraham was “fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.” (Romans 4:21).
Believing that God could do the impossible; Abraham did the unthinkable and obeyed. There is something else that he factored into the equation. He considered that God is "able." The word translated "able" is "dunatos," from which we get our word "dynamite." The power of God blows away the tension between the promise of God and the command of God. It obliterates seeming contradictions and makes the impossible possible.
Oh brothers and sisters for us to arm ourselves in every situation in life we need to know the truth of and to trust in the reality of the truth that if God is God, than as Jesus said, nothing is impossible with God (Matthew 17:20; 19:26; Luke 1:37). What are your impossible situations?
We all reach points like Abraham where the devil tells us it is hopeless, there is no way forward, it won’t happen, it can’t change, or it won’t get better. You have to have a view of God that brings like Abraham’s, a view of a God who brings out of that which is not that which is. There is no human way out. But if you are a true believer in the living God, than you believe in supernatural realities. You believe that there is a God who brought the universe out of nothing and if God is God than nothing is impossible!
God’s Godness creates a future where there is none. Nothing you can tell me about you, your circumstances, or your life, can change God’s Godness to make something out of nothing. God’s Godness creates a future where there is none. An irreparable marriage? Nothing is impossible with God! A wayward child? Nothing is impossible with God! A fruitless ministry? Nothing is impossible with God! A defeated life? Nothing is impossible with God! Nothing you can tell me would make me say this is impossible. You may feel absolutely hopeless and powerless but God has the power to bring something out of nothing.
If God cannot bring to bear on this world a supernatural reality that breaks through our impossibilities than we might as well close the doors of our churches and go home. Oh dear readers God is God, He will break in! Now think of every situation in your life and speak to it right now: NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD!
Savoring His Godness,
Pastor Bill
Do you believe in the Godness of God? Do you believe in a God like Abraham’s God? When you are put to the test, when adversity comes, when the bottom falls, your theology will be the only thing left. And it will either be the life preserver that keeps you afloat or it will be the weights under your feet that pull you under.
The story of Abraham is a story about God and a man who learned to trust in Him as God. Abraham to leave his family and his home, and to follow God to a new place, God’s place. Would Abraham trust Him? Abraham did, partially. He left Ur of the Chaldees, but he took his father with him, settled in another place until his father died, and then proceeded on with his relative, Lot. Through all of this, God was trying to teach Abraham how to believe in His provision. God promised Abraham an heir. But then God waited for years without fulfilling that promise. Would Abraham trust God? He did, partially. But he also tried to help God fulfill God’s promise. He and his wife devised a scheme whereby Abraham would bring forth an heir through Sarah’s handmaiden. Thus, Ishmael was born. But that was not the child of God’s promise. God said that He would, through Abraham and Sarah, bring forth an heir. This was a lesson in trusting God’s provision for them. Finally they saw that promise fulfilled in the birth of Isaac.
But then in Genesis 22:2 we read, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you." Now, God was asking Abraham to give up the son who was the very answer to his prayers. It must have seemed illogical, but then, what had seemed logical was not always God’s will. Had Abraham learned to trust in God’s promise more than in his own logic? Had he learned that if he would trust in God’s word, God would take care of all his needs? This, I believe, was the real test Abraham faced. It was a test of faith.
Abraham had come to the place in his faith where he trusted that God was even able to raise Isaac from the dead. God would provide. Abraham had come to believe this. Why? Because we read in Romans 4:17-18 that Abraham believed in God “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, "So shall your offspring be." and that Abraham was “fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.” (Romans 4:21).
Believing that God could do the impossible; Abraham did the unthinkable and obeyed. There is something else that he factored into the equation. He considered that God is "able." The word translated "able" is "dunatos," from which we get our word "dynamite." The power of God blows away the tension between the promise of God and the command of God. It obliterates seeming contradictions and makes the impossible possible.
Oh brothers and sisters for us to arm ourselves in every situation in life we need to know the truth of and to trust in the reality of the truth that if God is God, than as Jesus said, nothing is impossible with God (Matthew 17:20; 19:26; Luke 1:37). What are your impossible situations?
We all reach points like Abraham where the devil tells us it is hopeless, there is no way forward, it won’t happen, it can’t change, or it won’t get better. You have to have a view of God that brings like Abraham’s, a view of a God who brings out of that which is not that which is. There is no human way out. But if you are a true believer in the living God, than you believe in supernatural realities. You believe that there is a God who brought the universe out of nothing and if God is God than nothing is impossible!
God’s Godness creates a future where there is none. Nothing you can tell me about you, your circumstances, or your life, can change God’s Godness to make something out of nothing. God’s Godness creates a future where there is none. An irreparable marriage? Nothing is impossible with God! A wayward child? Nothing is impossible with God! A fruitless ministry? Nothing is impossible with God! A defeated life? Nothing is impossible with God! Nothing you can tell me would make me say this is impossible. You may feel absolutely hopeless and powerless but God has the power to bring something out of nothing.
If God cannot bring to bear on this world a supernatural reality that breaks through our impossibilities than we might as well close the doors of our churches and go home. Oh dear readers God is God, He will break in! Now think of every situation in your life and speak to it right now: NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD!
Savoring His Godness,
Pastor Bill
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