-Matthew
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Life (All of Grace by C.H. Spurgeon)
Spurgeon starts his book by telling the story of a very poor woman a man told him about. The poor woman tried to avoid paying rent because she was very poor. The object of sharing this story was to demonstrate a "rent" we all owe and how God paid for us. We're all poor and destitute. God says that we can come to Him and trade our rags (sins, what we wear around) for clean clothes. You might think, "why do we need to be free of sin?" Because sin undoubtedly equals death. If you drove the car with your face, you'd be sinning to yourself because that way of driving is wrong and will kill you. If you love to play in the street with a blind fold, you're sinning to yourself because that will kill you. It's like Genesis 3:4b says. The fruit of the tree gives the man and the woman knowledge of good and evil. God said not to touch or eat of it, that was sin, they will die. The first commandment is to love God with all your heart soul and mind because that is grasping onto life. He is life. Loving God means constant communication with Him. How can sin if we freely choose to love Him? How can we die if we choose life? This is why Christ is important to us. This is why Christ must be number one to us. We're literally fighting for life and not death. Keep in mind, to God, everything means it's happen now. He is eternal, time to God is relative. When He saysm " you will die." He doesn't mean at 5 tomorrow, you'll cease from living and die. It doesn't matter what day here. When Jesus came to earth, He stopped death, literally. He brought life to us. We don't need to die anymore. If we take on Him for our own, He forgives the debt so that we can be in His Holiness. He died for us. We can take on His Spirit to guide us from that death trap. Eventually when our earthly body fails from the contamination of sin living all around us, we can take on a body of life.
-Matthew
-Matthew
Thursday, April 4, 2013
One (2)
(a true beauty imagined)
God created us all with the purpose of us being with Him. He made us to imitate one as He is One to understand the awesomeness of Himself and because being One is the best way. He is the model of perfection. That means that nothing He does can be done better. He’s the tallest of tall , He is the fastest at sprinting, He is the best at making a structure. Nothing can beat what He made. Nothing can beat what He does, He’s the best (we’ll talk about the contamination of sin on everything later). In our usual understanding of the nature of things, something can always be done better so it’s hard to think of something done the best it can possibly be done. As the common saying goes, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Why try to re-invent the wheel, if this is the best wheel that can be. “One-ness” is perfection.
In the nature of things, man would have been drawn to do things together, because that’s how he was programmed originally. Man turned and said to one another….
“Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
Because there was a fall in humanity, there is a certain twist to what things should be. I used to wonder why it was a sin to make a tower to reach God, but that isn’t the point, the point is they (and we) were arrogant enough to think we could and that we didn’t need God. We thought we could do anything we wanted. Being One is dangerous thing if you’re one for twisted purposes. It’s like we wanted to cut God out and do our own thing without Him. Satan ALWAYS puts a twist of God created order. We have certainly manipulated His gift of our sexuality throughout history (as well as today). There must be the equality of one man and one woman. They just fit together to create more like the first commandment to Adam says, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it…” (Genesis 1:28a). We have decided that we don’t like that way, even though it’s the only way that can be. A man and a woman, make more. Not a man and a man, or a woman and a woman. The entire issue has a twist to what sexuality should be. Even on the evolutionary perspective, that could not have “evolved” according the evolutionary theory. Evolution relies on procreation to propagate. There is nothing to come from that line, it stops there in a homosexual relationship. This is not to say that it’s “more wrong” to be a homosexual. It’s wrong, yes, but not more wrong that any other sin. It only looks more wrong in the eyes of the average couple.
It would be natural for God to create man to simulate a separate but one, like He is one. It was natural for man to conform to creating a structure as “one” people to make the Tower of Babel. God saw what they were doing and He saw His fallen creations doing things as a start and it would eventually evolve into the future of doing things as one for purposes of evil. This was ultimately against God’s desires. They would “self-destruct” faster than what was foreseen. God thought of a strategy that wouldn’t kill them, but merely disrupt them for the time being, so He could institute His life saver plan, that He had in mind. God wanted all to be one, just not for twisted purposes. Humanity as “one” for the wrong purposes causes destruction. As “one” under His perfect guidance, creates beauty.
