Tag Archives: Creator

A New Outfit

Bible Study, , , ,

A NEW OUTFIT!

Do not lie to one another, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all (Col. 3: 8-11).

A bath and a set of new clothes changes our image, doesn’t it?

Our lives are like that too. Imagine yourself living on the street for years – nowhere to sleep and nowhere to take a bath and put on fresh clothing. However you lived in your homeless existence, you accumulated the filth and the vermin of the streets and there was nowhere you could go to take a bath or change your clothes. You were doomed to live in your environment of dirt with no hope of even changing your circumstances.

Then someone sees you in your plight and takes pity on you. He drives you to his home in his luxury vehicle, runs a hot bath, sets out soap, shampoo, perfume, a thick, fluffy towel, and a set of new clothes. He leads you to the bathroom and invites you in to clean up.

How would you feel when you emerged from the steamy tub, towelled off and dressed in clean clothing? You would feel like a million dollars! You would have no desire to return to your life on the street, complete with its filth and the vermin that were your constant companions.

Then, on top of that, your compassionate benefactor does the unthinkable – he invites you to become a part of his household – a son, in fact. There is a place at his table for you. He shows you to your own bedroom, complete with a closet full of new clothing and everything you need to live a clean and respectable life. Would you be fool enough to refuse his generosity and go back to your old life of poverty and squalor?

That is what happened to you spiritually when you accepted Jesus’s invitation to go home with Him and ‘clean up’. You shed the filthy rags of your old life; your efforts to live a good life; to earn God’s approval for your attempts to live up to His standards; or even your couldn’t-care-less, happy-go-lucky, selfish, unrestrained, boundary less, anything-goes life.

He took you home to the Father who welcomed you as His lost son. He power-washed your innermost being in His own blood, removing all the fear, guilt and shame of your old life. He clothed you with the spotless garment of His own righteousness. He gave you a place at His banqueting table and a room of your own in His house. He gave you access to all His resources and the right to use them as long as you use them in line with His character and will.

He asks of you only one thing – to live in union with Him so that you can accurately represent Him to a world that does not acknowledge or know Him. You are a new person now, no longer alone and having to fight for an existence. You are part of God’s family, those who have been rescued from their terrible plight, with a new identity -children of God. All of the credentials of your old life no longer count.

‘Now,’ says Paul, ‘since you have been washed, clothed, given a new identity and a new family, live like a member of God’s household. Forget who you were and live who you are, a son or daughter of God. You don’t have to cover up who you were. Your past has been obliterated forever. You don’t have to pretend to be who you are not. You have been fully accepted as God’s child and you are fully loved. Just be who you are, a beloved son or daughter of God.’

What a relief to know that you can just be you because God is working in you! He is renewing His image in you as you get to know Him and learn to obey Him as your loving Abba, papa, daddy. You no longer have to be a homeless beggar, living by your wits just to exist. You are no longer an orphan.

You have a name, a home and an inheritance because you are God’s child!

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is who we are! (1 John 3: 1a).

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Glimpses of the Great God: Day Eight

Devotion, , ,

DAY EIGHT

 “To whom will you compare me?

Or who is my equal,” says the Holy One.

Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens.

Who created all these?

He who brings out the starry host one by one,

and calls them each by name.

Because of His great power and mighty strength,

not one of them is missing.

Why do you say, O Jacob,

and complain, O Israel,

“My way is hidden from the Lord;

my cause is disregarded by my God”?

Do you not know?

Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He will not grow tired or weary,

and His understanding no-one can fathom.”

Isaiah 40:25 – 28

 God is utterly dependable and He is for us.  Read this passage over and over and take it to heart as you read.  We desperately need the security of a powerful God who is faithful and dependable and who knows where we are and what we are going through right now.  Rest in His loving wisdom and strength and grasp hold of His hand.  He is always there for you.  His everlasting arms are underneath you.  You are safe no matter what happens.

 

 

DAY EIGHT

 

 

“To whom will you compare me?

Or who is my equal,” says the Holy One.

Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens.

Who created all these?

He who brings out the starry host one by one,

and calls them each by name.

Because of His great power and mighty strength,

not one of them is missing.

Why do you say, O Jacob,

and complain, O Israel,

“My way is hidden from the Lord;

my cause is disregarded by my God”?

Do you not know?

Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He will not grow tired or weary,

and His understanding no-one can fathom.

Isaiah 40:25 – 28

 

God is utterly dependable and He is for us.  Read this passage over and over and take it to heart as you read.  We desperately need the security of a powerful God who is faithful and dependable and who knows where we are and what we are going through right now.  Rest in His loving wisdom and strength and grasp hold of His hand.  He is always there for you.  His everlasting arms are underneath you.  You are safe no matter what happens.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Glimpses Of The Great God: Day Six

Devotion, , ,

DAY SIX

 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand,

or with the breadth of His hand

marked off the heavens?

Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket

or weighed the mountains on the scales

and the hills in a balance?

Who had understood the mind of the Lord,

or instructed Him as His counsellor?

Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten Him,

and who taught Him the right way?

Who was it that taught Him knowledge

or showed Him the path of understanding?

Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket;

they are regarded as dust on the scales;

He weighs the islands as though they were fine dust.

Lebanon is not sufficient for altar fires,

not its animals enough for burnt offerings.

Before Him all the nations are as nothing;

they are regarded by Him

 as worthless and less than nothing.

Isaiah 40:12-17

God is very, very big and we are very, very small.  As you read this passage aloud very slowly, allow your mind to picture the enormity of this God who can hold the entire universe in the palm of His hand and who holds you.  We need descriptions like this to put our lives and our personal struggles into the perspective of our very great God.

