Now that I have your attention.
I have often asked God to reveal Himself to me. In times of despair, confusion, or general spiritual numbness, often my awareness of God dwindles away into faint memories of what I remember of Him. While in this helpless estate, I begin to ask God to show me again who he is.
This may be the sentiment behind the line in a once popular modern chorus, now disregarded upon the pile of "disposable" hymns that we write nowadays:
Lord, I want to know you. I want to see your face. I want to know you more.
I know when I sang this song, I tried to conjure up in my mental viewfinder an image that would represent God to me. I wanted to perceive Him again. Something had covered God up. Like a cloud that separates us from the sun on a fall day, I had lost the practical awareness of God and the cold had begun to creep in. However, this exercise of asking God to come out from behind this curtain would often leave me just as confused and alone as when I started.
In retrospect I ask: Was it really that I needed to God to uncloak Himself and show me his face. or did I really need God to put somthing on instead?? Read John Calvin:
They who form their ideas of God in his naked majesty apart from Christ have an idol instead of a true God. Whoever then seeks to really know the only true God, must regard Him as the Father of Christ; for whenever our mind seeks God, except Christ be thought of, it will wander and be confused, until it is wholly lost.
We don't often think of it this way. But when our vision of God is obscured and our attempts to see Him fail, it is often because we are seeking Him as he is, in His essential, and naked capacity and NOT as he as revealed Himself in His crucified, buried and risen Son.
Lets beware trying to see the face of God and looking past Jesus and the cross, or as Calvin would say, trying to see God in the nude and thereby missing Him altogether.
Nov 23, 2007
Nov 10, 2007
Worse than frogs...Part 2
I promised to bring you a 6 year old answer:
Dad: Who is worse, us or frogs?
Abby: We are, because we disobey. Frogs just hop around and go "ribbit".
Way to go Abby. Now the other girls? Lets just say that 1 out of 3 is not bad!
This leads me to a reflection on the nature of true "blessing". (go with me here, I'll connect the dots.) Its a word used a lot in Christian circles, but do we use it correctly? A prayer before a meal? An unexpected gift? An affirmation to go and do something? It certainly can mean a lot of different things, but what does the Bible emphasize as the blessing of God?
We first have to see how the Bible emphasizes our need for God's blessing. What is it about man that we need God to bless us. It certainly implies a shortcoming in man, that we cannot bless ourselves but that we need someone else to do it. So what is that shortcoming, that need?
We don't have to look far to see a great disparity between what certain people in the world (you?) need and what it has. We see problems everywhere. We are hungry in need of food. We are poor in need of money. We are sick in need of health. We are lonely in need of friends.
As you have experienced these needs, you know they are very real and if they are not met, severe suffering and death may result. Even so, the Bible does not put these at the top of the list? How is that possible?
“If all the problems of heaven and earth, though they were to confront us altogether and at once, would be nothing compared to the overwhelming problem of God: that He is, what He is like, and what we as moral beings must do about Him." A.W. Tozer
Our greatest problem? God is holy and just and has declared judgement against sin and sinners and those worse than frogs. How are we to escape this? Enter: the blessing of Abraham.
Rom 4:6 - 8 "BLESSED ARE THOSE WHOSE LAWLESS DEEDS HAVE BEEN FORGIVEN, AND WHOSE SINS HAVE BEEN COVERED. BLESSED IS THE MAN WHOSE SIN THE LORD WILL NOT TAKE INTO ACCOUNT."
Our deeds have been forgiven, our sins covered. Therefore our sin will not be taken into account. This is our blessing and what a great one indeed.
Dad: Who is worse, us or frogs?
Abby: We are, because we disobey. Frogs just hop around and go "ribbit".
Way to go Abby. Now the other girls? Lets just say that 1 out of 3 is not bad!
This leads me to a reflection on the nature of true "blessing". (go with me here, I'll connect the dots.) Its a word used a lot in Christian circles, but do we use it correctly? A prayer before a meal? An unexpected gift? An affirmation to go and do something? It certainly can mean a lot of different things, but what does the Bible emphasize as the blessing of God?
We first have to see how the Bible emphasizes our need for God's blessing. What is it about man that we need God to bless us. It certainly implies a shortcoming in man, that we cannot bless ourselves but that we need someone else to do it. So what is that shortcoming, that need?
