Praise the Incorruptible God

Psalm 94:8-11 extols the God Who created mankind by appealing to the ability to reason He has given us:  "Understand, you senseless among the people; and you fools, when will you be wise? ⁹ He who planted the ear, shall He not hear? He who formed the eye, shall He not see? ¹⁰ He who instructs the nations, shall He not correct, He who teaches man knowledge? ¹¹ The LORD knows the thoughts of man, that they are futile."  Everything the human body can do God does infinitely better.  If God was blind He would never have considered creating an eye, and if He could not hear He would not have given us ears.  Eyes, ears and brains serve the purposes God intended, that we would see, hear and consider.

The Bible tells us God created man in His own image and likeness.  Though our thoughts and abilities are merely a shadow of God's infinite understanding and supremacy, they do provide hints of our almighty Creator.  We are able to dismiss advice as senseless, and in His infinite wisdom God knows the foolish.  Parents teach their children and some teach others as their paid profession, and thus all men need God to teach them.  Our knowledge can be great on a particular subject of interest, yet our knowledge is nothing compared to God's.  The most praiseworthy prodigy among people is mere hint of a shadow of which our Masterful God is the substance.

Because the skill or knowledge of others can exceed our own, we can be moved to envy them; we can flip to the other extreme and worship them.  The fact people are moved to worship creation is evidence there is a Creator worthy of worship.  Romans 1:20-23 reads, "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, ²¹ because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Professing to be wise, they became fools, ²³ and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man--and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things."  God's invisible attributes are revealed in part by what He has made, even His eternal power.  Because God has given us eyes to see and minds to understand, we are without excuse.  Man's folly cannot be justified in this matter, for it is a grave sin to give glory God deserves to corruptible things created by Him.

How good it is when we are awed by the beauty in nature, the power of an athlete or the skill of an artist that we praise and exalt the God who has given such things for our enjoyment and revelation concerning Himself.  We are privileged beyond reckoning for the goodness of God we see in the land of the living day by day, and it is God Who has given us today.  The things we marvel over, the things that amaze us in a good sense, when we are baffled by the complexity of the human body, the feelings of a spouse or the timeliness of wise advice, let us worship God.  We appreciate a good sense of humour:  isn't God to thank for that as well?  Our hearts and minds are created to venerate and worship, and let us choose to offer God all our praise because He alone is worthy.  In everyday things God shows Himself to be beyond extraordinary.

Remember Our LORD

When it comes to conflict resolution, I have found the vast majority of the effort involves my own heart and mind.  We cannot do a thing to change the hearts, actions or words of others, but we can humble ourselves before God in obedience.  As much as depends upon us, we are exhorted to be peaceable with others.  Should my own mind and conscience be troubled, should I give place to bitterness, worry and malice, even should the person change I am no better for it.  Interpersonal conflict is a trigger for me to examine my own heart and be the first to change, refined by submission to God in faith and obedience.  Nearly every time conflict continues because I refuse to walk in love towards others according to the love Christ has offered me.

Our struggles to resolve conflict within ourselves can result from our lack of faith in God, our reluctance to release others from our judgment when they do not seem to realise their offence or care, and a distorted sense of justice that withholds grace from others.  Something in us wants them to know they have been wrong and to admit it.  There can even in our flesh be a desire they suffer to a degree as retribution for the suffering we have endured.  We can be more about them facing a punishment rather than our own refinement.  Yet God's redemptive purposes in allowing suffering and His strength being perfected in our weakness remain steadfast.

We have likely at some time prayed to God as the psalmist did in Psalm 137:7-8 with a desire for God's vengeance:  "Remember, O LORD, against the sons of Edom the day of Jerusalem, who said, "Raze it, raze it, to its very foundation!" ⁸ O daughter of Babylon, who are to be destroyed, happy the one who repays you as you have served us!"  God will judge all people and nations and does not need reminders like we do.  Pain can serve as a reminder of who we believe is responsible, and under the Law of Moses it was fitting to demand an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.  However, under the New Covenant established by the shed blood of Jesus this has changed completely.  Instead of telling God to remember the sins of others so they might be punished to the full Jesus says to us, "Remember Me!"

