God
Do You Struggle with God’s Goodness?
Yesterday Rob and I both confessed our own struggles with the idea that we will receive rewards in the next life for our good acts in this life.
For me it’s a bent towards being self-sufficient and suggesting that I do things NOT for a reward but for some so-called pristine obedience to God…
Even stretching to make my self appear to be the martyr type…you know…I do things simply because I want to give to God selflessly [at least think that I am] and I love him without any strings attached.
It’s because I’m the most humblest of persons, right?
You know this demonstrates that even our best virtues are nothing but splendid vices when compared to God’s goodness.
As it should be.
So what about you? Do you struggle with God’s goodness? Do you have a hard time accepting the notion of future rewards for believers–or that God can really, TRULY love someone like you? And how do you advise people to overcome such a hang up?
I look forward to your thoughts. Brutal and all.
Why Did God Create Woman?
Women. Ah. My favorite subject.
Especially since I’m married to arguably the most merciful, kind and generous woman of all.
Indeed. Any amount of success I have as a father, writer or husband I owe to her.
The running joke around our house is that if not for my wife, I’d still be living with my mother.
In her basement.
Dead serious. My wife is classic helper. Classic companion. I’d be lost without her.
But what does “helper” mean? Where did that term come from?
Furthermore, why did God think man EVEN needed woman? And what does the Bible say about this union?
Let’s take a look.
History Before Woman
Long ago God created a man named Adam. He told Adam [a man made in God's image] to cultivate the earth.
To subdue it.
Adam shaped wood into tools. Domesticated oxen to plow fertile soil. He groomed fruit trees. He raised honey bees. He cultivated mint and cornflowers.
But the image of God in man was not complete. God said, “It is not good that man his alone.” He wanted to give Adam a companion.
What’s strange about this arrangement is that Adam doesn’t seem to notice his need for a companion.
He appears perfectly content to be alone.
This is problematic. Not to Adam, but to God. And for reasons we might not consider.
History After Woman
Then God created woman. Genesis 2:21-23 tells us what that looked like:
So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
Because God created woman even though Adam was content in his solitude suggests God had something else in mind for man than merely tinkering around in a garden by himself.
God wanted to give man a partner in the stewardship of that garden. Together man and woman split the labor of subduing the earth.
He commanded them both to rule. To take dominion over the fish. The birds. The badgers.
And this responsibility–a sovereign authority you might say–is another way that man and woman are made in God’s likeness.
God is in charge of the universe…man and woman are in charge of the earth. But mere stewardship of goats and crops wasn’t all.
Something Adam Couldn’t Do Alone
Part of Adam and Eve’s responsibility involved multiplying humans. Procreation. Making babies.
A skill, we all know, Adam could not perform on his own.
This command would ensure God’s image spread over the earth. It allowed for Adam and Eve to fulfill their cultural mandate by sharing their workload with their children.
Yet another division of labor.
Call it imperialism if you want. But all for the glory of God. Here’s what I mean.
What Male-Female Union Does to God’s Glory
Listen: When man and woman work in harmony–sharing the responsibility of creating culture, raising children and sharing the gospel–God is glorified.
And he is glorified within the ordained parameters of marriage.
From the Genesis narrative of the creation of man and woman God demonstrates his plan for marriage equals a monogamous heterosexual relationship.
Proliferation of mankind–God’s image–could not happen any other way.
God knew that his glory was limited in the creation of one man. So he made woman. And then man and woman made child.
This union and procreation honors God. Glorifies him. Extends his joy as this man, woman and child honor them with their hearts and service.
It’s a lifestyle of adoration for their creator. Incomplete when man was alone.
Recommended resource: God, Marriage and Family Andreas J. Kostenberger
Why Did God Create Man?
Ever wonder why you are here? Why anybody is here?
I’m not talking about “what’s my purpose?”
I’m talking about why did God create us? Man? Woman? You? Me? Adam? Eve?
Creation? Anything?
Why did he create the universe and atoms?
Stars, oceans, continents, apricot trees, corn, squirrels, earthworms?
Man?
Did God lack anything? I mean: God’s not lonely. He’s a three-part being.
He’s not needy. He’s self-existent.
