THE GODNESS OF GOD

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," says 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)

The longer I know Christ and the more that I understand His ways, the more  I realize how little I really know him and how much there is to learn. Last week I wrote a post about the revelation of God being a happy God.  This is one of the many things that makes God uniquely who He is. I call this the "Godness of God".  Today I want to reflect on another aspect of His uniqueness in how He thinks and feels and wills. 

God's heart is capable of complex combinations of emotions infinitely more remarkable that ours. 
 He is the supreme being who describes himself in infinitely unique categories. 

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," says 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)

Consider His unique emotional categories. 

For example, when Jesus entered into Jerusalem He knew what was about to happen. The Pharisees were going to get the upper hand. The people would be fickle and follow their leaders. And Jesus would be rejected and crucified. And within a generation the city would be obliterated. Look how Jesus says it in Luke 19 verses 43-44:

"For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation."

Yet Jesus’ is also tenderly moved. We read in the proceeding verses 41-42,

"And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, "Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.."

Jesus felt the sorrow of the situation. This doesn’t mean His sovereign plan has thwarted by human rebellion and will. It means that Jesus is more emotionally complex than we think he is. He really feels the sorrow of a situation. No doubt there was a deep inner peace that He was in control and that His wise purposes would come to pass. But that doesn’t mean He couldn't cry.

Another time we read that when Lazarus died, Jesus said,"for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe" (John 11:15). He promised to Martha in verse 23 "Your brother will rise again" and in verse 40 that they would "...see the glory of God". So Jesus had purposely planned to let Lazarus die and that his death was good and that in this death the glory of God would be made manifest.

Yet we also see Jesus' response to the sorrow and mourning of Mary, Martha, and the family in verse 33, "When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled"; verse 35, "Jesus wept"; and verse 38 "Then Jesus, deeply moved again." Jesus had planned the death and resurrection of Lazarus yet could feel deep sorrow and compassion over the situation.Amazing!

God's emotional life is infinitely complex beyond our ability to fully comprehend. That is what makes Him God. Oh the challenge to know a being who is and expresses Himself in categories beyond our logic, frame of references, experience, and comprehension!

Who can comprehend that the Lord hears in one moment of time the prayers of 10 million Christians around the world, and sympathizes with each one personally and individually as a caring father as Hebrews 4: 15 says, even though among those 10 million prayers some are brokenhearted and some are bursting with joy? How can God weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice when they are both coming to him at the same time, in fact, are always coming to him with absolutely no break at all? Who can comprehend that God is angry at the sin of the world every day (Psalm 7:11), and yet every day, every moment, he is rejoicing with tremendous joy because somewhere in the world a sinner is repenting (Luke 15:7,10,23)? Who can comprehend that God continually burns with hot anger at the rebellion of the wicked and grieves over the unholy speech of his people (Ephesians 4:29-30), yet takes pleasure in them daily (Psalm 149:4), and ceaselessly makes merry over repentent rebels who come back to Him?

Who of us could say what complex of emotions is not possible for God? All we have to go on here is what he has chosen to tell us in the Bible. God's heart is capable of complex combinations of emotions infinitely more remarkable that ours. 

Humbly basking in my limited understanding of the depths of God's nature and glory.

Pastor Bill

THE GLORY OF THE HAPPY GOD!

"...in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted."

1 Timothy 1:11

Do you think God is a happy being? Have you ever thought of Him in that way? Phillip Yancey writes in his book "The Jesus I Never Knew",
"What we think and believe about God matters-really matters-as much as anything in life matters.”

One of the most life changing moments in my life was when I read from the word with new eyes what the apostle Paul says in 1 Timothy 1:11, "in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed (happy) God."

I discovered that God is the happiest of beings. So often I used to think of God as non-enthusiastic or even gloomy. The god of religion is cold, calloused, cantankerous, mean-hearted – in a word he, is just plain unhappy – and he is out to make your life miserable. But the true God of Scripture is revealed as being “the happy God”! 

