HOW
KNOWING
GOD, THE ONLY FOUNDATION
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In writing this book, I do not come to you as someone who has
all the answers but as someone who has always had a lot of questions. What I
have written in the following pages is simply some conclusions I have made from
my own struggles to understand the truth about God and man that have helped me
personally over 37 years of my Christian life. Some things, especially
regarding our everyday experience of God I have experienced only enough to know
they are true and in no way have I come close to putting them consistently into
practice. It is my hope and prayer that if you too have struggled with any of
these same questions; you may find within these pages answers to some of your
doubts and struggles as well. In the mean time let us pray for each other that
God will bring us more and more to that place where we know the fullness of joy
that comes from Him alone.
Some of what I discuss is more commonly addressed in technical
theological works; especially in the first section of this book. I have
attempted however to put these matters into as practical and understandable of
terms as I was able since theology often scares many and is viewed as being
esoteric and not at all practical. This is not God’s intent or desire however.
His truth is for all the church, not just the theologians of the church. The
word theology actually comes from two separate words which in essence simply
mean a word about God; “ology” coming from the root
word “logos” which means word or knowledge and “theo”
coming from the root word “Theos” which means God. So
we could say theology is nothing more then a word about God, which we all need.
Last of all I wish to mention I have learned that no amount of
explanation or discussion of God’s truth is helpful in and of itself, no matter
how well or poorly expressed unless it is illumined by God’s Spirit. As Christ
admonished us, those who have ears to hear, let them her… Therefore it is my
prayer and I hope yours that God will enlighten your hearts and minds as you
read this. Without His Spirit working to reveal the Father to us, we can see
and hear nothing from Him. I also pray that only that which is of Him in the
following pages will be implanted in your heart and bear fruit and that which
is not true to His word will fall by the way side. My God richly bless you in
your reading. God speed.
Introduction
Most people today believe in order to understand humanity we
must study mankind exclusively. But might we have it backwards? To fully learn
about and understand ourselves, maybe we need to understand God more
fully, in whose image we are made. Could this be even more
important then the study of human behavior? With all the understanding
modern psychology offers about humanity there still remains extensive
confusion, questions, restlessness and disillusionment about who we are, why we
are here and why we are the way we are. This is certainly true in the
"unbelieving" world that doesn
I believe the Bible teaches we were made by God, for God and
that everything else flows from these foundational truths. But what does this
mean exactly? If God created all things for Himself, which
the Bible clearly seems to teach, where do you and I fit in? And if our
understanding of God (as well as ourselves) comes short of who He actually is
(and therefore indirectly who we are as well) what effect does that have on our
daily lives, if any? Does this
insufficient understanding have an effect on our being as happy and
fulfilled as possible? Does it have any impact at all on whether life is truly
fulfilling or not? If it does, how does it? I would suggest and hope to
prove that understanding certain aspects of God
Aren
Now if these alternate solutions offered by the world do not fit
who we really are or what the Bible says about us, how does that impact us
individually, as well as those we come in contact with? Could it be that all
poor choices in life are a direct result of not knowing who God is truly and
clearly? (By knowing I mean in the personal sense, not merely
cognitively). If that is true wouldn
The world more then ever questions whether God is relevant;
especially in light of the seemingly randomness and hardships of life. Many,
maybe most, (at least in the Western world) have stopped asking all
together and have simply concluded God is not
relevant at all. They have either concluded He doesn’t get involved in their
lives because He isn’t there or He doesn’t care, so neither do we care about
Him. If the unbelieving world can not see by the lives of those of us who claim
to know Him, the reality of how God does care and does make a significant
difference in their life, it isn
What about those of us who do know God? Even if what we know
about God is sound as far as it goes, is there more we can and need to know
about Him? I believe there are certain aspects of God
revelation of Himself within the Bible as well
as in creation to see what He is seeking to tell us about Himself. I am not
saying we should necessarily to be uncertain about what we already understand
about God but we need to at least not be complacent or satisfied with what we
already know or think we know. To think that we can know a few things about the
infinite God and that there is no need to ever be learning more may result in
our missing out on more then we could ever imagine. Not just in this present
life but maybe even more importantly in our eternal existence to come. In his
book “God’s Passion for His Glory” John Piper says it this way “…we have
scarcely begun to see all of God that the Scriptures give us to see, and what
we have not yet seen is exceedingly glorious.”
