Our Importance in Christ

Often it is easy to feel we are not important. It is actually in part a good realization, because it has an element of truth. We are important, but not in and of ourselves.

We are important because we are children of the living God. We as people may be children living in obedience to God or children estranged from God, but all mankind is God's children.

For those in Christ we find our importance through being in active fellowship with our Father in heaven through faith in his son Jesus.

For those estranged from God or rejecting God the offer of fellowship is always open. God beckons all who will to draw near and accept the offer of grace offered through Jesus.

Man is great because man bears the image of God and are beckoned by God into eternal fellowship. God wishes for us to enjoy eternity in fellowship with God.

Making Time for What Matters

We always make time for what is important to us in life. Often we say that this or that things is important but we never do it.

Maybe the whole thing would take a weekend or a few hours. When asked we say it is important to us.

Maybe it is. But over time we never get around to it. You see we are rarely as busy as we like to claim. Especially over the long term.

We often find that we excuse ourselves in life or hide our priorities from ourselves by saying we do not have time.

It is of course good to relax and take time for ourselves. This is the biblical idea behind Sabbath. Man should not work without rest. That is not God's intent.

But often we convince ourselves that we believe things are important to us that are not. We over emphasize our busyness to disguise from ourselves what we do not find important.

You see we know what we should find important and if it is not important to us it is uncomfortable because our heart is revealed. So we excuse ourselves by saying we are too busy. This or that always comes in the way.

In the end over the long term our use of time expresses our heart. Some of us are extremely busy, but we always make time for what is important to us.

If it is truly important you make time for it.

Expectation of Fellowship with God

We should live our lives in view of fellowship with God. The bible says that God is high and lifted up and completely different from us. The gulf between God and sinful man is immense.

But through his Son Jesus, God has bridged the gap and beckons us to draw near. It is God's pleasure for us to come to him in faith and enter into eternal fellowship with Himself. People often make a caricature of the Christian God as someone aloof who does not seem to have a concern for people. Nothing could be farther from the case. God entered time and time again into history because of his concern for people.

God offers the solution to the issue between God and man. Of course maybe mankind thinks of God as aloof because God offers the solution on his terms. This is often the issue: man does not like God's solution.

God's solution is too hard, people say. Of course again this is nonsense. God's solution is only so hard because we simply need to take God at his word and accept his Son. You see the Gospel is difficult because we are not allowed to do anything to earn it.

It is a gift. As prideful people it is easy to scoff at the gift as hard because we are proud and earn our way. Of course the solution is a mirror of the the initial break apart from God and man.

Man thought he knew better than God and wanted things on his terms. God was not taken at his word and was believed to be holding something back. The solution is simply to take God at his word. There is a great parallel between the problem and the solution.

God and Sinful Man

Often today Christian thinkers scoff at the phrase that "God hates sin and loves the sinner." It is too simple.

The reality is that in the current day we make the bible more complex than it is. We cannot understand the bible because we think ourselves out of understanding.

The bible always affirms that God hates sin and stands in opposition to it. It always affirms the eternal realities at stake in life.

And yet the bible always affirms that God takes no pleasure in those who will not repent and wishes to draw all people to himself.

You see many people wish to deny the truth of these points. We often meet two truths clearly stated in scripture and decide which we will pick. You see we say "no" to much of scriptural teaching rather than simply saying "yes" to all of scripture.

We are often stuck in an either/or when we should see God is teaching the reality of a both/and. God's desire to bring all people to himself and his will of an eternal reality based on faith or rejection of Jesus is always affirmed.

Often the issue is that we out think what is so clearly stated. The teaching of scripture is often only hard because we make it so.

God walking among Men

Often people feel as if God is difficult to grasp. He hides in the smoke and clouds and behind signs and symbols.

He is so far off. I cannot get the sense of him. This is how many people feel.

Of course the whole bible depicts the nature of God, but it is far easier. You see Jesus is very God of very God in human flesh. He walked among men.

The four gospels are most helpful. You see we have a record of God dwelling among men as a fellow brother.

Jesus as a member of the Trinity is not different than God; he is God. It is as if we had many fragmentary notes of God recorded in bits and pieces and now God himself has shown up on the scene and we have an extensive record of many years of his life and teaching and the teaching he imparted to his chosen followers.

You see God is not as difficult to find as we think. We simply need to look to the gospels to get a clear picture.

Of course many people wish to view Jesus as in some way different than the OT God. Jesus is all love and not wrath they say.

Of course this makes no sense. If you look at the teaching of Jesus he was very long suffering with many of his opponents but he was very firm in their condemnation if they would not change.

You see simply because the judge has paid and freely offers payment of the debt against those in debt does not mean there is no justice.

The price is paid, but by Jesus. All the glory goes to Jesus because he overcame death. That is of course why the bible always insists there is no grounds to boast.

Theses on Implications in Theology

1. Expected implications of theological points often do not follow exactly as expected if we introspected on these implications. The way theological points follow as explained in the bible makes sense but it is often not what we would first expect.

2. Many implications we expect from theological points do not follow logically at all.

3. Many things follow from theology as implications which we would not expect by implications.

4. Mankind has a fallen mind which often cannot follow the implications of things of religious, ethical, or thoughts of God.

5. Man often strongly wishes implications that the bible will not allow.

6. Man often ignores implications of the bible which he does not like.

7. The bible says many things which man does not like. He can chose to be corrected by the bible or to correct the bible.

8. The bible says man is in need of correction on many things. If God and man differ man needs to change.

Perspicuity of Scripture

The bible is a very plain book in many ways (theologians speak of this as the Perspicuity of Scripture). It states that God exists and he has a will and a plan and a specific will for the world.

It has a very basic description of man and his nature. Somehow the church often makes the book very difficult.

Is the OT God and the NT Jesus different? Is hell real? Does God really want sexual purity?

You see all the answers are very plain. Why do we ask questions and cannot read the answer so plainly given.

You see it is this God who our sin is against and nature wishes to rebel against. The book is so hard because we are the people under the curse of sin God says we are and in need of the free grace he offers through faith in his son.

We ask so many questions because we are sinners and do not like he answers given. We object to the bible because we do not like it not because it is unclear.

God and Man

The Christian God is a being who transcends man’s mind. The holiness of God means that he is set apart and not as man is.

The bible says that Gods thoughts are not our thoughts and his ways not our ways. When we meet the Christian God we meet with paradox.

The magnitude of being is difficult to understand. It is not that God does not make sense but that we are very small.

Man's first sin was comparing his understanding to that of God. Often we do not think that the Lord knows what he is doing.

It is always our first sin because we are small. We see evil in God when we should see error in ourselves.

God is complicated he greaves for sinners and hates sin and the complexity of his emotion often leads men to feel the bible makes no sense.

Is God angry or sad or wishing of love? Yes. You see we always wish to make God like us to make his personhood small as our personhood is small.

The reality is the complexity which we meet is above our mind and we can only start to grasp the complexity when we step back in faith and sigh and realize that it is we who are small and need to be taught and not God.

Then we can begin to understand and slowly be transformed to take on a small amount of the character of the divine nature.

Trusting God

Isaiah 2:22: "Stop regarding man in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he?"

In other words why should we trust in our own power?  It is God who upholds the universe with its trillion trillions of stars by the power of his word.  Should we not regard God who upholds each second and thus enables each breath that all of humanity takes, every has taken, and ever will take!