God imagined humanity to be as “one.” Humanities most intimate experience of one-ness was meant to be through marriage, like with the first humans. I image that existence on earth would have been truly gorgeous. Everyday would have beautiful sunsets. Everything in creation would be working together to create a sight to behold every day. Genesis 2:5-6 tells us that there was a mist that watered all the plants and water came up from the ground. It had to have collected into certain places to create other sources of water like the morning dew collects today. The moisture in the air most likely also prevented damages from the sun’s rays. There was a lush tropical-type environment. Can you image the bliss that would come in that kind of life? Humans were meant to be as one, working together for the common good. The earth working as one to sustain its inhabitants. It’s a type of politics that has men have often tried to recreate, first through communism and others through living in commune-type organization. It’s funny how the best thing that works with humans is a system of government that uses struggle and competition. It works and is organized through struggle. America has come to use it. God probably worked in the minds of our founding father to create this system. As a result of the system, things get done, and leaders get elected. The American nation gets wealthy because of their struggle/competition system. At the nations core we’re, a nation that competes. We thrive on that. All of humanity thrives on competition. Logically, it looks so backwards, but it works best in a humanity that was started (nearly started) off being broken.
Sin
We’ve always heard that God can’t be near sin. Sin is a breaking in the relationship with Him. I’ve always been told that God can’t touch it. Does that mean that God’s can’t take out the garbage? That’s what defeating sin is. Not in the least. A more accurate description is God can’t have any relation with sin. Here is an example…What if Tommy had a friend who never kept his word? Tommy would be able walk by him and say hi, Tommy would be able to warn him of things. But Tommy can’t go much further than a business type relationship. Tommy’s real relationship with him would be halted to that point. That would be quite a distance that we would hardly call even a friend. We can’t go deeper with God and in His confidence until our sin is dealt with. God truly loves us, He wants to be so much more in our lives. We need to literally think of us doing sin as a breaking of our relationship with Him like it would be when you’re dishonest with a friend. God is so much bigger and able to tolerate that this “breaking” again and again. It would difficult in a human relationship. We’re only human, we have limits. We can’t expect people to be as forgiving as God is. We wish they were, it’s not to be expected because God is so much more resilient and strong. He asks us to try with His help.
In the beginning, God made things exactly as He wanted them to be. He made them so that they won’t self destruct eventually. If you have a top that you spun, if nothing stops that top in or readjusts it, that top would just keep spinning in the perfect way that it was spun originally. Let’s pretend that there was a huge earth quake, that earth quake disturbed the spinning top. It would eventually cease spinning and fall over. That is exactly what sin is. It stops a perfectly spinning top from the function it started with, to spin. God created things a certain way, and sin was the earth quake. God wanted the top to continue spinning on his power. Now, we need to be remake, we need another spin. He wants us to come to that place again of relying on Him to keep us spinning. He expected that though. He knew that to be fully one with Him, we would need to “choose” to allow Him to keep us spinning. We think this is all there is, it’s like we’re a character dropped into a huge drama, and that’s all there is, it’s not. We have a short life existence (because of the earth quake on humans as the top), we need to make educated decisions for if we want to live with His life or keep on spinning till eternal death (hell). He’s crying out to us so much that He embodied Himself as one of us. He died by sin to save His creations from sin.
Why did God create humanity or anything at all? That’s a good question to ask. We don’t know definitively why He created the human race or why the huge adventure of life was began. Let’s just try a few thoughts…He wasn’t just bored because it got lonely being the only One who is big. It couldn’t just be that. He is infinitely wise and infinite “responsible” for everything. He wouldn’t do that because for that reason it would be very harmful and very irresponsible for a wise God to do. Genesis 1:26 says,
“Then 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.”
We definitely don’t have the power to make things out of nothing. In His likeness, in the sense that we have freedom of choice and are intelligent enough to make choice that are big and can communicate with God. The animals may choose to go left or right but they’re too dumb to make educated decisions to stop eating because it could kill you or make you fat. That is an example of “right” choices. The choice to know the difference of right and wrong. Animals can’t do that. We can make the choice to love or hate. He gives us that choice. We’re the first ones ever to get the choice. It’s a dangerous chance because they could (“could”) choose death. You’ve got to understand, even if make seemingly small decisions (to us), in the grand picture, no decision is little. Here is an example, to God, because He is eternal, everything chosen NOW has eternal effects. If it would kill you to smoke, it won’t kill you NOW, it eventually will give you cancer. It’s the same way with God, sin equals death, not now at this instant, but you might as well die if nothing changes because it will be a self-destruction to your life. You weren’t meant for death. If you follow the “sin” in God’s eternal wisdom it’s been determined that sin is death.