Is he sadistic and perverted and gets a good chuckle when we suffer? No. The suffering is squarely in our court.
Was he a poor gardener and needed the help of a professional? No. He’s omnipotent and could manage the garden well on his own.
Then what is it? Why would God create us? Care for us?
Even the psalmist expressed confusion over God’s concern for a creature who pales in comparison to the largeness and majesty of nature…yet is exalted as steward of that creation.
What gives?
The Westminster Shorter Catechism gives–just a little. It tells us that our chief aim in life is to worship God and enjoy him forever.
Does that mean God is egotistical and relishes human worship? Absolutely not.
The issue of why God created man goes to the very core of God’s character and we must go back to the Genesis story to uncover–as best as we can–his purpose.
Here’s what we know: God planted the first man–Adam–in a splendid garden surrounded by a rich, robust world. Yet God saw that it wasn’t good this man was alone.
Enter woman.
Next, he told them to be fruitful and multiply. He told them to subdue the earth.
In other words, he blessed them. He gave them life, responsibility and freedom to care for creation.
And from this we can surmise that God gave freely because he himself is self-giving. That is his incorrigible character.
In return he expects us to bless the nations:
But there’s something else we can surmise out of God’s creation of man and nature and that’s this: He created man because he is a creative being.
And since we are created in his image we also are defined by this same creativity so that the ends of the earth may know him and fear him through our works that proclaim him.
What are you doing with the life, freedom and creativity God freely gave you? Let me know what you think.
Comfortable or Convicted? Your Response to God’s Holiness
Long, long ago a well-educated historian and politically-connected religious counselor climbed the steps of the Jerusalem temple.
Once he reached the porch, he plodded into the temple, wrapped his tunic around his legs and fell to his knees to pray.
During that time of prayer, God visited him in a vision.
In that vision he saw God’s holiness and instantly felt the crushing weight of his sinfulness and a grim sense of guilt and hopelessness.
Scrambling away from the altar, he screamed “Woe is me! For I am ruined!”
But God assured him that his sins were forgiven.
And this man responded by accepting God’s call to preach the message of judgment and hope to the stubborn nation of Israel.
This man is Isaiah. And his story is found in Isaiah 6.
Isaiah’s Vision v. Contemporary Portraits of God
What we don’t get from this story is a sense that God is casual. Chummy. Cuddly…
Some kind of co-pilot who nods in approval and dishes out good advice. The eternal Uncle who makes the best hot cider and tells the funniest jokes.
No. He’s not trivial. Superficial. Shallow. Syrupy. Quite unlike the contemporary portrait of God we see in the marketplace…
A portrait that nurtures irreverence, irrelevance and even carnality.
What’s at Stake?
Our worship of God will only be as high and long and deep and great as our thoughts of God’s holiness.
Listen. There is a place for a warm, loving approach to God. David epitomized that approach.
But not without first embedding it in an incorrigible sense of God’s eternality, transcendence and wholly separate grandeur and moral purity that is divine holiness.
This the NT equivalent:
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. Philippians 2:12-13
God’s holiness. Our sinfulness. His grace. Our adoration. His mercy. Our work. That’s the cycle we should repeat daily to enrich our worship of God.
Here’s My Point
Are you comfortable or convicted by God’s holiness?
Do you want to see what Isaiah saw? Do you want to hear what Isaiah heard? Do you want to feel what Isaiah felt?
More importantly, do you want to respond as Isaiah did–gripped afresh by the holiness of God?
Do you even care? I look forward to your thoughts. Brutal and all.
The Unsurpassable Attribute: A Quick Guide to God’s Mercy
**Part of The Nature of God series.**
There is perhaps no word in our language precisely synonymous with mercy.
Grace comes nearest it.
Mercy implies benevolence, tenderness, mildness, pity, compassion or clemency. And it’s only exercised toward offenders.
Mercy induces an injured person to forgive. Forbear punishment. Inflict less than justice warrants.
Mercy is a distinguishing attribute of God. That’s why A. W. Tozer said:
“We who earned banishment shall enjoy communion. We who deserve the pains of hell shall know the bliss of heaven.”
God’s mercy is eternal, unfailing, unconditional. And it flows from his unchanging goodness, so doesn’t need to be provoked like wrath, but comes naturally.
