Part 1 appeared yesterday.

When I was studying these women for a class, I found myself amazed by God’s providence and bemused by his methods yet again.  How many times have we said that God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts and his ways higher than our ways?  His ways are not only different from ours, they often don’t make any sense to us.

            To keep his prophet safe from Jezebel, he sent him into the heart of Jezebel’s home country. To house him he sent him to a poor woman.  To feed him, he sent him to a starving widow.  To encourage him, he sent him to a Gentile.  Would we have even thought to do any of these things in these ways?

            Yet God demands that we accept the same sorts of contradictory things every day.  But many who are last shall be first, and the first last, Matt 19:30.  For whoever would save his life shall lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake shall find it, Matt 16:25.  The greatest among you shall be your servant, Matt 23:11.

            In that lies the test of faith.  It is not shown so much in great deeds of heroism as it is in accepting God’s way when it makes no sense.  It is shown when we follow a path that no longer seems to lead anywhere.  It is shown when, day after day, we live the principles his Son lived, not trusting in things of this world, but trusting that God’s way works no matter how it looks from our perspective.  How else could Gideon have gone to battle against an army “without number” with only 300 weaponless men?  How else could Mary have faced a skeptical village every day for the rest of her life when she had a healthy baby six months after marrying?  How else could Mark’s mother have opened her home to praying Christians when everyone knew they were in danger?  How else could Abraham have offered in sacrifice a son through whom God had made so many promises?

            How do we face another trying day today?  By realizing that God does not work like we do, but that his ways do work.  By understanding that we might not actually see here on earth exactly how they work, but trusting that they will anyway.  By knowing that his Spirit will give us the strength to continue, expecting God’s purposes to come to fruition, just as his promises always have.  Day after day after sometimes difficult day.

            God used a poor, starving, heathen woman, living in the middle of his enemies to save his prophet.  Don’t doubt what he can do for you.
 
You are my witnesses, says Jehovah, and my servant whom I have chosen; that you may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am Jehovah; and besides me there is no savior. I have declared, and I have saved, and I have showed; and there was no strange god among you: therefore you are my witnesses, says Jehovah, and I am God. Yea, since the day was I am he; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand: I will work, and who can hinder it? Isa 43:10-13.
 
Dene Ward

The last in a continuing Monday morning series.  Please read it all in order before you make any judgments or even try to understand what is being said. 

              In order to make this a complete study, we have to look at a little history.  You will be surprised at what you learn, I promise.

              The Greek philosophers actually got a few things right about God, even while not really identifying Him as the one true God.  They taught that He is pure, one, immaterial (i.e., a Spirit), self-sufficient, imperturbable, and that He works merely by thought, among other things, but they did not truly understand God.  How could they without His Divine Revelation? 

              Xenophanes (d. 475 BC) broke away from the system of Greek gods.  “They are as wicked as men,” he said in explanation.  “God,” he noted, “is the greatest among the gods.”  Sounds a bit like Nebuchadnezzar’s understanding of God.

              Socrates (d. 399 BC) was forced to drink hemlock because he “did not accept the gods of the city.”  Plato (d. 348 BC) said, “God is the first cause…the prime mover.”  Aristotle (d. 322 BC) said that God is “the unmoved mover” who “knows all before it exists.”

              Yet the God they described was abstract, impersonal, unreachable, perfect, and unmoved.  If He is perfect, they reasoned, why would He change anything, especially His mind?  If He is perfect and has arranged things perfectly, any change would be for the worse.

              The philosophical thinking of the time involved three things:
1.  Fate—you are assigned a life that cannot be changed, in theological words, predestination.  What happens happens because it has to happen.
2.  Immutability of God—the perfect doesn’t change.  God is perfect, therefore God does not change.
3.  Timelessness of God—if God has no beginning or end, He will know both the past and the future as well as the present.  When taken with number one, this means He has your life planned and you have no choices.