Truth
God has a deep devotion to truth....that's almost an understatement. Truth is the standard that life is created through. You can't build a building if you have the wrong instructions. If it's a lie, a distortion of the correct instructions, how can it stand or be built to last. Jesus demonstrates this concept through a parable in Luke 6:46-49. It’s interesting how God's deep ideas, and foundational concepts are right in front of our eyes! The reason of everything existing is found in a simple parable of a house built on a firm foundation. This is specifically talking about "moral" foundation of God's word but notice the parable relates to the physical world to parallel the point to make it real to His audience. God shares that He is truth and with His truth the structure will stand! God connects the physics with morality. They're connected! That right there, blows minds. The truth that God creates lasts forever. Lies, distortions of truth, kill, destroy and draw us further from our life who is God. Anything that is a lie /distortion to what should be, is a sin. Don’t think I’m saying anything “different” like an invention, I’m just saying distorting how God meant to use it. Any invention is new to us, but not to God. He knew it could happen. An invention doesn’t distort and doesn’t continue to corrupt.
Through truth we are able to bind together in unity, through truth you keep friends, through truth things created last.
In the nature of things, man would have been drawn to do things together, because that’s how he was programmed originally. Man turned and said to one another….
“Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
Because there was a fall in humanity, there is a certain twist to what things should be. I used to wonder why it was a sin to make a tower to reach God, but that isn’t the point, the point is they (and we) were arrogant enough to think we could and that we didn’t need God. We thought we could do anything we wanted. Being One is dangerous thing if you’re one for twisted purposes. It’s like we wanted to cut God out and do our own thing without Him. Satan ALWAYS puts a twist of God created order. We have certainly manipulated His gift of our sexuality throughout history (as well as today). There must be the equality of one man and one woman. They just fit together to create more like the first commandment to Adam says, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it…” (Genesis 1:28a). We have decided that we don’t like that way, even though it’s the only way that can be. A man and a woman, make more. Not a man and a man, or a woman and a woman. The entire issue has a twist to what sexuality should be. Even on the evolutionary perspective, that could not have “evolved” according the evolutionary theory. Evolution relies on procreation to propagate. There is nothing to come from that line, it stops there in a homosexual relationship. This is not to say that it’s “more wrong” to be a homosexual. It’s wrong, yes, but not more wrong that any other sin. It only looks more wrong in the eyes of the average couple.
It would be natural for God to create man to simulate a separate but one, like He is one. It was natural for man to conform to creating a structure as “one” people to make the Tower of Babel. God saw what they were doing and He saw His fallen creations doing things as a start and it would eventually evolve into the future of doing things as one for purposes of evil. This was ultimately against God’s desires. They would “self-destruct” faster than what was foreseen. God thought of a strategy that wouldn’t kill them, but merely disrupt them for the time being, so He could institute His life saver plan, that He had in mind. God wanted all to be one, just not for twisted purposes. Humanity as “one” for the wrong purposes causes destruction. As “one” under His perfect guidance, creates beauty.
God imagined humanity to be as “one.” Humanities most intimate experience of one-ness was meant to be through marriage, like with the first humans. I image that existence on earth would have been truly gorgeous. Everyday would have beautiful sunsets. Everything in creation would be working together to create a sight to behold every day. Genesis 2:5-6 tells us that there was a mist that watered all the plants and water came up from the ground. It had to have collected into certain places to create other sources of water like the morning dew collects today. The moisture in the air most likely also prevented damages from the sun’s rays. There was a lush tropical-type environment. Can you image the bliss that would come in that kind of life? Humans were meant to be as one, working together for the common good. The earth working as one to sustain its inhabitants. It’s a type of politics that has men have often tried to recreate, first through communism and others through living in commune-type organization. It’s funny how the best thing that works with humans is a system of government that uses struggle and competition. It works and is organized through struggle. America has come to use it. God probably worked in the minds of our founding father to create this system. As a result of the system, things get done, and leaders get elected. The American nation gets wealthy because of their struggle/competition system. At the nations core we’re, a nation that competes. We thrive on that. All of humanity thrives on competition. Logically, it looks so backwards, but it works best in a humanity that was started (nearly started) off being broken.
Sin
We’ve always heard that God can’t be near sin. Sin is a breaking in the relationship with Him. I’ve always been told that God can’t touch it. Does that mean that God’s can’t take out the garbage? That’s what defeating sin is. Not in the least. A more accurate description is God can’t have any relation with sin. Here is an example…What if Tommy had a friend who never kept his word? Tommy would be able walk by him and say hi, Tommy would be able to warn him of things. But Tommy can’t go much further than a business type relationship. Tommy’s real relationship with him would be halted to that point. That would be quite a distance that we would hardly call even a friend. We can’t go deeper with God and in His confidence until our sin is dealt with. God truly loves us, He wants to be so much more in our lives. We need to literally think of us doing sin as a breaking of our relationship with Him like it would be when you’re dishonest with a friend. God is so much bigger and able to tolerate that this “breaking” again and again. It would difficult in a human relationship. We’re only human, we have limits. We can’t expect people to be as forgiving as God is. We wish they were, it’s not to be expected because God is so much more resilient and strong. He asks us to try with His help.