We could compare knowing some things about God to briefly
glancing at an intricately woven tapestry and then walking away saying,
"yes I saw the tapestry" believing we know all we need to know and
being satisfied with that. We may feel we know all there is to know about
the tapestry without ever studying it, exploring all the details and learning
what it took to make it etc. Our understanding of God could also be like
entering a sprawling mansion with hundreds of rooms only to look at a display
of a layout of the house in the entrance hall and then leaving feeling we have
seen the mansion. We may think, “Why bother going to the extra trouble.” But
wouldn’t knowing these things first hand give us a
truer picture and appreciation for the value of the tapestry or the mansion.
Without doing so how can we fully appreciate these in all their richness?
Of course knowing God is infinitely more vast and important then
exploring mansions or studying tapestries. The mere fact that God is infinite
suggests our understanding of Him can never be exhausted in this life or the
next. If He is in fact infinite in every way, our knowing Him can have no end, because He has no end; which is
all the more reason we should never stop striving to know Him more fully.
Certainly whatever our understanding of God is, it must be
within the boundaries of scripture as well as through observing his
creation/creatures within those same boundaries, (through which we can also
learn of Him. [Romans 1:20]). But can we ever exhaust what
lies within those boundaries? As already suggested, I don’t think we can but we
should try with all the strength we have because knowing God, I would suggest,
is the most important endeavor we can ever undertake. If our understanding or
view of God (and ourselves, since they are tied together) is lacking or skewed,
then I suggest every aspect of how we look at and conduct our life will also be
lacking and skewed. This is not just a great dishonor to God but also a great
loss for us.
It has been said the key to great faith is more about the object
of our faith then the faith itself. Believing this to be true, we will
initially focus on God, the object of our faith; who He is, what He is like and
then what knowing Him means for us individually and collectively; how this
directly effects who we are, i.e. why we were created and exist etc. If our
understanding of God (which I hope to show has direct bearing on our
understanding of ourselves) is not accurate or clear our faith will be misplaced
and therefore weak at best, i.e. based on something that does not match
reality. Misplaced faith is living in a dream world at best; a myth, not
reality. But even worse resulting in our not seeing and displaying God to
the fullest extent possible resulting in present and eternal loss for us as
well as others, not to mention the loss of God by being inadequately displayed
to a world created for and by Him.
The initial groundwork covered in the following pages will be a
bit more theological and basic to begin with but as we progress we hope to show
the significance and importance of how a sound understanding of God is
essential to laying a strong foundation for living life itself. (Even though
there is a progression of thought through the book, those of you with a more
practical and less technical orientation may wish to skip down to the middle
three sections on pain, faith and obedience first and then come back to the
first section. But I encourage you to come back if you do, as the first section
is foundational to the rest). I should add that I will not be discussing in
depth every aspect of God’s character but primarily those relevant to the
points I seek to address in this book i.e. this book is not an attempt to be an
extensive discussion of all the attributes of God’s. I only hope in reading
this you will discover a little more about God and, therefore, a lot more about
yourself, your purpose and fulfillment and in turn your joy and
contentment in this life.
I would also encourage you just to skim through the table of
contents listed before each section and if you find something that grabs you,
read it. If that section doesn’t help, jump around. Even though everything is
tied together, each section may be helpful on its own depending on where you
are and what questions you have struggled with. Eventually I encourage you to
read the book in its entirety to the get the full sense. But I suggest this as
a possible approach because when I first read J.I. Packers book “Knowing God”
from the start to end I found it somewhat boring and hard to complete. Years
later as a result of the encouragement of others I picked it up again and
skimmed through it by jumping around and reading different sections. This
brought the book to life for me. I have since read it several times over and
now consider it among the top 10 most important books I have ever read.
This brings me to another point. You may not find this book
helpful at all at this point in our life. If not, just put it aside. Then some
day down the road when you are in a different place there may be things here
that will be helpful. Many of the books I have found most helpful didn’t help
me at all my first reading as was the case with Packers book. It was only years
later when I came back that God used them to minister to me in a powerful way.
That has been true of many of the most influential books I have read.
One final comment before jumping in; I have noticed many of the
truths of scripture are found in tension. By that I mean the truth usually lies
somewhere between two extremes we are naturally inclined to gravitate toward.
Not unlike balancing on a tight rope where we are inclined to fall to one side
or the other but must stay in the middle in order to keep from falling to our
destruction. I believe this is so because logic though a useful tool is often
given precedence over faith and scripture. As a result certain elements within
differing schools of theological thought take logic to such an end that they
ignore clear teaching of scripture opposite of where that logic takes them.
