Flipping the Canvas

It is amazing what a change in perspective will do.  I can adequately paint a wall with the right equipment, but I have never learned how to paint artistically.  Artists are able to see what others cannot and have the ability to bring an empty canvas to life with colour and detail.  It impresses me how people mix oil paint and use brushes to create pictures with a photographic and textured quality.  Bob Ross on KPBS often said anyone could paint, and I suppose he is right depending on how you define "painting."  I can apply paint to a canvas like a child, but I haven't painted anything recognisable yet.  I have seen paintings done by apes and elephants far superior to my efforts.

Perhaps I am easy to impress, but I always enjoy presentations when an artist basically attacks the canvas with quick swipes, splatters, and flourishes.  After a minute, when I still have no idea what is being painted, suddenly the artist with a quick flip of the canvas brings a recognisable image into view almost like magic:  a face, a scene, something which remained completely hidden to my eyes until the painter kindly turned it right side up for all to enjoy.  The artist knew much I did not know:  he knew what he was doing when I had no idea.  It required a change of my perspective - done for me by the artist - and then I could better appreciate the end result.

During our lives there will be many times when we struggle to understand or appreciate what God is doing because we do not have the correct perspective - His perspective.  In these times we often lose sight of God entirely.  We try to make sense of something we cannot make sense of no matter how hard we try.  Now God doesn't always flip the painting over to show us what He is up to, and He is under no obligation to.  But we are called to trust Him even when we don't understand, trusting the character and promises of God in His Word.  Focusing on ourselves or problems in the world cannot bring the peace and rest available when we look to Jesus.

God is able to do what a painter cannot do with oils and brushes:  He sometimes allows painful circumstances so He might bring a bountiful blessing from them.  He can take a severe illness and make it an asset rather than a destroyer.  He can take the loss of a job or promotion and use it to strengthen our faith in Him.  The deepest pains can lead to profound purpose which remained previously hidden all our lives.  By the grace of God from death can spring life; the lost can be found, and failed dreams can transform to enduring hope.  What would crush us God uses to strengthen, and even our faults redeemed for His praise.  I do not know how God does this, and nor can I explain how a painter can paint upside down.  But I know God is able to do everything - far beyond my ability to understand.

I daresay God at times turns our lives upside down so we might re-centre our gaze on what counts and will endure.  His ways are glorious, and His works perfection.  He is able to make this blind man see and He will do the same for all who look to Him in faith.  We do not always understand, nor can we explain.  But by His grace we can seek our great God and know certainties where all else is darkness and shadow.  In God there is no variation or shadow of turning (James 1:17):  it is we who must be turned!  Rightly Asaph wrote in Psalm 80:19, "Turn us again, O LORD God of hosts, cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved."

Friend or Client?

I remember the event very clearly:  a former co-worker (who had never once been to my house before) showing up at my door unannounced at 8pm, and it was the first time I had ever seen this man in a suit.  I was happy to see my friend, but my heart sunk when he awkwardly explained how he wanted to sell me something.  I can't explain the depth of disappointment, a feeling I can only describe as betrayal.  Friendship had been exchanged for the meagre gain of financial profit, and sadly the situation has been repeated many times - and every time it hurt.  Worse than being friend-zoned is when you are reduced to clientele.  It is true clients can later become friends, but to cross the line from friend to client jeopardises the quality of the relationship.

My intent is not to blast people who are trying to earn an honest living or feel social media is a ideal platform for free advertising.  But the willingness to leverage friendship for the opportunity of personal financial gain or to risk endangering it - regardless of the "benefits" you offer or products you swear by - is an awful, regrettable choice.  I would rather a friend who is struggling financially to ask me directly for money than try to sell me something or make me part of their diversified revenue stream.  It is no wonder some in the quest for wealth treat friendship with utilitarian disdain, for the lure of riches causes people to err from the right way.  Paul warned of the love of money in 1 Timothy 6:10: "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."  Greed pierces those guilty of it, and their targets can be wounded as well.

I urge you therefore, brothers and sisters, to value friendship rather than potentially sacrificing friendship on the altar of financial gain.  Greed can build walls between close friends and endanger the relationship once enjoyed.  Better to have a loyal, trusted friend than a client.  If you are willing to risk friendship for money, don't be surprised when friendships start drying up.

