Thursday, June 23, 2011

Where Do We Come From?


A few months ago, a close relative asked the question, "Where do we come from?" When I answered that we come from God, this person seemed dubious. Yet this person has attended church most of their life.

Since the question was posed, I've been in prayer and God's Word to formulate an answer. And one of the things God revealed to me is that people often think they have to make the big questions of life difficult. It's like, since the question of where we come from is so huge, it must require a complicated and unclear answer.

But you know, faith is about putting our adult selves off to the side and getting back to childlikeness. Faith is very simple, really, even when it comes to some of the big questions. And if people claim to be church-goers, the church is the body of Christ. So if we’re a part of the body of Christ, then the Bible is our authority, written by men who were inspired by a Holy God. It is God’s Words that are in the Bible. The men who wrote the words down were the transcribers of what God wanted written down.

So coming full circle, if we're church-goers, then we are to have faith (which the Bible explains as being like that of a child. See Mark 10:15 and Luke 18:17) and we are to go to God's Word, the Bible, for answers. Amazing how many people go to church year after year and never once think to ask God their questions or seek His answers through the church's authoritative Word, the Bible.

So here are Bible verses that confirm God made each and every one of us, loves each and every one of us, and is with each and every one of us. I used to live in denial of this. I can’t imagine going back to living in that denial.

Here are the verses: (bold emphasis is mine)

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1

“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’” Genesis 1:26

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:27

“Ask now about the former days, long before your time, from the day God created man on the earth;” Deuteronomy 4:32

“This only have I found: God made mankind upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes.” Ecclesiastes 7:29

He who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited.” Isaiah 45:18

“Did not he who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same one form us both within our mothers?” Job 31:15

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” Psalm 139:13-16

“…when God created the world.” Mark 13:19

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:10

“…God, who created all things.” Ephesians 3:9

“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.” Revelation 4:11


Romans 1:25, though, warns us that people “exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator…”

Why do we call God “the Creator” if we don’t believe He created the world we live in and the people who live in the world? The secular non-believing world has told us it’s foolishness to believe in a Creator and that “we can’t really know.” But if we claim Christ, we can know.

I claimed I couldn’t know at one time, and then Christ interrupted my life and I now know Who created me and Who I belong to: the Holy Triune God of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I had a degree from UW-Madison, yet was an ignorant fool until Christ saved me. Now I disregard that college degree as dust in the wind. Instead, Christ is my portion and He instructs me. I have set the Lord before me and will not be shaken, come what may. Therefore, my heart is glad, even in despair, and I rejoice in the love and mercy of God, and know with complete surety that I am His and He is mine and He will never abandon me. He is with me now, at my side. This I know after a decade walk with Him. I know this will continue for however long I remain on earth, and for eternity in heaven (these last words include the words of Psalm 16:5-10. It is very comforting.)

God wants all to:

“Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.” Isaiah 45:22

Yet,

“God looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God.” Psalm 53:2

And,

“When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” Luke 18:8

That faith is in God through Jesus Christ, who sends his Holy Spirit to counsel us into all truth (John 16:13). If the Bible doesn’t make sense, or you have trouble believing in the verses above, ask God in prayer and you will receive understanding: But only if you are ready to seek and understand through a true faith in Jesus Christ. When we believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior the Holy Spirit follows. The consequence of belief in Jesus is that the Holy Spirit comes and lives in us permanently for the purpose of leading us into God's Truth and revealing His Word to us. Until we are ready to humbly and with contrition seek God through Jesus Christ, and seek Him in prayer and in His Word, we will remain in worldly blindness and self-pride.

“Where did we come from?” I count it all joy that God provides the answer through His own Words in Scripture.

"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." 2 Timothy 3:16

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Full Disclosure


My husband recently looked at a car being sold by a man in a near-by city. When we came to test-drive the car, the man started pointing out the dents and dings on the car, saying, “I’m giving full disclosure.”

Those words have since been playing over in my mind, because as I look at how God has grown me the most in the last year or so, it’s been in the area of “full disclosure.” When I’ve finally been submissive enough to tell God what he already knows, and let God know that I’m fully aware of it too and am ready to deal with it, it’s been such a relief. And it always seems as though my faith and servant life picks up after such honesty. It’s like God is waiting to take us to the next level, but he’s waiting for us to get to the place where we’re ready for the next level.

Harboring sin or rebellion will always stop us on the tracks. God will love us and continue to work on us while we’re stuck on those tracks, but if we’re harboring something that simply cannot be brought into His plan for our future, we’re not going to get where God wants us to. He needs our “full disclosure.”

“This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.” 1 John 1:5-10