Logic and reason are like anything else however. They too must come under the
rule of Christ for they like any other gift of God can be used or misused due
to our propensity to be independent of God. Logic though a gift is still being
used by our fallen and finite minds, no matter how gifted the one using it. And
if unchecked can be used as a substitute for faith i.e. we can ultimately
depend on it instead of God to “understand” the world we are in. We must be
aware that in our fallen condition we are prone to want to control instead of
trust. We reason that if we can figure out every aspect of God and His dealings
then there can be no surprises; we can’t be “blindsided” by God; or so we
think. It is this fear and desire to understand/control that can drive us to
use logic in a way God never intended.
So, am I saying we should abandon logic and only live “by
faith?” No, no more then we should stop working to buy food but instead trust
God to fly a roasted chicken into our mouths when we are hungry. God gives us
gifts to be used for His ends, including our ability to reason, so we should
and must use them. We will address this very point more fully later on.
While a student at
Therefore instead of seeking to reconcile what God has not, some
of what I write leaves seemly competing truths in tension and does not bring
them to complete closure. You may want to make a mental note of this as you
read so you don’t react to what I have written and fall off one side of the
cliff backing away from the other. I encourage you to eventually read the book
in it’s entirety to see what is said about the other side before drawing any
final conclusions. Often our demand for “understanding” all the mysteries of scripture
is nothing more then arrogance and ultimately comes out of a lack of trust in
God. Even if some things are not clear in our own minds, it is important and
helpful to know they are in clear in Gods mind and that should be enough and
sometimes must be enough and all we are given.
Now to the book itself; there are four main sections that
address the following questions plus a commentary at the end on
Section I
====================================================
Do we have a clear
view of God?
(And therefore ourselves)
========================================================
1.
We seek life
2.
We are creatures
3.
Creatures unlike any other
4.
God is Triune. The ground for many
other attributes of God.
a.
God is independent. An incommunicable
attribute
b.
God is also dependent
c.
God is love, the ground of his being
personal and relational. A communicable attribute
d.
God loves himself; the basis and
moral ground for this.
e.
God is free
f.
God’s motive behind creation.
5.
How we are like God. A closer look.
6.
God is relational
7.
The basis of our value. Like God but
different
8.
The finite and the infinite
9.
Was God’s original plan thwarted by
man’s rebellion?
10.Has God changed?
11. God needs us?
12.Which is God
Let us begin.
Nothing can satisfy us at our deepest level but
Jesus. Not recreation, sex, drugs, entertainment, vacations, houses, cars,
boats, money, accomplishments, prestige, promotions, power, academic
achievement, food, TV, loved ones, family, friends, anything or anyone else you
wish to fill in the blank with. Nothing!1 So why are we so drawn, no,
irresistibly pulled to these and find ourselves seeking from them, often
desperately, only what God tells us He alone can give us? To know the answer we
must understand who we are 2, why we are this way and what it
is we are really seeking.
In the next several pages we will attempt to give an overview addressing what
we believe is taught in Holy Scripture regarding these things and then we will
take each point in this overview and elaborate on the implications more fully
in subsequent chapters. We won
1.
We seek life.
What is man seeking? In short, to say it simply and straight out, we seek life.
The bible confirms this directly and indirectly in several places by setting
forth “life” as the greatest goal and reward. (See John 10:10 and 2
Corinthians 5:4b-5a ) Not just life offered to us for
those fleeting moments through the things or activities listed above but never
ending life or to use a biblical phrase, "eternal life".
Eternal life may not be a conscious pursuit for most but since we were designed
for eternity, nothing less will do.
But what is it about “life” that is so important to us and how
exactly do we define this life we are so driven to obtain? At its core I would
suggest for us life is knowing and experiencing that I
am valuable. You could also describe this as knowing I am important,
significant, of great worth and so on. This core aspect of our being is tied
directly to our being in God
For the moment we need to dig deeper and look at why we are this
way? Why we crave for, indeed must have, a sense of value? Why do I need to
know I am loved or I can love? We must go back to who we are and even further
back to what makes us this way.
2.
We are creatures
First of all the bible says we are creatures. The significance of this will be
discussed in more detail later but for now the primary point I wish to address
is as creatures we are not self sufficient i.e. we did not come
into existence by our own effort or power nor do we continue to exist
independently (to use an analogy, batteries are not included) but our existence
is dependent at several levels on several things. For example in the
physical realm we need food, air, water and shelter to name some basic needs
for our existence. These resources which are vital to our physical existence
come from outside of us. Though on a very significant level most of us
ignore this and take our existence for granted. We are reminded however of how
fragile life truly is when these things are no longer available. When our life
or the life of another is in jeopardy or on the edge of being extinguished we
are jarred back to the reality of how fragile we are and how dependent we are
on resources outside of ourselves. This also helps explain why funerals are so
unpopular even though well attended.