The Way of Repentance

When questioned concerning what was the great commandment of the Law, the reply of Jesus to the lawyer is seen in in Matthew 22:37-39 "'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' ³⁸ This is the first and great commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself.'"  Jesus would later give a new commandment to His disciples, that they should love one another as He had loved them (John 13:34).  The love of Jesus was demonstrated and culminated on Calvary's cross where He laid down His life for sinners.

In church today we read the passage in Acts 17 when Paul addressed the council, philosophers, and religious people in Athens.  He said in Acts 17:30 God "...now commands all men everywhere to repent...".  Repentance is a change of mind which results in a change of practices.  It is agreement with God concerning what is wrong, choosing to forsake sin, and do what is pleasing in God's sight.  Repentance is a command God has issued to all people, for those who have not yet been born again and those in the church.  Sin keeps a man from fellowship with God, and repentance is a step in restoring the broken relationship.

As I mused on this during a song of worship to God, it struck me repentance does not happen in the pews.  Repentance begins with a commitment but does not stop there:  real repentance occurs in the moment of temptation.  Let's say you struggle with gossip.  Repentance happens when you have a juicy bit of gossip to share but in the moment recall to mind tale bearing is a sin and choose to remain silent.  Say God puts His finger on your gluttonous appetites, eating more than you should.  Repentance may begin in a church service or on your bed at night confessing before God your gluttony, but it is proved when you choose not to have a second helping of dessert - or forgo it altogether because you have had your fill.  Repentance is proved when the opportunity for sin reveals itself, and in obedience to God the repentant heart intentionally avoids doing what is wrong and does the right thing instead.

This is how repentance goes from being a decision in the mind to being a practice in your life; this is how repentance passes from a commitment before God in church in response to a sermon to a way of life.  Repentance is simple obedience moving forward.  God commands all men everywhere to repent, and praise the LORD He has made a way of forgiveness through faith in Jesus Christ.

Our Good God

One of the most prominent red herrings offered by sceptics concerning God goes like this:  "If God is good and all-powerful, why does he allow bad things to happen?"  What this question suggests is because "bad" things happen God is not good, is not all-powerful, or He does not exist at all.  Better than trying to answer this ill-founded question, logic can be employed to illustrate the folly of it.  If the person asking is convinced God is an imaginary construct and the Bible filled with fairy tales, there is no value to entertain hypothetical questions.  God's love compels us to engage, not so we can win an argument but ultimately so Jesus can save a soul.

Considering the aim of the question according to the claims of God in His Word, respond to a genuine seeker with questions along these lines:  should we doubt the reality of light because darkness exists?  Is it right to blame an upstanding judge because criminals commit crimes?  Is the law wicked because people insist on breaking it?  Is a good shepherd at fault because there are wolves that seek to prey on the flock?  "It is not the same thing," some may protest.  Well said, for nothing can adequately be compared to God!  But reality proves the presence of darkness does not negate the existence of light, for we cannot know one without the other.  An honest person will admit it would be silly to blame a good judge because people do wickedness.  Whilst we may not agree with laws made by men, God's law is perfectly righteous and our inability to keep it reveals our wickedness:  there is none good, no not one.  A good shepherd should be commended for putting his own life at risk to save the sheep, not blamed for the existence of hazards.

God is light, and in Him is no darkness.  The Bible teaches and assumes God was, is, and will ever be.  God graciously formed man in his own image with a conscience, the ability to reason, and the power to choose.  God allowed man to sin with the aim of providing redemption through His own death on the cross in the person of Jesus Christ.  His love was revealed in dying for us on Calvary, and His power revealed in the resurrection from the dead.  God is indeed all-powerful, and He will display this power openly when He judges the world in righteousness.  But God is also longsuffering, patient, kind, gracious, merciful, and compassionate.  Those stricken with doubt and racked with pain struggle to accept this in difficult times.  Yet those trials are the proving ground of our faith, to reveal to us clearly if we love and trust God or if we will deny Him.  Doubts, cares, and fear are all swallowed by faith when we breathe in the truth of God's Word.

Let us join in the song with the angels and elders around the throne of God today and always as we read in Revelation 7:12 "...saying: "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom, thanksgiving and honour and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen."  Our God is good, and let us always ascribe all honour and power to Him!