All about God

God help us to realize it is all about you

God help us to realize everything else will fade away

Speak your truths to us

Speak your wisdom

Overcome us

All or nothing

I have recently been taking some voluntary time off to spend with my family (which I believe God has told me to take off) and it has me thinking about how my value myself. It is so easy to get value from what you do and many other ways that are not God.

I have also been reading though Kings and Chronicles and I am amazed and king after king good or bad had died and has passed away and other than a few words that all that is recorded. We are really are a mist.

John 4:14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.(NIV)

How do we grapple with this startling fact? We are really nothing but can come into the presence of massive God.

Ecclesiastes 12:13 Now all has been heard;here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind. (NIV)

God help us to find our value in you
God help us to trust you with our value
God help us to fear you
God help us to hear you
Work in our lives
Change us for you

Predestination vs. Free Will

This one is for you Wendell

This is not to say I am capable to answer such a question ... or if even we as humans are capable to answer such a question but here are my thoughts.

1. I don't think we fully understand time and what time is.

2. We may be stuck in our own world view and language barriers. Predestination vs freewill may be very well like asking can God make a rock so big that he can't move it. Some may argue that this a fact in not believing in God but I believe C.S Lewis correctly states that really this is a limitation/error of the English language. Can you answer the question "what color is a circle?" Rather they are nonsensical questions. Is predestination vs free will a nonsensical question, possibly.

3. I believe we make choices and have freedom to make choices. Romans 3:20 we have a choice to open the door .. John 7:17 ... etc.

I believe the challenge comes when we have a God that is present in our future as well as today and knows if he does such and such it would have such and such affect on our life. The argument is that he could then change the events so that we would all come to repentance and come to God so why doesn't he? Has God only chosen certain people and set up the world for only the chosen people to be saved? or would only certain people chose God no matter what the circumstance?

2 Peter 3:9 "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."

C.S. Lewis Great Divorce Chapter 7
"The question is whether she is a grumbler, or only a grumble. If there is a real woman-even the least trace of one-still there inside the grumbling, it can be brought to life again. If there's one wee spark under all those ashes, we'll blow it till the whole pile is red and clear. But if there's nothing but ashes we'll not go on blowing them in our own eyes forever. They must be swept up."

I believe God has done exactly that. God has done everything possible that we will all come to repentance but we are stubborn people and have chosen otherwise. Now people could always give examples of people where they think this is not true but I believe we can never know all the details and so never make a conclusion.

Now at the end of time and we have no more choices, will our choices in this life be predestined. Yes because that is what we chose and would always have chosen because of who we are (I think our choices are a part of who we are). I don't believe we will be asking questions of what if such and such was different. I think will be nonsensical because that is not what happened and could never happened that way.

I think God balances intervention and freedom. God wants us to choose him but he doesn't want it to be forced or required.

We sit on this moment where the past is covered in a fog and the future is unknown. Through this fog we are asked to make choices and decisions that have eternal consequences. We can feel the stress and uncertainty of choices but it is one of the most uniquely human characteristics. We can make choices and weight options.

God help us to live for you
God help us to chose you
God give us a glimpse of your eternal truth
God help us to listen to you

Does God Love Satan

 1 John 4:8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

By this very verse we have to accept that God loves Satan because God is love. So how can we reconcile God sending Satan to hell.

C.S Lewis states that there is only two choices. Either good, love, holy has to win at the end of the day or either evil, sin .. etc. If God were to let a little sin into heaven the whole thing will be wrecked. Sin would triumph and destroy heaven. But God is holy and will not accept sin or sinful people.

So does God love Satan yes, but Satan choose to be forever banished to hell than to submit to God and truth, love and good.

The same is true for society, a school ... etc. if there is no consequences soon the whole system falls apart as more and more people break more and more rules.

We face the same choice. Would we choose to hang onto any little sin rather than heaven? In out lives we have the same choice. Will we hang onto sin and wreck everything God has done for us or will we submit it to God.

God help us to love you
God help us to trust you
God help us to listen to you

So that the Blind will See

^{John 9:39} Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”

God help us to realize our blindness
God open our eyes so that we may see
God help us to listen to you
God help us to not trust our self

Worth in Jesus

I am finding over and over this year that God is telling me find your value in me. I have the tendency to find value in myself by what I can do and how I can help.

One way God does this is by diminishing returns. I start noticing I have to work harder and harder to get the same self worth.

God help me to trust in you
God help us to listen to you
God help us to follow you

In Everything Give Thanks

1 Thessalonians 5:18 NKJV
"in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."

We had a very powerful speaker last week at church. A pastor from another church talked about him and his wife dealing with the suicide of their son. He said the only way to deal with the loss was to give thanks to God in everything. This seems very counter-intuitive and hard but I see it is very biblical. He said he reached a point where he believed God was telling him either he had to give thanks or he would become bitter at God. That was only the two choices.

He came to realize his questions of why to God where him really wanting to control the situation. He wanted God to tell him all the facts so he could tell God where God was wrong.

He also said that Christians where quick to tell him that God didn't cause but God only allowed it to happen. He said this was of no help to him. To him there was no difference between cause and allow.

In all the things they struggled with he said the only thing that gave him and his wife peace in the raging storm (a peace that is beyond understanding) was in giving thanks to God.

Matthew 11:6
⁶ And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.
 
To him this was a meaningful verse through his troubles. Blessed is the person who is not offended with Jesus even when things to not work out the way you wished. John the baptist was a great prophet but at the end of his life he was in prison and was about to be killed and Jesus says blessed is he who is not offended because of Me or blessed is he who is not offended even when thing don't work out your way.