 

Without Excuse

Bible Study, , ,

WITHOUT EXCUSE

“‘The God who made the world and everything in it, this Master of sky and land, doesn’t live in custom-made shrines or need the human race to run errands for Him, as if He couldn’t take care of Himself. He makes the creatures; the creatures don’t make Him. Starting from scratch, He made the entire human race and made the earth hospitable, with plenty of time and space for living so we could seek after God, and not just grope around in the dark but actually find Him. He doesn’t play hide-and-seek with us. He’s not remote; He’s near. We live and move in Him, can’t get away from Him! One of your poets said it well: ‘We’re the God-created.’ Well, if we’re the God-created, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to think we can hire a sculptor to chisel a god out of stone for us, does it?”‘ Acts 17:24-29 (The Message).

Spot on again, Paul!

Paul was speaking to people who thought they were “intellectuals”, intelligent people who majored on thinking logically. Unfortunately, their logic did not take them any higher than human wisdom. They were unable, through their own reason, to figure out the existence of an unseen God who is Creator of everything. Yet Paul said, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that this is possible.

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities — His eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” Romans 1:20 (NIV).

How is it possible, for instance, that intelligent, logical-thinking, modern scientists, using all the sophisticated equipment they have to examine created things in minutest detail, can come up with the “conviction” that it all just “happened”? Could it be that the issue is not one of the mind but of the will? Is it basic dishonesty that refuses to “see” the work of the Creator, even though it can be clearly seen by the untrained eye?

Even David, a young shepherd, with neither microscope nor telescope, could say:
“The heavens declare the glory of God; The skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; Night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language Where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, Their words to the ends of the world.” Psalm 19:1-4 (NIV).

These Athenians at least began with the possibility that a God existed of whom they were vaguely aware, although they knew nothing about Him. They acknowledged Him with a shrine that was placed among all the other shrines, putting Him on a par with their man-made gods. It was up to Paul to set the record straight, which he did in a masterful way without attacking their error or putting them down for their foolishness.

Paul’s modus operandi was to fill in the gaps in their understanding. He exploited their honest mistake by taking them from where they were to where they could be if they moved from logic to faith, from reason to revelation. The God they ignorantly acknowledged was unseen but real, not confined to a shrine but as near to them as their breath. They did not create Him; He created them. That meant that they were subject to Him, not Him at their beck and call. Even their own poets had somehow hit on the truth: ‘We are His offspring.’

Unfortunately, right there is the parting of the ways. Those who refuse to give up their right to be right, deny the truth that God is Creator and that, therefore, the creature is accountable to Him. But that doesn’t change the truth. That makes the stubborn creature doubly accountable — for lying about God and for refusing to submit to Him.

So where do we stand? It all depends on how honest we are. We can side with the scientists who refuse to say, ‘God is Creator,’ or we can side with David who looked up at the night sky and marvelled at the intricate design of the God he had come to know and worship as his Shepherd.

A Tragic Trade

Apologetics, , ,

A TRAGIC TRADE

“When Paul and Barnabas finally realised what was going on, they stopped them. Waving their arms, they interrupted the parade, calling out, ‘What do you think you’re doing? We’re not gods. We are men just like you, and we’re here to bring you the Message, to persuade you to abandon these silly god-superstitions and embrace God Himself, the living God. We don’t make God; He makes us, and all of this — sky, earth, sea, and everything in them.'” Acts 14:14-15 (The Message).

O, what a message the world needs to hear! We don’t make God; He makes us.

How can it be possible that millions of people have swallowed the lie that the universe came into being by sheer chance and that we can invent our own gods? Surely the wonder of creation itself should lead us to the Creator! Has anything that we use every day just happened — motor vehicles, aircraft, great ocean liners, buildings, computers, cell phones; you name it — it had to have a designer and a craftsman to fashion it.

Surely any rational and sane-thinking person must realise that there is no such thing as spontaneous change or interim stages in a creation of such complex and intricate function. If any component is missing in a machine, it will not work. Anything in a human body that malfunctions or is not there causes deformity and disease. A single extra chromosome is enough to produce Down’s syndrome.

And what about the unity of creation? How can the entire created order function in such perfect harmony, even galaxies of stars millions of miles apart affecting each other, so that the universe has never gone haywire? Without the laws of nature, humans cannot harness the natural world for their benefit. Scientists could never have put men on the moon without them. The universe functions as one to reflect the perfect oneness of the God who created it.

And what of the gods humans have so cleverly invented? Does a single one of them come anywhere near the nature of the God who had revealed Himself in His Son? Can anyone think that up! We can only imagine what we know. Every god humans have ever invented is a taker, demanding, unpredictable and without love or justice.

Only the God of the Bible, who has revealed Himself to us in Jesus, is a gracious and generous giver and a perfectly righteous and just God. We only need to look at the cross to see love and justice coming together in perfect harmony so that God is free to forgive and restore everything humans have messed up by their irrational and rebellious independence.

We cannot hide behind the excuse that we did not know. “But God’s angry displeasure erupts as acts of human mistrust and wrongdoing and lying accumulate; as people try to put a shroud over truth. But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of His divine being. So nobody has a good excuse.” Romans 1:18-20 (The Message).

Why is the world like it is? We brought it on ourselves.

“What happened was this. People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn’t treat Him like God, refusing to worship Him, they trivialised themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction in their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in His hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside store.” Romans 1:21-23 (The Message).

What a tragic trade! And what was the outcome?

“So God said, in effect, ‘If that’s what you want, that’s what you get.’ It wasn’t long before they were living in a pigpen, smeared with filth, filthy inside and out. And all this because they traded the true God for a fake god, and worshipped the god they made instead of the God who made them — the God we bless, the God who blesses us. Oh, yes!” Romans 1:24-25 (The Message).