There is a God of this universe who sits on a throne in heaven, who boasts of sovereignty over all, who brings all men into existence — even you. And there’s a standard that He holds; a law that declares His holiness to all. His expectation of us is that we keep it, and in so doing bring honor and glorify to Him and enjoy the benefits of living in unbroken fellowship with Him and His majesty.
For a lot of us, this sounds like an impossible requirement or a far-flung desire to bring all men under His uncompromising will.
We sit back and declare our independence from His demands. We have freedom, we say, we do not need to stand for a God who is given to such treatment of us. We will not be called servants; we are rebelutionaries. We live for adventure and unpredictability. We declare our own destiny and live out our own creeds. We are self-made and self-maintained individual’s whose personal tenacity is to be praised for getting us to where we are, not a egotistical, distant Deity who knows not its place in this world we rule.
But, we must be courageous enough, even for a moment, to ask ourselves: Who told us we could boast so much? And, aside from that, Have we had this claim challenged in such a way that we can claim to have stumped any worthy opponents?
I would like to offer that we haven’t. Think about it, when you were a little kid, could you boast what you can now? Probably not. Well, at least let’s hope not. Therefore, if you and I think that we can now boast that we occupy center stage, we must ask ourselves, who boasted it before we were this fit to claim the honor?
We fight for our rights today, but who was insuring that our rights should be kept viable until we could exercise and protect them ourselves?
I don’t think that we could really claim that it was anyone but this God that we are in opposition against. For, isn’t it a legitimate assumption for us to say that our parents, guardians or fore-bearers (whatever you want to call them) were so busy fighting for their rights, and keeping their center-stage status alive and well that they wouldn’t have had the leisure to watch out for ours?
If this is the case, who then was nesting and nurturing our person and potential while the rest were busy fighting their own battles?
Who but God?
God, if He is on the scene at all, must be more central to our existence than merely putting the universe in place to be responsible for conceiving and weaning us.
And that’s where His laws come in — they show us, as in everything His Word contains, where was God and what was God and who was God and why was God at all points in human history, right up to this present moment.
Don’t believe me, well you know, there is no way that you can disprove my argument unless you read it and can show it’s inconceivability. And, of course, to do that, you will have to read all of it, just like you would any excellent piece of literature with any bearing on human life and intelligence.
And truth be told, I would love for you to get to that right now. I would be willing to discuss any arguments you have; if you have found a reason that the Bible ought to not be trusted, I would insist that you share such pertinent knowledge with me immediately.
Yet, in lui of that, I place it upon your conscience and all that you believe is right, to pay this next point special attention — it could change your life:
We turn away from God, His Word and His commands not because we disagree with them, but because we do not wish to have the consequences of agreeing.
To agree with God is to admit that we are wrong. Wrong regardless of what we believe to be true or attempt to produce of right actions and effects.
We walk away from God not because He would not work for us, but because He would work too damn well for us. He would out-class and our-shine us on every front, and we would recognize that He is great and He deserves all the praise that we want for ourselves.
And so we walk away from a God whose ways would do us no great harm, but only some great good — which would trip us up by how it would put us in our place; the only place we could belong in relation to Him.
Thus, by our own choice we live in opposition to God, at the greatest possible distance from the inheritance of every good thing He has for us, because we want only our own way to get these things, only our own stage on which to display and enjoy these things.
We fight, and wrestle with God for the stage of life — our lives, we espouse — but how instantly would our claims cease if we would only allow ourselves to know, for even an instant, how infinite God’s desire is to bring us into relationship with Him?
What if His intensity impressed us?
What if His desires when revealed could astonish us, stopping us in our tracks to no-where?
What if this God who calls out for us were to become so real to us that we would recognize that we didn’t have to hold onto anything, but were free to bound after Him and all He holds so secure for us?
Wouldn’t our very hearts change? Wouldn’t our lives look different? Wouldn’t we want, and insist on more than what we’ve determined to have so far? Wouldn’t we agree with Him, accepting from His hand all the treasures of eternal life and reconciliation with God that could never be feigned by any one else?
What do you think?
At Home with God 