              Alexander’s [Greek] empire included most of the known world, so this philosophy spread.  Greeks prevailed until Rome took over.  Roman technology and military thinking prevailed, but they lost the culture wars—Greek culture prevailed there and so all these ideas spread.

              The Stoics, whom the apostle Paul dealt with in Athens, lived by the principle of Fate, and had great influence in society.  “You cannot change anything.  Just accept it and don’t let it disturb you.”

              First century Christians did not buy into this.  They believed that the choices you make can make a difference in your life and even in the world.  It was yet another way they stood out from their neighbors, at least until Augustine came along.

              Augustine was Bishop of Hippo, in North Africa.  Even though his mother was a Christian he was not at first. He was a philosopher who still believed in the Greek “package.”  He could not accept a changeable God.  He called the God of the Scriptures “absurd” and “offensive.”  But eventually he was converted—sort of.

              He followed Ambrose in “allegorical interpretation” of the Scriptures, which means you can make scripture mean anything, just call it an allegory.  He looked for ways to incorporate his old philosophies into the Biblical teaching.  He decided that Fate = God.  The problem was he became the dominant voice in the early Roman Catholic Church.

              This infection of Greek philosophy into New Testament theology continued unabated.  Thomas Aquinas, who was called “the Doctor of the Church” actually wrote commentaries on Aristotle.  Aristotle was taught in the early universities—where only priests and church dignitaries studied.  Eventually Luther and Calvin came out of those schools.  They called Fate by the Biblical word “predestination,” but they are not the same thing at all, as any thorough study will show.  Still, those beliefs permeated all theology for centuries.  You know all those “heretics” who were executed in the Middle Ages?  They were the ones who rebelled against this unscriptural view of God and how He works.

              Don’t think it doesn’t seep into our thinking.  “It just wasn’t meant to be,” we sometimes say when we are struggling with a tragedy of life.

              “I’m only human,” and, “Once saved, always saved,” all come from those old Greek philosophies, which in turn affected our theology. 

              I wish you all could have sat in the class I sat in last summer.  Since you did not, here is the bottom line:  Remember your stop sign.  Stop trying to explain the unexplainable.  Stop trying to bring God down to a human level.  Just accept what His revelation says about Him, without trying to undo it or make it match your preconceived notions.  That is the only reverent way to approach Him.
 
​Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure. Ps 147:5
 
Dene Ward

We discovered last month that Keith’s hearing has gotten much worse.  Before, when he was not wearing his two high-tech hearing aids, if I put my mouth right at his ear and spoke like I was talking to someone in the next room, he could hear enough to tell what I was saying.  He still couldn’t hear the phone ring in the same room, but at least we had a way to communicate if necessary.  Now we don’t.  No matter how loudly I speak, even with my mouth inside the curl of his ear, he can no longer hear me.  Without hearing aids, he is utterly deaf.

            So, I thought, maybe we should start learning to sign right now, just in case we need it sometime.   Then I thought, how long will I be able to see him signing?  When my sight goes, will he be totally lost to me?  My stomach did a little flip and I sat down quickly.  Panic set in for a moment before I calmed down enough to realize that would not be the case.  I would still have the sense of touch.  I have held those hands every day for nearly 37 years now and laid on that chest every night.  And though his speech patterns may deteriorate without his hearing, no one could ever mistake that voice.  I can sign to him and he can talk to me.  Whew!  What a relief.

            Col 1:15, 1 Tim 1:17 and Heb 11:27 tell us that God is invisible.  Jesus says in John 5:37 that no one has seen his form or heard his voice.  And because of that, people choose to believe he is not there.  Job mentions in 23:8,9 that when God is working, you cannot “perceive him.”  Don’t you sometimes get frustrated and wonder, “Why is it that Almighty God chooses to work in ways that do not make his existence obvious?”  Or doesn’t he?  Maybe it’s similar to Jesus choosing to speak in parables.  He said the ones who wanted to hear him could, and the ones who didn’t, wouldn’t, Matt 13:10-17.  He wants us to show a little desire and put in a little effort.