We desperately need a sharpened biblical focus of whom God is and what He is really like. Because, when we know the truth, the truth sets us free! One of the reasons our witness to God’s reality is minimal is because our understanding of God’s reality is minimal. Like J.B. Phillips said early last century,” Your God is to small.” Oh how diminished God can often be by our little or ignorant understanding of Him! What we need is a big picture of a great God who is the happiest of beings.

Unlike the religious views of God, our God is truly a God of joy. He is not an old angry man with a scowl upon His face. He actually is a happy God, and we have Scripture that teaches us this wonderful truth! He loves to be God, He takes great pleasure in all that He does, and He is enthusiastic about serving His people and working for their welfare. For example, God says in Jeremiah 32:41, "I will rejoice in doing them good." Jesus said in John 15:11, "These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you."  And Paul writes in 1 Timothy 1:11 of "the gospel of the glory of the blessed God." Blessed (makairos in Greek) can mean happy. So Paul is literally saying: "the good news of the glory of the happy God." 

When I say God is happy, I mean that He is supremely or infinitely happy. He is the happiest being in the universe. A great part of what makes God God is his happiness. To be infinite glorious is to be infinitely happy. He uses the phrase, the glory of the happy God, because it is a glorious thing for God to be as happy as he is. God's glory consist much in the fact that he is happy beyond our wildest imagination!

I love the way Jonathan Edwards put it, 

"part of gods fullness which she communicates, is his happiness. This happiness consist in enjoying and rejoicing in himself; so does also the creatures happiness."

And this is the gospel; "The gospel of the glory of the happy God." Isn't it just fantastic news that God is gloriously happy? Would you want to spend eternity with an unhappy God? If God isn't a happy God, than the goal the gospel is not a happy goal and that means it is not a gospel, i.e. "Good news" at all. But, the fact is, Jesus invites us to spend eternity with a happy God and enter into that happiness when he says, "enter into the joy of your master"(Matthew 25:23).

Jesus lived and died that his joy-God's joy-might be in us and our joy might be full (John 15:11;17:13). 

God's happiness spills over in mercy to us. Can you imagine what it would be like if the God who ruled the world were not happy? What if God were given to grumbling and pouting and depression like some Jack-and-the-beanstalk giant in the sky? What if God were despondent and gloomy and dismal and discontented and dejected and frustrated? Could we join David and say, "O God, thou art my God, I seek thee, my soul thirsts for thee; my flesh faints for thee, as in a dry and weary land where no water is" (Psalm 63:1)? No way!

Perhaps some of us relate to God like little children relate to a gloomy, dismal, discontented, frustrated father. They can't enjoy him. They can only try to avoid him and maybe try to work for him to make him feel better. Children cannot enjoy the company of their father if he is gloomy and dismal and frustrated. But not God, He's the happiest of all beings.

We have a God who is the opposite of the gloomy, dismal, disinterested father. Consider this encouragement from Jeremiah 9:24, "'I am the Lord who performs mercy and justice and righteousness in the earth, because in these things I delight' says the Lord." God shows mercy because it makes Him so very happy! 

Listen to the heartbeat of your happy God in Jeremiah 32:40-41,

I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them; and I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. I will rejoice in doing them good,and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.

God does good to you because he enjoys it so much! He pursues the business of loving you with all his heart and with all his soul. 

"Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." (Luke 12:32)

Oh what a happy God you have! Listen to these words:Isaiah. 62:5, “as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.”Psalm 35:27, "The LORD be exalted, who delights in the well-being of his servant."Psalm 149:4, For the LORD takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with salvation. ”

Psalm 147: 10-11, "His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse, nor his delight in the legs of a man; the LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love."

Zephaniah 3:17, "The LORD your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing." ".

So, enjoy life! Wake up every morning and bask in the goodness and grace of “the happy God” Who loves you and lives in you. Embrace His happiness throughout the day, regardless of the situation or circumstances in which we may find ourselves.

Whoever trusts in the Lord, happy is he (Proverbs 16:20).

Happy in His happiness,

Pastor Bill