Cats and God, part 2

If you don't know, the McCulleys recently adopted two kittens.  It's been a lot of fun to see them learn their way around the house and create toys out of all kinds of things I didn't expect.

When we got them, they both had colds so we had to take them to the vet. The vet assured us that humans and cats don't infect each other, because we are different kinds of beings.  That was helpful, because I was concerned we would catch what they had.

In somewhat the same way, God is a completely different being from us -- completely 'other' than we are. He is the Creator, but he is uncreated, and outside of his creation. We can never be 'god,' because we are created beings, utterly distinct from him.

But by the incarnation of the Son as Jesus, God entered the creation, and our state of being! The uniqueness of Jesus Christ is that, although the Son of God (uncreated and eternal) he also took on the same flesh that we have.  By doing that, his unique union of God and flesh enables us to become children of the Father. Jesus Christ is the Father's Son by nature as God; and because of his birth into human flesh, we are the children of the Father by adoption through Jesus.

We read this in Ephesians 1:3-5 "All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ.  Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure."  Because of what the Son did by becoming flesh, due to God's decision before time and creation began, we are His.  And although we will never be God as God is God, we are adopted into the circle of love that exists within the Trinity, and we will experience that love forever.

We can't cure our kitties' colds; we have to give them medicine and wait.  But because the Son entered our world, our humanity and our mortality is cured forever:  As Hebrews 2:14 says:  "Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death."  

Our death is swallowed up in Jesus' death, and his resurrection ensures our future life.  What a wonderful life we will have forever with God, because of his Son! 

Cats and God, part 1

The McCulley household once more includes cats, by name Haley and Susie. They are cute, I must admit, even though I'm not a cat lover. They do what cats do -- eat, sleep, play ChasePounce, stretch, test their claws on the furniture, and so forth. It's easy to see that they are cats; they act like cats. And the reverse is true: if I see claw marks on something, I know they've been around -- clawing is one of those things cats do (and I don't).

It's like that as we come to know God. We can know God by what he does (I don't care how many meteorological explanations there are for a sunset, God makes them!), and by what he tells us he is like in the Bible. And we can be sure that what we are told about him is not only true, it's according to his nature -- to who he really is in his being.

God told us a lot about himself in the Hebrew scriptures, what Christians usually call the Old Testament. But as the opening verses of Hebrews (the epistle in the New Testament) say, now God has spoken to us directly: "Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets. And now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his Son." However, more than his speaking, but in his very essence, Jesus the Christ was the person of God among us: "The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command. When he had cleansed us from our sins, he sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the majestic God in heaven."

If I want to know what cats are like, I watch cats. If I want to know what God is like, I watch Jesus, because he wasn't just a representative from God, he was and is God. That's why Jesus could say to Philip, "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father" in John 14:9. Jesus wasn't an apparition, he wasn't an angel, he wasn't an exalted human, he wasn't just a special teacher -- he was (and remains) God in the flesh. He deserves all honor and glory and praise because he is God. And on top of that, we have an eternal debt of gratitude to him because he did us the eternal favor of dying to pay the penalty of all sin, so we could enter into shared life with him.

God really is who he reveals himself to be through the Son. We can fully trust that Jesus truly reveals the will and character of the Father, and his love for us. The surprise, when we finally get to see God, will be in the sheer magnitude of his person; not in what he is like. That, we already know, through the Son. Hallelujah!

Doors

Wearily, the donkey trudged through the dusty streets of the little town. His journey had been long, more than a week walking up and down the hills on well-worn trails. Familiar smells of other animals, clean straw and grain came to him, promising comfort after his long trek.

The man and woman with him were just as hopeful of rest and provision. Mary had been feeling strong contractions all day, and was getting anxious to lie down and let her labor begin in earnest. She was still a young woman, well under 20 years of age, but she knew plenty about these things. Joseph, wearing a cloak over his common workman's clothing, had been hearing his young wife alternately hiss and sigh during the afternoon, and knew those were urgent signs. But everywhere he had stopped that evening, he had been turned away.

Joseph had been sure, coming to the town where his grandfather had been a well-known citizen, that he would be welcomed by kinfolk. But the town was full for the Roman census, and and every door had been shut, firmly and sometimes unkindly, in his face. Did his relatives know that Mary's pregnancy had started before their wedding? Rumors travel a long way, even by foot, and the whole village of Nazareth had known of the pregnancy. Not even an innkeeper would take them in to earn a few shekels, but finally a kindly villager offered them room in the animal shelter cut into the rock face behind his simple home. There, during the night, Immanuel was born, welcomed by a few animals, his parents, and all the hosts of heaven.

This scene is not only history but a picture of a greater reality. Both at his birth and later during his ministry, his own people didn't accept Jesus. He was reviled as an illegitimate child, rejected as a teacher who challenged the authorities, and generally not welcomed. So, the question inevitably comes from the Bible teacher, does the hearer or the reader offer this Jesus 'room in your heart'? That's a good question, as far as it goes.