            People who want to see the hand of God, need only to stand on the seashore and look out at the endless waves, or look up in the night sky and try to count the stars. People with the right heart need only see the rebirth of plants and flowers in the spring, watch the flights of migrating birds, or experience the birth of their own children.  They need only to see the sun rise and set day after day, or understand the symbiotic relationships between species to comprehend the power of an Eternal Creator who still makes it all work, whether we can see him or not.

              Paul says in that famous passage in Romans that God did not leave the heathen nations without some sort of witness to his existence.  All they had to do was look around them.  For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse, Rom 1:20. 

            Just like I will always know if Keith is there whether I can see him or not, we can always know that God is there.  Just as with Job, even when we cannot see him working, we can know that he is. And that assurance gives us hope that the things that happen here, no matter how bad they are, are being used as part of his plan.  We may not know the plan or how it will ultimately turn out in its specifics, but we can know he is working.  And that’s all we need to know.
 
Behold, I go forward, but he is not there, and backward, but I do not perceive him; on the left hand when he is working, I do not behold him; he turns to the right hand, but I do not see him. But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold, Job 23:8-10.
 
Dene Ward

You probably discovered last week how bad we are about trying to explain God.  Just think how many times we had to use that STOP sign.  And if you didn’t use it, shame on you.  The secret things belong unto the LORD our God... Deut 29:29

            The Godhead itself is an incomprehensible relationship.  As much as we try to liken it to other things, it is not.  It is unique and, in the scriptures, unexplained.  That alone makes it unexplainable.

            If we could truly understand God, then we wouldn’t worship Him.  By “explaining” Him, we bring Him down to our level, and our level certainly is not worth worshipping.  It is “reverence” masked by irreverence. 

            And we also have something not only unexplainable, but unthinkable:
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Phil 2:5-8   God became human.
           
Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; Heb 2:14  He partook of flesh and blood.

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and was God…And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. John 1:1, 14.  God became flesh.
           
For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Heb 4:15.  He was in all points tempted.

            For God to become human should not just be amazing, it should be a staggering thought.  If it has never taken your breath away and knocked you off your feet, figuratively anyway, you just don’t get it.  In spite of yourself, you have absorbed too much denominational theology.  You’ve spent too much time with Augustine of Hippo and his Reformation disciples.    And that’s where we will finish next week.
 
Dene Ward

Part 7 of a continuing Monday series.  If you have not been with us, you really need to backtrack and read the first 6.  Even if you have been, with a week off, it might help to reread at least the last couple.

            Remember those stop signs you made last week?  Run and get it before we start.  You are really going to need it this week.  And more than that you will need to be willing to examine what you truly believe and the words and phrases you commonly use. 

            First let me ask you this:  why do you pray?  Believe it or not, there is a theology out there that does not believe God will change His mind if you ask.  Now don’t be so quick to judge.  The word they use is “immutability,” which we often use ourselves, and which is NOT a Bible word. 

            First, let’s look at a few passages.  Will our prayers indeed influence God?

            In his discussion of the coming destruction of Jerusalem Jesus said, “Pray that your flight not be in winter or on a Sabbath,” Matt 24:20.

            He also says, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! Matt 7:7-11.

            And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. Luke 18:1.

            Jesus seemed to believe our prayers would make a difference in God’s actions.  The word “immutability,” though, means “beyond the ability to change.”  Add that to the word “omniscience,” also a word not found in the Bible, which means “knowledge of everything past, present, and future, and therefore never surprised,” and you get a doctrine that says since God knows everything, then He knows the best course of action and the right thing to do and any change would mean He had made a mistake.  That is mainstream theology.

            STOP!  You are sitting there getting ready to say, “Yes, but---“  Don’t.  Just listen, and more important, read what God has to say about Himself.

