Freedom is Good News Part 190

What is the depth of God’s heart?  Wow, now that’s an interesting question.  But it is one that must be considered; it is a depth that must be sounded.  The problem is, we as finite human beings do not have the physical resources to understand the depths of an infinite God!  What’s a person to do?

In our previous article we contemplated some of the decisions that God’s messengers have had to make (Noah, Abraham and Moses).  Choices are, of course, set before us each and every day and we can make our decisions based on two separate points of view: a worldly perspective or a Godly perspective.  We are very familiar with the world and its ways.  Everywhere we look we see the physical world and its influences.  Most times we take the easy way out and chose according to a worldly set of parameters. 

But God’s ways, His thoughts, His parameters are deeper and more difficult.  I am reminder of the old saying concerning decisions:  Is it right or is it easier?  Unfortunately in this age many just take the easy way and not the right way.

How do we start to make choices according to a Godly perspective?  It begins by knowing God’s ways and His thoughts!  But someone might quote the book of Isaiah to me, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8)  Oh yes, there’s the challenge!!  But we do not have to know God in all of His being, in all of His thoughts and in all of His ways - He has given to us a manual of instruction to find and understand the WAY. You and I know it as the Bible and it is a set of instructions concerning all that God wants us to know today.

In our previous article we did talk about Noah, Abraham and Moses and the choices they were given to make.  God laid out before them an opportunity, yes, even a challenge to obey His words.  Abraham had a tremendously difficult decision set before him; Genesis puts it this way, “After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham! And he said, Here am I.  God said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” (Gen. 22)  But if we know the bible, we realize that Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him as righteousness.  He chose to act according to a Godly point of view.  He went to Moriah with Isaac.  Isaac lived and Abraham received a strong and beautiful message from God.

So what has God put before you in your walk?  It can’t be as great a choice as Abraham dealt with.  But maybe God is working with you.  Maybe He is asking you to choose between two ways of life.  Maybe it is time to come to our Father and His Son and to seek out His ways and His thoughts in His word.  Here is a great place to start whether you’re brand new to His word or have been reading it for years and somehow are not inspired, “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.” (Psalm 103:11-12)  And that is a long, long way!!

Freedom is Good News Part 189

“The worldview of a Christian” is the topic at which we have been looking.  And within that framework we began a study of the doctrine of the resurrection.  Think about it this way; if there is no resurrection of the dead, then all we have to live for is this physical life.  Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15:35, puts it this way, “If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die.” 

It was several years back that I first encountered this term “worldview” and it was used with the idea that there are only two differing worldviews; one being ‘the Christian worldview’ and the other called ‘the secular worldview’.  It took me some time to understand what was meant by these two terms (I guess I’m a little slow sometimes) but I came to see that a person must see the world either from a biblical standpoint or from a worldly standpoint.

The bible, as we have seen, speaks of a resurrection of the dead; the secular view has no such concept.  The bible speaks of a God who is merciful and gracious and gave His only begotten Son to save us from death; the secular view has no such concept.  The bible tells us that we can be right with God through the righteousness of His Son; the secular knows of no such idea.  The bible tells us that God desires to have a relationship with those whom He has created; but alas we find no such thing in the secular view.

Let me state this emphatically: we have a book that tells us exactly what the creator God has for us and what He wants for us.  We may turn away from that and look to the societies and civilizations we have built that offer us no hope beyond the physical life we are living.  I guess I‘m going to choose the life and hope that God offers.

That is a very rudimentary explanation of the two worldviews we have to choose from,

Oh!  Now there’s an interesting word to consider, “choose”.  God does give us a choice in this process.  He is the author of freedom and we are free to choose how we will live. 

Kind of like Adam and Eve had a choice!  They could eat from the tree of life or eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  They made a very wrong choice and we sit here six thousand years later blaming God for the mess we are in!! 

Speaking of choices, the bible is filled with examples of the choices people have made over the centuries:  Noah had a choice to build a boat so as to be the savior of mankind (kind of sounds like he was a type of Jesus Christ).  Abraham had a choice to “Leave Your country, your people and your father’s household and come to the land I will show you.” (Gen. 12:1) (Hmmm … sounds like he was a type of Jesus Christ who left His Father’s household in heaven to come to earth).  Moses had a choice to go to Egypt and rescue the nation of Israel (yeah, sounds like Jesus Christ who came to the land of sin and redeemed the people that God would choose).  God shows us, in His word, many types.

We could go on for a while considering God’s messengers and the choices they made but perhaps we’ll do that next time.