A little background, for clarity: by becoming flesh, God inseparably united all people with himself in a way they had never yet experienced. So in one sense, all people are already in God's heart; but God is not yet active in the hearts of all people. As a lot of teachers have explained over the centuries, that door -- like the doors of the homes and inns in Bethlehem that night -- opens from the inside only. God doesn't force anyone to love him; but he desires intimacy with you so much that his only son died to make it possible (John 3:16-17). So the question is legitimate -- have you opened the door to let him in?

But wait (like in those TV ads) there's more -- which room have you let Jesus into? And which ones, in the house of your mind and life, are still closed? Which rooms are you still guarding, through unwillingness or shame, from God who knows about them anyway? Jesus has already died and been raised, to wipe out the sins and weaknesses we try to hide by not admitting them. The only solution to all the things in life we can't solve, is to give them up to the God who came to be with us, and is still with us (see Romans 8:34 and Hebrews 7:25).

Revelation 3:20 says: “Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends." Today would be a good day to open all the rest of those doors, wouldn't it?

He's still talking to us

In Genesis 1, the Bible talks about God speaking the universe into existence. God spoke and it happened (verses 3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26). Then God spoke to the humans (verses 28 and 29) and gave instruction. He continues to speak in chapter 2, particularly verses 16 and 18. Now, it seems that the humans listened at first, and as long as they did, all was well. It was when they listened to the serpent, and believed him instead of God, that things went south.

And so it has gone, ever since. As I've written before, God talked to people like Noah, Abraham, and the prophet Moses, as well as kings and prophets after them. He has never really left us without knowing His will. But to make the speaking perfect, the Father sent the Son to be with us and show us the Father's heart. We can read in Hebrews 1:1-2, "Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets. And now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his Son."

How did the Father speak to us through the Son? In the Incarcation (God made flesh), we see many ways, verbal and non-verbal. For instance, the Son was born as a baby, expressing solidarity with humans in our weakness and helplessness and poverty. He was baptized to identify with our need for cleansing and to make our baptism perfectly valid. As a human, Jesus had to learn the scriptures; and as God, he taught the will of the Father that stands under and behind all the written word. Jesus gave up his life as a perfect sacrifice for our sins, in order to clear the way for our adoption by the Father; and was resurrected to show the Father's desire for us to join him in eternal happiness and peace.

The infant in the manger speaks to us. The young man in the Temple speaks to us. So do the Teacher and the Lamb and the risen Son. He's still talking to us through scripture and the Spirit's voice. It's all the one and same God speaking -- not one mysterious short-tempered God in the Old Testament and a new, nice and sweet Jesus in the New. It's the same will of God, the same love of God for his children, and the same faithfulness of God to his promises, that have spoken to us from Creation to now -- revealed, finally and fully, in the incarnate Son.

The Christmas season, for Christians, is not a time of spending money we don't have, to buy stuff we feel obligated to buy, for people we don't like, so they can take it all and exchange it on Monday for stuff they'd rather have anyway. Christmas teaches us to recognize the voice of God in the Son of God made flesh for us and with us. It teaches us that, by entering his creation, God has united his creation -- including all of us -- with himself forever. And that, we can celebrate with great joy!

Hearing from God, Part 3

God has been talking to humans since He walked and talked with our first parents in the garden of Eden. We've responded by turning away from Him, refusing to listen, and talking back, like a bunch of self-willed kids. Even Abraham, the father of the faithful, had trouble remembering what God had said and trusting Him to work it out -- like in the ill-planned birth of Ishmael as his heir, instead of waiting for the promised son Isaac.

The nation of Israel continued to have trouble hearing God's voice, even though He spoke to them through the judges and prophets of the period before the kings, and by prophets and priests during the time of the kings of Israel and Judah. Time and again He sent someone to call a king or the nation back to covenant-faithfulness. They spoke in words that were clear, or sometimes not clear (especially to us in the modern Western world who don't understand Eastern thinking). Sometimes the people listened and turned back to God; and sometimes they didn't even listen. Sometimes they killed the prophets God sent.

At the right time, God sent His Son into the world (Galatians 4:4) to save us, as Gabriel explained to Joseph: "And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21). Finally, we had someone we could hear. Not a prophet who spoke for God, or a priest who offered sacrifices, or a judge who interpreted the law, not a king to make and enforce law, but the true Son of God, who came to be God-With-Us, Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14). But in His own way, He was also prophet, priest, king and judge. And when He spoke, Jesus said the words of the Father Himself: " I don’t speak on my own authority. The Father who sent me has commanded me what to say and how to say it. And I know his commands lead to eternal life; so I say whatever the Father tells me to say" (John 12:49-50).

As the Son of the Father, Jesus spoke the words of the Father; not as some representative but as the Son who knew the Father personally. Finally, we had a chance to hear the words of God, in a way we could understand! As before, some people heard, and some rejected Him, to the point of killing Him. But now, finally, God was speaking for Himself, not through some intermediary, and Jesus came as God to show the heart of God to all humanity -- if we will hear.