            In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, “Thus says the LORD, ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die; you shall not recover.’” Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, saying, “Now, O LORD, please remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly. And before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, the word of the LORD came to him: “Turn back, and say to Hezekiah the leader of my people, Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Behold, I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the LORD, and I will add fifteen years to your life. I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city for my own sake and for my servant David's sake.” 2Kgs 20:1-6.

            And I[God] thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to me,’ but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. Jer 3:7.

            “‘I [God] said, How I would set you among my sons, and give you a pleasant land, a heritage most beautiful of all nations. And I thought you would call me, My Father, and would not turn from following me. ​Surely, as a treacherous wife leaves her husband, so have you been treacherous to me, O house of Israel, declares the LORD.’” Jer 3:19-20/

            And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind. Jer 7:31.

          And have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it come into my mind-- Jer 19:5.

          They built the high places of Baal in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to offer up their sons and daughters to Molech, though I did not command them, nor did it enter into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin. Jer 32:35.

          STOP!  You’re about to do it again, I know you are.  You are trying to explain away the plain statements of God about Himself.  What you are doing is trying to make an incomprehensible Being comprehensible to a human mind and that is the ultimate irreverence.  Guess what?  We are not finished yet.  This one will knock your socks off:

          He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” Gen 22:12.

          STOP!  Someone out there is thinking, “Are you trying to say…” I (and the teacher I sat under last summer) are not saying anything.  God is.  Do not tell God what He means to be saying and then call it respect.

          There are many, many times in the Bible that God says, “If.”  This one may be the most famous:

          Then the word of the LORD came to me: “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the LORD. Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it. Jer 18:5-10.

          Here is the conclusion of all this; God always bases His action on men’s behavior.  And that means not everything is set in stone.  Even God says so.  When you try to push these un-Biblical words on people and define them so strictly, then you wind up with doctrines never taught in the Bible.  And when you do, you wind up with things that are totally inexplicable, like the following passage.

          David knew that Saul was plotting harm against him. And he said to Abiathar the priest, “Bring the ephod here.” Then David said, “O LORD, the God of Israel, your servant has surely heard that Saul seeks to come to Keilah, to destroy the city on my account. Will the men of Keilah surrender me into his hand? Will Saul come down, as your servant has heard? O LORD, the God of Israel, please tell your servant.” And the LORD said, “He will come down.” Then David said, “Will the men of Keilah surrender me and my men into the hand of Saul?” And the LORD said, “They will surrender you.” Then David and his men, who were about six hundred, arose and departed from Keilah, and they went wherever they could go. When Saul was told that David had escaped from Keilah, he gave up the expedition. 1Sam 23:9-13.

          Oops!  God said something was going to happen and it didn’t.  Why?  Because men’s behavior changed what happened.  When we force things on our understanding of God, we always get into trouble.  Better to let God tell us how He acts and thinks, and keep from putting both our feet into our mouths hip-deep. 

          Keep your stop sign handy.  There is more to come.
 
Dene Ward

Part 6 of a continuing Monday morning series.

Before we start this segment, you need to do something.  Find yourself a piece of deep red poster board.  Cut it into an octagon shape at least 10 inches across and high.  Attach a one inch wide stick of some sort (like a Popsicle stick) as a handle.  Now write on both sides “STOP.”  Yes, you have made yourself a stop sign, and no, I didn’t literally mean for you to do this little exercise.  However, as we go through this part of the study you will be tempted to say, “Yes, but…” and a little further on, “But God does (or doesn’t) _______.”  Every time we read a passage and you have that feeling, hold up your [imaginary] stop sign and quit trying to 1) explain away a scripture, or 2) make God comprehensible to the human mind.  You are only denigrating Him when you do so.  He is above us in every way, and that includes our ability to completely understand Him.

            Therefore David blessed the LORD in the presence of all the assembly. And David said: “Blessed are you, O LORD, the God of Israel our father, forever and ever. Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all. And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name. 1Chr 29:10-13

            This is a picture of God drawn by David.  It presents God as one who creates and then relates to the creation.

            Then we have another couple of passages to try to fit in.  See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse, Deut 11:26; choose this day whom you will serve…Josh 24:15. 