This is powerful!  Because God is not willing that any should perish Jesus went to the cross and willingly suffered for our sin.  It was a divine demonstration of love beyond this world offered to us, that we can be forgiven, accepted, saved and given eternal life by grace through faith.  This fervent desire of God to save was revealed in the Old Testament prophet as it is written in Ezekiel 33:11:  "Say to them: 'As I live,' says the Lord GOD, 'I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?'"  We are not like God, for we delight to see people pay.  Jesus willingly paid what we could never pay on Calvary, for even 1 trillion years burning in hell for our sin would suffice for God to say, "Paid in full."

Let us remember our LORD and Saviour Jesus Christ!  As Hebrews 12:3 says, "For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls."  Jesus responded to hostility with grace, to offence with measured rebuke, to denial with loving restoration.  Instead of trotting out all the ways people have wronged us and how they ought to be punished, remember how Jesus freely absorbed all the punishment we deserved.  We demand it is only right others should pay, but remember how Jesus paid a debt we could never pay--and imputed His righteousness to us by His grace.  As we look to Jesus, remembering all He has done, does and will do, we can proclaim His love with our lives beyond His return.

God Was Thirsty

"After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, "I thirst!"

John 19:28

It is truly remarkable God chose to become a man to suffer as a Saviour for sinful humanity.  "Thirst" is one of those bodily mechanisms God designed when He created man, an uncomfortable feeling or sensation to prompt us to drink to supply the needs of our physical bodies.  As a spirit God did not ever have this feeling Himself, but as the Man Jesus Christ He suffered hunger and thirst.

In John 4 when Jesus asked the Samaritan woman at the well for a drink, He claimed to be the source of Living Water.  In response to the question if He was greater than Jacob John 4:13-14 says, "Jesus answered and said to her, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."  It is evident there is a spiritual thirst and a physical one, for though Jesus is the source of satisfying Living Water He was thirsty when crucified.

When the children of Israel were brought out of Egypt, it was God who supplied life-sustaining water for His people as it is written in 1 Corinthians 10:1-4:  "Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, ² all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, ³ all ate the same spiritual food, ⁴ and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ."  People drank from water God made to flow from a rock, and it foreshadowed physically what God would do spiritually through faith in Jesus Christ.  The One who supplied water for their bodies and their souls said, "I thirst!" and in doing so revealed His humanity.

At the same time Jesus Christ showed He was divine by knowing how the scripture would be fulfilled in Him expressing His thirst.  Psalm 69:21 reads, "They also gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink."  Jesus knew all the prophesies that would be fulfilled by Him being betrayed, lifted up in crucifixion, being pierced, His clothes divided and lots cast, how no bones would be broken and that He would be given vinegar to drink.  These are just a handful of the many scriptures Jesus fulfilled in His death with flawless accuracy.  For those who know Jesus Christ is God made flesh His perfect knowledge is to be expected, yet I still find His gracious condescension to be human stunning.

My Saviour thirsted on Calvary so those who trust in Him need never be spiritually dry.  Jesus tasted death for sinners so we could be born again and have eternal life.  Those who offer a cup of water in the name of a disciple will not be without reward:  how much more rewarding is it to receive Christ, to know and proclaim Him!  Praise God He became a Man so His atoning sacrifice was acceptable for mankind.  

Praying By Faith

The hymn goes, "O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear!  All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer."  Neglect of prayer does lead to troubled hearts and minds, yet still many pray and do not always experience the peace God freely provides by His grace.  One reason this can occur is the same reason why the children of Israel did not enter the land God promised to give them:  unbelief.  The amount of negative impact of the many shades and degrees of unbelief in the lives of believers is frankly unbelievable.  Those whose sight is failing often do not realise what they cannot see, and praise the LORD for His word that illuminates our sight to see ourselves in truth through the examples of others.