It’s exercised on all who want it. And like other moral attributes is rooted in God’s unchanging nature, justice and perfection.
What Is God’s Mercy?
The biblical meaning of mercy is exceedingly rich and complex.
The Hebrew word kapporeth means a lid, used of the cover of the sacred Ark, which is the mercy seat–where the blood of atonement was offered to God. The connotation for kapporeth is one of ransom and propitiation.
The Greek word for mercy–eleemon–means to show mercy, pity or compassion to the wretched. Specifically, eleemon depicts a merciful, sympathetic attitude.
In God, mercy shows up as an infinite and inexhaustible energy that disposes God to be actively compassionate. He has always dealt in mercy with mankind and will always deal in justice when the mercy is despised.
Key Themes of God’s Mercy
God’s mercy is rooted in his goodness and love. Prominent in this concept are some key themes:
- God’s Mercy Is Great Your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. Genesis 19:19
- God’s Mercy Is Everlasting Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments. Deuteronomy 7:9
- God’s Mercy Is Unfailing In your unfailing love you will lead the people you have redeemed. In your strength you will guide them to your holy dwelling. Exodus 15:13
- God’s Mercy Is Longsuffering The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation. Numbers 14:18
- God’s Mercy Is Received by the Repentant In accordance with your great love, forgive the sin of these people, just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now. Numbers 14:19
Both the Old Testament and the New Testament proclaim the mercy of God, but the OT has more to say about it than the NT.
Old Testament Stance on God’s Mercy
Jeremiah pictures God as a loving father who looks down from heaven with a yearning heart of compassion upon his rebellious and wayward people.
Hosea regards Israel as an unfaithful and adulterous wife whom God loves as a faithful husband in spite of her apostate and sinful condition.
And Isaiah saw God as a mother who has compassion on the son of her womb.
At the heart of the concept of mercy is the love of God. In the Old Testament, it was his chosen people Israel whom he elected to be his own and to whom he showed mercy. And despite their constant disobedience, God continually sought out his wayward people, to draw them back to him.
New Testament Stance on God’s Mercy
In the New Testament there is a fuller development of God’s mercy. In fact, the word used for Jesus’ mercy expresses his pity and compassion by means of a very intense verb that means “to be moved in one’s bowel’s.”
Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. Matthew 9:36
But the most obvious and important use of the word mercy in the New Testament is that of God’s provision of salvation for mankind in Jesus Christ.
It is because he is so rich in mercy that he saved those who are spiritually dead and doomed in their sins. It is out of God’s mercy that one is forgiven and granted eternal life.
The Old Testament concept of propitiation shows up in the New Testament, too. Mercy was released by Christ’s atoning death for all humankind.
And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. 1 John 2:2
Since mercy flows from God’s goodness, and since God is infinite, it follows that God is infinitely and unchangeably merciful.
Your Response to God’s Mercy
Your response to God’s mercy falls into two categories–repentant or unrepentant.
Somewhere Tertullian suggested God was both master and father, so that “the divine law joins duties in respect of both these attributes: Thou shalt love God and Thou shalt fear God. It proposed one for the obedient man, the other for the transgressor.”
Your label determines how God shows his mercy–or if he does at all.
Don’t think you can rely on God’s love or sacrifice to allow you to persist in your unrepentance. God’s unlimited mercy only shows God desires to save all. God cannot do what is impossible. And it’s impossible to force a free choice.
God will not withhold his mercy from anyone who wants it. But neither will he cram His love down the throats of those who do not want it.
What is the appropriate response to God’s mercy? Prayer.
Prayer is not a condition for God’s giving mercy. Rather prayer is a condition for our receiving the mercy He desires to freely give us. It’s a position of submission. It’s a means by which God takes advantage of our willingness to receive His mercy.
He looks for our obedience.
Personally, I have no idea why I deserve God’s mercy. Sometimes I fall off the rails and hate my life.
But what’s important to me is to yield to His excellent and glorious will. To implore His mercy and loving-kindness. And to forsake all fruitless labors, strife and envy.
It’s the least I can do to show thanks for a gift I never deserved.
Search
Recent Posts
Get Updates | Subscribe
Somewhat Essential
Categories
Archives