            We, God’s creation, have free will.  And we are held accountable for our choices, a proof of that free will.  God is sovereign, which means He has the power to impose His will, but how does that affect our free will?  The question is not does He have the power, but how He chooses to use it.  And that very sovereignty gives Him the freedom in how He uses that power.

            Common theology views God as a novelist—He has absolute control over the characters in His novel.  Here are some of their pet passages:
I am the LORD. I have spoken; it shall come to pass; I will do it. I will not go back; I will not spare; I will not relent; according to your ways and your deeds you will be judged, declares the Lord GOD.” Ezek 24:14

            ​God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it? Num 23:19

            And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret.” 1Sam 15:29

            Almost always those passages are taken completely out of context instead of making them fit with other passages.  For example:

            I regret that I have made Saul king…1 Sam 15:11, and The Lord regretted that He had made Saul king over Israel, 1 Sam 15:35.

            Wait a minute!  What happened to the sovereignty of God in this circumstance?  Didn’t God know how Saul would act?  It seems apparent that God did not anticipate these events.  STOP!  You are already trying to do it, aren’t you?  Why can’t we accept the plain meaning of words?  Why can’t we accept God the way HE reveals himself rather than the way we choose to understand Him? 

          There are dozens of passages along this same line and we will eventually get to more of them, but here is the explanation:  God chooses to interact with us, not control us.  How does that go with all those “omni” words?  It doesn’t really, because we define them according to our minuscule, human understanding. 

            And how can we ever understand this?  God has made a covenant with us.  He started from the beginning with Noah, Gen 9:9, moving on to later covenants with Abraham and David.  Covenants are two-party agreements.  God, who made all the earth obligates Himself to an unworthy people.  The covenant with Israel was formalized in Exodus 24, and God keeps His half of the bargain through the ages.

            Why?  Because God wants something He does not have.  Can you imagine that?  ​Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he my darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I do remember him still. Therefore my heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him, declares the LORD. Jer 31:20.  “Yearning” implies a lack of something.  Does that word fit into your “omni” understanding?
And how about these? 

            Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. ​I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them. Hos 11:3-4

            How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender.  Hos 11:8

          God is willing to experience pain, heartache and intense desire for reconciliation.  A pure and holy God actually wants us that badly.  And why is that?

            When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it… for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Jonah 3:10; 4:2

            God wants that interaction with us not because of His sovereignty, but because of His love.

            Keep that stop sign handy.  We aren't finished yet.
 
Dene Ward

Today’s post is by guest writer Lucas Ward.

My cousin Kathryn in discussing the struggle for personal growth recently said this: “But I would rather strive for a better me today than settle for mediocrity forever.” This instantly struck me as profound. “But I would rather strive for a better me today than settle for mediocrity forever.” See, one thing I’ve discovered about Christianity is that it is about constant growth toward an ideal, rather than the instant attainment of that ideal. I’m not going to wake up tomorrow morning to find that I am the perfect Christian man. Sure, if I’ve been a thief, I can stop stealing instantly, get a job, and support myself and immediately get past that sin. The same can be said for a lot of sins: idolatry, adultery, drunkenness, etc. But learning to “suffer long” with my fellow man? That takes work to make it second nature. As do most of the aspects of godly love. I can instantly stop sleeping around, but the struggle to control my thoughts regarding the women I see may take a while to perfect. Etc., etc.

We see this played out throughout the Bible. Abraham, the Father of the Faithful and the Friend of God, grew his faith over the course of almost 50 years. At the end of Genesis 11 he had the faith to leave everything he knew and go to a strange land just because God told him to and made him promises. But in the very next chapter, when famine came and he had to go to Egypt for food, he showed that his faith wasn’t yet complete. Fearing for his life, he lied about his relationship with Sarai, his wife. If his faith in God’s promises was complete, he would have avoided this. (God promised him descendants. As he had no children, God could not allow him to die yet.) Almost 20 years later, in Genesis 20, he repeats this sin. And while we scorn Sarah for quietly laughing at God’s promise when she didn’t know it was God speaking, in Genesis 17 Abraham fell down laughing at God’s promise when he did know it was God speaking.