Psalm 78 is a passage written by Asaph that explores the history of God's chosen people and how unbelief caused them to disobey and rebel against God.  The shame of past sins were not glossed over, for the next generation could profit much from their example by choosing to trust and obey God instead.  Psalm 78:7-11 reveals the purpose of this rehearsing the failings of their fathers:  "...that they may set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments; ⁸ and may not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that did not set its heart aright, and whose spirit was not faithful to God. ⁹ The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle. ¹⁰ They did not keep the covenant of God; they refused to walk in His law, ¹¹ and forgot His works and His wonders that He had shown them."  Unless the current generation is willing to instruct the future generation that is willing to learn, sinful rebellion against God will be rife.

See the inferred consequences of unbelief in God:  setting their hope on self or something other than God, forgetting God's works, disobeying His commands.  The generation miraculously brought forth from Egypt was marked with stubbornness, rebellion, perverse hearts, unfaithful to God, retreating in fear, did not keep God's covenant, refused to surrender their will to walk in His law and forgot His works.  Psalm 78:17-19 continued:  "But they sinned even more against Him by rebelling against the Most High in the wilderness. ¹⁸ And they tested God in their heart by asking for the food of their fancy. ¹⁹ Yes, they spoke against God: they said, "Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?"  Unbelief prompted God's people to rebel, test God and spoke against Him.  God caused them to eat manna every day, caused wind to blow quail to satisfy them with meat and caused water to flow from the rock to drink.  They ate and drank; they were satisfied and sustained.  But unbelief in God prevented them from connecting what God had already done to what God would and could do today and tomorrow.  Thus they denied themselves the blessing of the rest and peace found in God and were unable to receive of His goodness, though they had food and water.

The great sin of God's people (consider this, of God's own people!) was their refusal to believe God who did wonders in their midst.  Though God was their Redeemer and Saviour, Psalm 78:36-37 says:  "Nevertheless they flattered Him with their mouth, and they lied to Him with their tongue; ³⁷ for their heart was not steadfast with Him, nor were they faithful in His covenant."  God saw through their words straight to their hearts and their unfaithfulness.  Psalm 78:40-42 says, "How often they provoked Him in the wilderness, and grieved Him in the desert! ⁴¹ Yes, again and again they tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel. ⁴² They did not remember His power: the day when He redeemed them from the enemy..."  It would be impossible to belabour the point for Asaph did so for the purpose to warn God's people of the consequences of unbelief, how unbelief is a spiritual cancer than impacts our entire lives, as a warning to others, and to magnify the grace of God who forgives those who repent.  Asaph said God's people tempted and provoked God with their idolatry, turned back from following Him in obedience, and limited God.

Though the guilt of God's people was great, His power to love, show mercy, give grace and forgive was greater still.  Over the course of Israel's history God allowed many trials to refine them:  40 years in the wilderness that ended in death for the vast majority of people, oppression by enemies in the days of the judges, 70 years of captivity in Babylon, and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans.  Yet all that time God was faithful to His people, and He has been faithful to those who are God's purchased possession by faith in Jesus Christ.  Let us not think because Christians are now the temple of the Holy Spirit we are prevented from the folly of previous generations that rebelled against God, forgot about Him, turned from His covenant, provoked and limited Him due to unbelief.

Belief in God remembers all He has done in the past and knows our God is the same yesterday, today and forever and thus can provide all we need right now..  His arm is not shortened that He cannot hear and has purposes beyond our understanding.  Because He is our Good Shepherd we follow Him; because He can do everything we pray to Him.  Like the children of Israel were to drive out the inhabitants of the land, so we are to drive out the worries, flattery, lies, deceit, lust and adultery from our own hearts and minds.  We are called to surrender our will to do God's will ourselves, not that God's will shall be done somewhere without us but by our obedience to Him!  Jesus summed this up the importance of our belief in John 6:29:  "...This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent."  Those who believe will trust, obey and pray.  O LORD, keep us from unbelief that leads to lies and flattery that provokes, limits and grieves God in prayer.  Turn our unbelief and neglect of prayer to praying by faith in God.