We don't have to look far to see a great disparity between what certain people in the world (you?) need and what it has. We see problems everywhere. We are hungry in need of food. We are poor in need of money. We are sick in need of health. We are lonely in need of friends.
As you have experienced these needs, you know they are very real and if they are not met, severe suffering and death may result. Even so, the Bible does not put these at the top of the list? How is that possible?
“If all the problems of heaven and earth, though they were to confront us altogether and at once, would be nothing compared to the overwhelming problem of God: that He is, what He is like, and what we as moral beings must do about Him." A.W. Tozer
Our greatest problem? God is holy and just and has declared judgement against sin and sinners and those worse than frogs. How are we to escape this? Enter: the blessing of Abraham.
Rom 4:6 - 8 "BLESSED ARE THOSE WHOSE LAWLESS DEEDS HAVE BEEN FORGIVEN, AND WHOSE SINS HAVE BEEN COVERED. BLESSED IS THE MAN WHOSE SIN THE LORD WILL NOT TAKE INTO ACCOUNT."
Our deeds have been forgiven, our sins covered. Therefore our sin will not be taken into account. This is our blessing and what a great one indeed.
Nov 2, 2007
Worse than frogs...
I ask you, who has more value, you or a frog? (I will also pose this to my girls soon and get you their answer)
Slime, warts, eats bugs. Right? Anyone in their right mind would say that we humans, the pinnacle of God's creation, would certainly be of more more value than a frog. We were created in God's image. Not sure what this ugly reptile is a copy of.
You might be thinking, "We must be of immense value, certainly more than frogs. Look at what it cost God to redeem us. His ONLY Son." Now, it is certainly true that the price that God paid to restore us is immeasurable. However, note that this does not reflect our worth, but rather the immensity of God's love.
Read this quote from Piper's 50 Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die and you will see where I am headed:
I have heard it said, "God didn't die for frogs. So he was responding to our value as humans." This turns grace on its head. We are worse off than frogs. They have not sinned. They have not rebelled and treated God with the contempt of being inconsequential in their lives. God did not have to die for frogs. They are not bad enough. We are. Our debt is so great, only a divine sacrifice could pay it.
We think we have more inherent value than other people or other things (including frogs) because we have we not considered the seriousness of sin. If we will contemplate the seriousness of our rebellion, as exposed by the greatness and inherent worth of God, we will realize our absolute unworthiness. It is not because we were valuable that we were redeemed. It is not because we were wise enough to make a decision. It is because Jesus died for the unlovable and unworthy. If we will spend time considering this, the cross of Christ will be the most precious thing we can think of. We will talk of it, sing of it, and cherish it. We will put Jesus in the limelight where he belongs and cast ourselves to the shadows. What a blessed riddance!
Slime, warts, eats bugs. Right? Anyone in their right mind would say that we humans, the pinnacle of God's creation, would certainly be of more more value than a frog. We were created in God's image. Not sure what this ugly reptile is a copy of.
You might be thinking, "We must be of immense value, certainly more than frogs. Look at what it cost God to redeem us. His ONLY Son." Now, it is certainly true that the price that God paid to restore us is immeasurable. However, note that this does not reflect our worth, but rather the immensity of God's love.
Read this quote from Piper's 50 Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die and you will see where I am headed:
I have heard it said, "God didn't die for frogs. So he was responding to our value as humans." This turns grace on its head. We are worse off than frogs. They have not sinned. They have not rebelled and treated God with the contempt of being inconsequential in their lives. God did not have to die for frogs. They are not bad enough. We are. Our debt is so great, only a divine sacrifice could pay it.
We think we have more inherent value than other people or other things (including frogs) because we have we not considered the seriousness of sin. If we will contemplate the seriousness of our rebellion, as exposed by the greatness and inherent worth of God, we will realize our absolute unworthiness. It is not because we were valuable that we were redeemed. It is not because we were wise enough to make a decision. It is because Jesus died for the unlovable and unworthy. If we will spend time considering this, the cross of Christ will be the most precious thing we can think of. We will talk of it, sing of it, and cherish it. We will put Jesus in the limelight where he belongs and cast ourselves to the shadows. What a blessed riddance!
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