While Abraham’s faith was great from the beginning, it hadn’t yet reached its fullness. That we see in Genesis 22. This was another 15-20 years in the future, and Abraham had seen God working in his life and had seen the fulfillment of some of the promises and his faith had grown. He knew that the promise of God was to be fulfilled through Isaac, but he didn’t hesitate when God told him to sacrifice Isaac. Hebrews 11 tells us that Abraham just thought that God would raise Isaac from the dead. His faith in God’s promise, to be fulfilled in Isaac, was so strong that he just assumed resurrection! But it took him 40-50 years to get to that point.

We see this played out again and again when studying God’s servants. Gideon, David, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Esther, etc. Some started out with strong faith and understanding and just kept getting stronger, some started out with faltering faith and little understanding and became strong. But all grew as servants of the Lord over the course of their lifetimes.

This concept of continued growth is seen in the New Testament as well. Not only are the Apostles themselves excellent examples of this, but they wrote about it, too:

“Yea, and for this very cause adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply virtue; and in your virtue knowledge; and in your knowledge self-control; and in your self-control patience; and in your patience godliness; and in your godliness brotherly kindness; and in your brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, they make you to be not idle nor unfruitful unto the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
(2 Peter 1:5-8)

This passage clearly implies continued effort to grow in these areas. While we don’t have to take them one at a time and can (and should) try to improve in all of these areas together, none of us are going to wake up tomorrow and be perfect in knowledge. Or patience. Or brotherly kindness. But we should be continually, day by day, getting better at each of these things. It just takes work. Notice that the first thing mentioned, before faith or virtue, is diligence. The ESV says “make every effort”. It takes work, effort, to grow.

Even the great Apostle Paul, who had the confidence to say on multiple occasion “be imitators of me as I am of Christ”, knew the struggle of continued growth:

“Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect: but I press on, if so be that I may lay hold on that for which also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself yet to have laid hold: but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
(Philp. 3:12-14)

Also, in 1 Corinthians 9, he says that he daily buffeted his body to keep it in subjection. It was an effort, a struggle, to keep growing and to keep from losing what he had already gained. But he did keep growing. He kept getting stronger in the faith. And we can too. It just takes effort.

Next year I’ll be closer to the ideal than I am this year. The following year, I’ll be even a little better than that. In a few decades, I’ll start getting somewhere.

“But I would rather strive for a better me today than settle for mediocrity forever.”
 
Lucas Ward
 

Part 5 of a continuing Monday morning series.
 
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 the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.” ​​​​​​​God created man in his own image, ​​​​​​in the image of God he created them, ​​​​​​male and female he created them. Gen 1:26-27

            This passage contains one of the most discussed phrases in the Bible.  What does it mean to be made in the image of God?  The passage itself is full of repetition.  In the Hebrew language (I am told) repetition is used as emphasis because it contains no intensifiers like “very” or “most.”

            ​From the ends of the earth we hear songs of praise, of glory to the Righteous One. But I say, “I waste away, I waste away. Woe is me! For the traitors have betrayed, with betrayal the traitors have betrayed.” Isa 24:16.      The repetition in that last line is obvious.  According to the Hebrew language, these traitors must be the most traitorous of the bunch.

            Now look at Ex 26:33.  You are to hang this curtain under the clasps and bring the ark of the testimony in there behind the curtain. The curtain will make a division for you between the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place.  “Most” is not in the Hebrew.  Instead it reads:  “the holy holy place.”  The repetition is the intensifier.

            All of that means that the Genesis passage where we began is emphasizing that we are indeed created in the very image of God—“image” or “likeness” occurs four times.  Scroll up and read it again and see if you catch that.  Now let’s see where that takes us.

