Monday, March 19, 2018

God is a Family

When Jesus began his ministry, he went to John, and was baptized. And when he came out of the water, a dove flew down, and rested on Jesus, and a voice proclaimed, "This is my beloved Son. I am well-pleased with him."

People have suggested several different things about this incident. Some think that John may anointing Jesus as Messiah, like the Old Testament prophets anointed the kings. (For example, Samuel anointed David.)

And some think Jesus may be giving people the first example of a life, that is intended to be emulated.

But a couple of things are certain:
  • God revealed to John, that while he was baptizing, he would see the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, descend and rest on someone. That someone was his promised one.
  • God proclaimed his acceptance, and approval, of Jesus.
  • God revealed that the God-head is family.

There is a Father, and a Son … and a Holy Spirit. These complete the God-head family. And family reveals several important traits about God.

God did not need to create mankind to have some one to give love to, or to receive love from. God is all-sufficient. Love is built into the God-head.

Love and communication are built into creation, because they are already built into God.

And God made people to live in families. Not only their physical family, but also the spiritual family that God is creating.

God created us to be like Jesus in this life. Obviously, we are broken, because of sin, and are not living like Jesus. And equally obvious, God is working to transform us into what he intended, and designed us to be.

Part of that, God wants us to have the same fellowship with him, as Jesus had with him. In Jesus, the ideal father had the ideal relationship with the ideal son. We still have the ideal Father. We are not ideal sons, because of sin. And we do not have the ideal relationship, because of sin.

We learn how to be sons and fathers, through our relationship with our physical fathers. Because of their sin, and brokenness, we don't experience father-hood as God designed it. Our fathers' failures smother our ability to be sons. And they replicate patterns in our lives, so we fail as fathers.

To live as we were designed, God must transform our hearts. (Our thought process, our desires, our motivations, our imagination.) And part of this transformation is a restoration of God as ideal Father in our lives, and ourselves as son. To have the proper relationship with God, we need to open our hearts to him, and because of sin, we learn to close our hearts to our fathers, and we learn to close our hearts to our Father.

So, we need to connect to our Father, who is God, and the ideal Father, to learn who he is, how he thinks about us, how he responds to us, and how he reacts to us. Then, we will learn how to respond and react to him. We will learn our identity in the world. And we will be able to stand, drawing on resources given by a loving Father, who is generous, and faithful, with all that he has.

Monday, March 12, 2018

A Place for Each Man in Christ

God has designed humans. He has inspired the Bible to give us a pattern to follow, to promote joy, peace, and fulfillment of personal potential.

And, as he can give each one of us his eternal presence, his 100% focused attention, he is fully able to design each of us. and I have been feeling for the last couple years, that the Father has intentionally taken time, energy, and thought, to design and form every human being. He gives each one a place, a calling, and a unique message.

It is not always easy to live out of the place God created for us. Understanding the place is one thing. Social, cultural, and personal expectations can also interfere.But our joy, our part of God's mission, our value in God's kingdom lies in flowing out of our unique place.

What may interfere more than the expectations of the world are the expectations of God's family. Leaders, and churches, also have expectations of what a proper follower of Christ looks like.

Don't misunderstand me. If one says: "My place in Christ is to help relieve poverty," it is not OK for that person to rob banks to do that.

Some churches have a more sedate, calmer form of worship. And if a person raises his hands during worship, he is almost regarded as rude. Other churches have more exuberant forms of worship. How is the person, who engages in periods of contemplation during worship, regarded there?

It is often the differences of people, that give them value to their family. And maybe others need to learn to see the differences, to see the niches that God has filled for their good, and their growth, and be thankful for them.

Wednesday, March 07, 2018

Growing in Righteousness

We have seen in the past, that before allegiance to Christ, we were slaves to sin. We were sentenced by God to eternal punishment. We were powerless to change the way we lived.

We gave allegiance to Jesus, and God applied his death to us. Ghrist's death cancels sin's penalty. Christ's death frees us from sin's power.

The problem is: we still sin. We still fall. There is something that holds onto us. There is something that still exerts a control on us, because we desire to live righteously. We desire to live as we were designed.

There is a Scripture passage that talks about "living according to the flesh." That is, we agree with our flesh. We say to ourselves: "This gives me comfort. This helps me. This gives me meaning." So, we continue to engage in sinful activity.

Or we say: "This person hurt me. O deserve better. I deserve to be recompensed by this person." And we agree not to forgive.

We continue to sin, because deep inside our spirit, we don't see that we are agreeing with sin. We don't recognize that something is bad. Pain can blind us. We can refuse to surrender something that we have used to protect ourselves for decades.

If we have given our allegiance to God, we belong to God, and we have made a decision to agree with God, and with his Spirit, overall. We agree with God in a general, over-arching way.

Now, we begin the process of transformation. We remain open to God to reveal specific areas where we actually agree with sin, and not with him.

First, we are with God: this are is sin. Then, we are to turn away from this specific practice. Then, we agree to practice what God says fits in this place. Then, we practice God's substitute.

Transformation is always a four step process:
  • Recognize what is wrong
  • Choose to stop doing what is wrong.
  • Recognize what is right.
  • Choose to start doing what is right. 

All four steps are needed for real progress, real growth, to occur.