In the beginning, God made things exactly as He wanted them to be. He made them so that they won’t self destruct eventually. If you have a top that you spun, if nothing stops that top in or readjusts it, that top would just keep spinning in the perfect way that it was spun originally. Let’s pretend that there was a huge earth quake, that earth quake disturbed the spinning top. It would eventually cease spinning and fall over. That is exactly what sin is. It stops a perfectly spinning top from the function it started with, to spin. God created things a certain way, and sin was the earth quake. God wanted the top to continue spinning on his power. Now, we need to be remake, we need another spin. He wants us to come to that place again of relying on Him to keep us spinning. He expected that though. He knew that to be fully one with Him, we would need to “choose” to allow Him to keep us spinning. We think this is all there is, it’s like we’re a character dropped into a huge drama, and that’s all there is, it’s not. We have a short life existence (because of the earth quake on humans as the top), we need to make educated decisions for if we want to live with His life or keep on spinning till eternal death (hell). He’s crying out to us so much that He embodied Himself as one of us. He died by sin to save His creations from sin.
Why did God create humanity or anything at all? That’s a good question to ask. We don’t know definitively why He created the human race or why the huge adventure of life was began. Let’s just try a few thoughts…He wasn’t just bored because it got lonely being the only One who is big. It couldn’t just be that. He is infinitely wise and infinite “responsible” for everything. He wouldn’t do that because for that reason it would be very harmful and very irresponsible for a wise God to do. Genesis 1:26 says,
“Then 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.”
We definitely don’t have the power to make things out of nothing. In His likeness, in the sense that we have freedom of choice and are intelligent enough to make choice that are big and can communicate with God. The animals may choose to go left or right but they’re too dumb to make educated decisions to stop eating because it could kill you or make you fat. That is an example of “right” choices. The choice to know the difference of right and wrong. Animals can’t do that. We can make the choice to love or hate. He gives us that choice. We’re the first ones ever to get the choice. It’s a dangerous chance because they could (“could”) choose death. You’ve got to understand, even if make seemingly small decisions (to us), in the grand picture, no decision is little. Here is an example, to God, because He is eternal, everything chosen NOW has eternal effects. If it would kill you to smoke, it won’t kill you NOW, it eventually will give you cancer. It’s the same way with God, sin equals death, not now at this instant, but you might as well die if nothing changes because it will be a self-destruction to your life. You weren’t meant for death. If you follow the “sin” in God’s eternal wisdom it’s been determined that sin is death.
Truth
God has a deep devotion to truth....that's almost an understatement. Truth is the standard that life is created through. You can't build a building if you have the wrong instructions. If it's a lie, a distortion of the correct instructions, how can it stand or be built to last. Jesus demonstrates this concept through a parable in Luke 6:46-49. It’s interesting how God's deep ideas, and foundational concepts are right in front of our eyes! The reason of everything existing is found in a simple parable of a house built on a firm foundation. This is specifically talking about "moral" foundation of God's word but notice the parable relates to the physical world to parallel the point to make it real to His audience. God shares that He is truth and with His truth the structure will stand! God connects the physics with morality. They're connected! That right there, blows minds. The truth that God creates lasts forever. Lies, distortions of truth, kill, destroy and draw us further from our life who is God. Anything that is a lie /distortion to what should be, is a sin. Don’t think I’m saying anything “different” like an invention, I’m just saying distorting how God meant to use it. Any invention is new to us, but not to God. He knew it could happen. An invention doesn’t distort and doesn’t continue to corrupt.
Through truth we are able to bind together in unity, through truth you keep friends, through truth things created last.
We can endure pain through Christ (1 peter 5:5)
What I find interesting is humility. It's interesting because it's so unlike the world. To get ahead in the world, you make yourself look big to gain power/status. We're like the small dog in the pack, bark the most and the loudest and you look stronger. In this society, we do the same thing, but in a more "evolved" way. To say, "humble yourself" is so weird. It's just odd for the leader to serve, everybody else should serve but not the leader. It's amazing that Christ was a humble servant. The God of the universe, alive for eternity, stooping down and washing feet. God is so good to us. He wants us to cast all our pain, everything on Him. He is strong enough to take them (vs. 7). Our suffering is only for a little while.
-Matthew
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)