            This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created. When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. Gen 5:1-3

            The concept in this passage is of a father being presented with his newborn child.  He “creates” him, then blesses him, and finally names him.  That is what God did with man, vv 1, 2.  Adam did exactly the same thing with Seth.  He fathered (created) a son in his own image, presumably blessed him as was the custom in ancient times, and named him, v 3.  You only name what belongs to you.  The parallel shows that just as Seth was related to Adam and belonged to him, somehow we are related to God and belong to Him.

            Being in the image of God is so intrinsic to us that it did not change when man sinned.

            “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image. Gen 9:6.  This applies to any man, not just godly men.  We are not to kill that which is made in God’s image.  It was still so after the flood.

            With [the tongue] we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the image of God. Jas 3:9  It is still true in this age.  James uses that fact to show us the severity of cursing another man.  So how are we made in the image of God?

            Refer back to part 2 of this series.  God is spirit, God is light, and God is love.  Obviously we are not invisible spirit, nor are we a light so holy that man cannot survive it. 

            So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 1John 4:16-17.  Love is what God is so when He gives love, He is giving of Himself.  We are thus “as He is” when we love others, and when we return love to Him.   God intended to create man with the ability to return or reject His love.  Love can only be genuine when it is given by choice.

            Sin is the rejection of God’s love.  When God gave us freewill, He gave us permission to hurt Him.  His wrath, then, is the wrath of a jealous lover, one who has every right to expect that His love be returned.  This righteous jealousy is for the relationship, not against the lover (Zech 8:1-8).

            When we refuse to love others we are rejecting our relationship with God.  We are denying our “image,” one of someone who loves unconditionally and of his own freewill.  Reviling and mistreating anyone, whether they deserve it or not, is a far more serious matter than we realize.
 
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Eph 5:1-2
 
Dene Ward

When we first moved over a thousand miles from my hometown, I eagerly awaited the mailman every day.  As the time approached, I learned to listen from any part of the house for that “Ca-chunk” when he lifted the metal lid on the black box hanging by the door and dropped it in.  Oh, what a lovely sound!

           My sister often wrote long letters and I returned the favor, letters we added onto for days like a diary before we sent them off.  My parents wrote, Keith’s parents wrote, both my grandmothers wrote, and a couple of friends as well.  It was a rare week I did not receive two or three letters.  This generation with their emails, cell phones, and instant messaging has no idea what they are missing, the joy a simple “clunk” can bring when you hear it.

            I was far from home, in a place so different I couldn’t always find what I needed at the grocery store.  Not only were the brands different—and to a cook from the Deep South, brands are important—but the food itself was odd.  It was forty years ago and the Food Network did not yet exist.  Food was far more regional. 

          The first time I asked for “turnips,” I was shown a bin of purple topped white roots.  In the South, “turnips” were the greens.  I asked for black-eye pea and cantaloupe seeds for my garden, and no one knew what they were.  I asked for summer squash and was handed a zucchini.  When I asked for dried black turtle beans—a staple in Tampa—they looked at me like I was surely making that one up.

          So a letter was special, a taste of home in what was almost “a foreign land,” especially to a young, unsophisticated Southern girl who had never seen snow, didn’t know the difference between a spring coat and a winter coat, and had never stepped out on an icy back step and slid all the way across it, clutching at a bag of garbage like it was a life line and praying the icy patch ended before the edge of the stoop.

          Maybe that’s how the exiles first felt when they got Jeremiah’s letter, but the feeling did not last.  They did not want to hear his message.  They were sure the tide would turn, that any day now God would rescue Jerusalem and send Nebuchadnezzar packing.  But that’s not what Jeremiah said.

          The letter…said: “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare… For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. Jer 29:3-8, 10.

          You are going to be here seventy years, they were told.  Settle down and live your lives.  It took a lot to get these people turned around.  Ezekiel worked at it for years.  They may have been the best of what was left, but they were still unfaithful idolaters who needed to repent in order to become the righteous remnant.