Help us to give thanks to you God in every situation
Help us to trust you God
Help us to listen to you God
Help us to hear your voice God

Blue Collar

Chris Ross in his book Never Split the Difference talks about a discussion with his son and how he was originally a linebacker in football but was then moved to running back. As a running back he continued to act line a linebacker taking hits instead of doing his job and trying to dodge them and make it further down the field. Chris Ross effectively labelled his son emotions. "You seem to think it's unmanly to dodge a block" "You think it is cowardly to get out of someone's way that's trying to hit you"

How many times do we do the same thing. We fight God because we don't want to appear unmanly, or do something not culturally appropriate ... etc. the list goes on.

How many times do we hurt our efforts or God's efforts by trying to be someone God doesn't want us to be?
How many times are we controlled by our own stereotypes of who we should be?

God lead us to your divine will for our lives?
God help us to leave everything else behind.
God help us to listen to you.
You are wonderful God!

Define: Love

I wrote a blog back in 2009 with the same title but really this is not related at all.

1 John 4 NIV

⁷ Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹ This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰ This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹ Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

Sometime we ask the question how can God let such and such happen if God is Love.

If you believe in the truth of the scriptures you find above that you are required to believe that the definition of Love is GOD.

So why do we think God doesn't love in certain situation? I can think of only two ways.

1.Our definition of love doesn't match Gods. (which I am certain most times it does not)

2. We don't see it from Gods perspective or you could say don't have all the information (which I am certain at all times we do not)

So what do we do about it. I believe God intends that we wrestle with Him and ourselves about it so that we can correct our errors and believe the truth.

So what are some hits about how to do that. 

God see the big picture and is a focused vet that has your eternal life in mind. He would not sacrifice your long term eternal life for some short term enjoyment.

Romans 8 (NIV)
¹⁸ I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.  

Jeremiah 17:10 (NIV) 

¹⁰ “I the Lord search the heart

    and examine the mind,
to reward each person according to their conduct,
    according to what their deeds deserve.”

Evil Heart

Jeremiah 17:9 New International Version (NIV)
⁹ The heart is deceitful above all things
         and beyond cure.
   Who can understand it?

Matthew 15:19 New International Version (NIV)

19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.

Whether it is the bible, C.S. Lewis or other books God seems to be telling me that humans at their core are not rational. 

I am reading a book called "Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It by Chris Voss" It it he says that humans are irrational at the core. He says that we make most of our thoughts from a fast instinctive and emotional point and then we make a rational argument for our thoughts. You see the key instinct first and they we rationalize it in our head.

Ezekiel 36:26 New International Version (NIV)
²⁶ I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

Philippians 1:6 New International Version (NIV)

⁶ being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Proverbs 4:23 New International Version (NIV)
²³ Above all else, guard your heart,
    for everything you do flows from it.

God help us to let you change our hearts
God help us give up our hearts of stone and change them to a heart of flesh
God help us to give up our rationalization of evil
God speak your truth to us
God help us to speak to the hearts of others
God help us to listen to you
God help us to trust you

Revelation vs Reason

Revelation: The divine or supernatural disclosure to humans of something relating to human existence or the world.

Reason: Think, understand, and form judgments by a process of logic.

Is revelation and reason at odds? is it one or the other?

I don't believe so. I believe that they are both tools in our tool chest. So often we like to lift a tool up and worship it instead of using it as a tool as designed.

Most Christians will agree that we shouldn't worship reason because it is very human.  I think we forget that reason is as much a gift from God as revelation.

The problem of worshiping reason is we forget how limited we humans are and how limited reason is. Personally I think that we are ending the age of reason. Why? Scientifically we are taught the uncertainty principle, observer effect ... etc. We are also learning how much the human is controlled by emotions even though we "think" they are from reason. Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain

I believe as Christians we have to watch we don't worship a revelation. There are tons of stories of people following a revelation that turns out to be false (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events). Can we worship the revelation but forget the reveler himself? I think worshiping a revelation (and not the reveler God himself) can be just as bad as worshiping reason.

Personally I think they need to work together just as two tools can work together. I think the below passage is a good example.

1 Samuel 17 (NIV)
^"34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, ³⁵ I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. ³⁶ Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. ³⁷ The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.”
Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you.”"

You see how David is using reason and revelation. Because God rescued me from ... will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine"

Eternal Vet

C.S. Lewis A Grief Observed

"Two Widely different convictions press more and more on my mind. One is that the Eternal Vet is even more inexorable and the possible operations even more painful than our severest imaginings can forbode. But the other, that 'all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.'"

^{Ecclesiastes 2:17} "So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. ¹⁸ I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me."

^{Daniel 12:10} Many will be purified, made spotless and refined, but the wicked will continue to be wicked. None of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will understand.

Is it that for some people the suffering/work/toil is refinement but for some people it is only suffering.

If you believe in a loving God that cares about us and loves us more than we can imagine.

If you believe he is outside time and sees the beginning and the end at the same instant

If you believe he is creator of all and has power over all

If our eternal soul is worth more than anything

If we believe that trials and challenges bring about refinement in us and make us better or make our eternal soul better 

Would then God (the Eternal Vet) spare us some trouble at the expense of our eternal soul?

No I believe he is the diligent Vet/Saviour/God who will focus at all cost till the wrong is righted. No mater what his patient does or say.

How long Do I Wait for you

Cord 1
XX0222

Cord 2
OO22oO

Em

(Cord 1) How long lord do I (cord 2)Wait for you
X2
(Em) I will wait yes (cord 2) Wait for you
x2
(Cord 1) you are God and (cord 2) I am not
x2
(Em) so I will wait yes (Cord 2) Wait for you
x2