Hebrews 12, verses 18-29, compare the imagery of Sinai as a contrast to Jesus' presence and teaching. And it says "Be careful that you do not refuse to listen to the One who is speaking." That tells us once more that, as God, Jesus was and is speaking to us the words of God.

God speaks. Do we hear? That is the question of the ages. In Jesus, we are given the words of God to us all. In Jesus, we hear the Father's heart, calling us to hear and follow just as the prophets of old did. Jesus continues, but more importantly brings personally to us, the message of salvation. Do we hear? Do we believe? Do we accept?

I think it's a lot more comforting and peaceful, from the human point of view, to listen to the voice of Jesus in the pages of the Bible than it will be to hear His voice thunder from the heavens at His second appearance. One way or the other, though, we will all hear Him. I pray you will hear Him, clearly, today.

Hearing God, Part 2

Last time we looked at humanity's on-again, off-again way of hearing from God, starting with Adam and Eve and going through Abraham. The times when people actively tried to listen, things went a lot better with them, and vice versa. Now we come to Moses, in the book of Exodus.

God had been keeping track of the descendents of Abraham and their problems for the last 400 years. In Exodus 2, he arranges for a new leader to be born and trained to accomplish the next step in the plan. Moses is a sheepherder, and God starts talking to him out of a burning bush. Moses has enough sense to listen; although his version of listening includes a lot of arguing and complaining (see 3:11, 4:1, 10, 13). Moses continues to listen to God and to complain to Him for another 40 years. But God seems to enjoy the give-and-take; He compares His conversations with Moses to that of friends in Ex. 33:11.

God brings the Israelites out of Egypt, where they saw His miracles in the plagues against the Egyptian gods and His parting the Red Sea for them. They still hadn't heard His voice, though, as Moses had. So He calls them to Mount Sinai and there He speaks. But they can't listen; in a kind of irony, after Moses was afraid they wouldn't listen to him at all (4:1), they want to hear him instead of God: "don't let God speak to us, or we will die!" (20:19).

Moses was like the later prophets: he told the people, over and over, to hear God and not turn away, even though he knew they were going to (Deut. 4:1-14, 31:27, etc). Moses had seen from his own life and from watching others that we aren't very good at listening, but that God is talking and we should pay attention.

Now, here's a point: God had continued to find various ones who would listen, and He kept up the dialog. Why? Because He wants relationship with us. He wants the dialog, even when we get argumentative and difficult. And He sent His Son to talk to us, tell us more about Him and to call us back to that dialog and to walking together. We'll see some more of that next time. In the meantime, keep your ears open. He will definitely have something to say.

Hearing God, part 1

Humans started out hearing God's voice, kind of like a baby hears its parents' voices, just as a part of living. Adam and Eve seem to have listened to God (Gen. 1:28-30) as he told them why they were in the garden and what they should do about it, and to stay away from that one pesky tree of 'knowledge of good and evil' (chapter 2). But in chapter 3, after they'd already taken the one thing they weren't supposed to take, the tone of the conversation is strained -- it reminds me of some discussions I've had with my children. "What did you do?" "I didn't do it, it was her fault!" and evasion instead of honesty. Adam even tried to blame the whole thing on God ("“It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it.”). I can imagine God sighing at this point, and shaking his head.

From then on, things get tense. God tries to discuss things with Cain, who isn't in much of a listening mood (chapter 4) and from that time, there don't seem to be many who are in a conversation with the Creator. God speaks with Noah (Genesis 6) and Noah does everything God tells him to (verse 22). But Noah is the only one who seems to pay attention at that point. Not even his three sons and their wives, who get saved from the flood also, seem to have any ongoing contact with the Lord.

After the great flood, everything continues much as it had before. The gift of speech, which includes the need to hear, is used by the humans to plan and build a tower. They are listening to each other, but nobody is listening to God. So he confuses their speech (11:7-8) and now they can't hear each other!

Along comes a fellow named Abram. This man seems serious about hearing God; when the Lord tells him to pick up and move to a different land, he does (12:1-4). And throughout the rest of his life, through all sorts of adventures, God talks to this man and this man listens. Sometimes the conversations are more difficult, like in chapter 15 where Abram complains that God's promises aren't coming true because he doesn't have a son. But Abram/Abraham learns to trust God and even more, to be honest with him -- as Adam and Eve didn't do. And he keeps hearing when God speaks.

There's a lot more to the story, and I want to go into that the next few weeks. But every time we read in the Bible about God, it seems like he is trying to reach out to us, to help us, to teach us. Will people learn to hear him? Will we learn to trust him? That's the continuing question -- not only for humanity as a whole, but for each one of us.

What are you doing to hear from God today? He speaks through his word, the Bible, and to our minds and emotions as we pray, and through circumstances and other people. I need to hear from him about all kinds of things and I bet you do too. How about spending some time talking with him, and asking him to talk to you? And then actively listening? It will change you. It changed me, and a lot of people I know.