          Which makes it even more remarkable that they had to be told to go about their lives, and especially to “seek the welfare of the city,” the capital of a pagan empire.  To them that was giving up on the city of God, the Promised Land, the house of God, the covenant, and even God Himself.  And it took years for Ezekiel to undo that mindset and make them fit to return in God’s time, not theirs.

          And us?  We have to be reminded that we don’t belong here.  We are exiles in a world of sin.  Yes, you have to live here, Paul says, but don’t live like the world does.  This is not your home.  Peter adds, Beloved, I beseech you as sojourners and pilgrims… 1Pet 2:11.  Too many times we act like this is the place we are headed for instead of merely passing through.

          How many times have I heard Bible classes pat themselves on the back:  “We would never be like those faithless people.”  But occasionally even they outdo us.
 
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Heb 11:13
 
Dene Ward

I am still learning a few things with this laminate flooring.  Among them, I found out that you really cannot put off dusting under the beds.  I must admit, it doesn’t get done every week.  I usually do it a couple times a month, but a few weeks ago I found out that you simply cannot wait any longer if you want to save your reputation as a housekeeper.  Keith was getting warm as he dressed for church that Sunday morning, so he switched on the fan.  Suddenly, from under the bed, a veritable stampede of dust bunnies came rolling out, some as big as my fist.  At least there were no visitors in the bedroom with us.

            I thought of that little episode when I found the following verse:  Look on everyone who is proud and bring him low and tread down the wicked where they stand. Hide them all in the dust together; bind their faces in the world below, Job 40:12,13.  I think Job means that God has no regard for the arrogant, that death will be their ultimate end, a place in the dust from whence they came. 

            God has special anger for those who do not rely on him.  He reminded the Israelites that everything they had came from him, not from their own hard work or from their own merit. 

            "The LORD will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. The LORD will command the blessing on you in your barns and in all that you undertake. And he will bless you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. The LORD will establish you as a people holy to himself, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in his ways. And all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they shall be afraid of you. And the LORD will make you abound in prosperity, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your livestock and in the fruit of your ground, within the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give you. The LORD will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands. And you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. And the LORD will make you the head and not the tail, and you shall only go up and not down, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you today, being careful to do them, and if you do not turn aside from any of the words that I command you today, to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them. Deut 28:7-14.  I know that was lengthy, but do you get the point?  Everything the Israelites had came from God.  It was when they forgot this, when they turned to those other gods, that they had their biggest failure.  We, the Israel of God today (Gal 6:16), need to beware lest God hide us in the dust just like he did those people.

            I know we have trouble relying on God when we act like a financial setback is the end of the world, when we fail to pray because the doctor says there is no hope, even when we fail to pray for rain because the forecast is dry.  Just like Israel, we have taken on new gods—modern medicine, financial prognosticators, retirement plans, armies, and weapons.  God can change anything in the blink of an eye.  Do we believe it, or has our religion become a bit too reasonable and logical? 

            I wonder what Gideon would have thought of us, a man who beat an army “without number” with 300 weaponless men.  I wonder what the apostles would say to us, 12 relatively young, poor men who spread the gospel to an entire world.  Do we share the same God they do, or do we rely upon another, weaker god, maybe even ourselves?

            When Ezra returned to Jerusalem with his little band, he refused the king’s offer of an armed guard.  Why?  For I was ashamed to ask the king for a band of soldiers and horsemen to protect us against the enemy on our way, since we had told the king, "The hand of our God is for good on all who seek him, and the power of his wrath is against all who forsake him." So we fasted and implored our God for this, and he listened to our entreaty, Ezra 8:22,23.  Ezra understood that relying on something besides God put the lie to his faith, not only to God, but in the eyes of the world as well. 

            What are you relying on this morning?  Would your neighbors know that you depend upon God for everything, or would God turn on the fan, burying you in the ensuing dust cloud with the rest of the idolaters in the world?
 
Thus says the LORD: "Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit." Jer 17:5-8
 
Dene Ward