Which also begs the question of where do these resources come
from? As Christians we know God not only created all things but sustains them
as well. We may have fooled ourselves into believing we keep our
life going, but the very resources mentioned were not created by us but
are simply used by us. We may gather them, rearrange them, combine them,
grow them etc. but in fact we do not bring them into being or ultimately
sustain their ongoing existence. But in our foolishness we take pride in our
ability to obtain anything we believe gives us life forgetting these are all
truly gifts. 3 Because of our aversion to
dependence on God (which often feels more like a desire to be independent
and not consciously an avoidance
of God) we worship (ascribe worth to) the gifts apart from or
instead of the Giver/Creator. 4 Rom 1:25. However God reminds us in Deuteronomy
With that said we wish to continue by pointing out that we are
not only dependent on things outside ourselves physically but spiritually
and emotionally as well. To address this let us take a closer look at
our “creature hood”.
3.
Creatures unlike any
other.
We are not just creatures but we are creatures of a unique kind. Unlike the
rest of creation we are in the image of God, our Creator. Genesis 1:25-27. But what is the
significance of being in God
4.
God is Triune. The
ground for many other attributes of God.
a. God is
independent. An incommunicable attribute
Before we look more at how we are like God let us first look at some
ways we are not like God. The first and most fundamental
characteristic about God we must understand is unlike His creatures, God is independent.
There is nothing that God needs outside Himself in order for Him to be or
remain God. Unlike us, His creatures, He is lacking nothing and therefore He
needs nothing. In the book of Acts we are told,
Acts 17: 24"The
God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and
does not live in temples built by hands. 25And he is not served by
human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life
and breath and everything else.
The significance of this is that we, as creatures add nothing to
God to make Him anymore then who He already is. From this we understand a key
aspect about the person of God. He did not create us in order to fill
something lacking within Himself. This has huge significance on many
different levels. It addresses how much and with what kind of love God loves us
for one, because it raises the question of why He created. Why is
this important? Because it gets at the heart of the issue of whether God truly
loves us or is He simply using us for another end i.e. does He have a
hidden agenda. We will address this more later? In contrast to us, His totally
dependent creatures, God is the totally independent Creator. In fact God is the
only truly independent and self
sufficient being in the universe. Everything else is sustained by Him and
therefore dependent on Him. He is sustained by no one or no thing.
Now let us take a closer look at why He is independent.
One reason I would suggest is because He is inter-dependent. To
say it another way, He derives from Himself everything He needs to be God and
He is dependent on nothing other then Himself to be the all sufficient, all
supreme being. He is self sustained. You could say He is self contained. So
there is a sense in which God does not need anything or anyone outside
of Himself because, unlike us, everything necessary for His
existence, He also provides within His own person or being. 6
We will look at this in more depth immediately below in “God is also dependent.”
Now this is where the oft-minimized and misunderstood “doctrine”
of the Trinity comes to play. The Christian church as a whole agrees that God
consists of three persons but for most believers this is simply a dry piece of
theological information that we don
b. God is also dependent
But what about His dependence; how exactly can or is the
Almighty, all sustaining God dependent? We do not usually think in terms of God
being dependent, do we? In fact this may even sound a bit heretical at first.
He is God, we might say. How can God be dependent on anything? Well in fact He
isn’t just dependent on anything. God is certainly not
dependent on anything in creation. Logic alone tells us this must be true.
Since He created and sustains everything, the creation is dependent on Him and
not the other way around. But what about God being dependent on Himself? Is this even possible? If so, what exactly does it
mean or look like? As suggested above the grounds for God’s independence is His
inter-dependence. This is a mystery but in a very real sense God is just as
dependent on Himself as you or I are dependent on Him. So yes, God is
absolutely dependent but only within His own being.
However is this a real dependence as
you and I understand the word? If so, how is this even possible? As already
mentioned, because He is a being of three distinct entities within one being,
each entity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit relate to each other as
truly distinct beings while at the same time they make up only one God.
Therefore dependence or
inter-dependence is deeply rooted in God’s very make up. Just because it is
dependence within Himself, does not make it any less
of a dependence or less of a reality. We may not be able to make sense of this logically but we
certainly see the evidence of it in how God first relates to Himself, then to
us and how we in turn relate to Him. This will become more evident further on.
So what
exactly is the practical significance of His being dependent? There are several
things. Because God is inter-dependent, He is also an inter-relational and
inter-communicating being. Therefore He truly understands what it means to need
and can identity with the feeling of need. How so, you may wonder. Did not the
Son experience the pain of the crucifixion and subsequent separation from His
Father? And did not Christ also experience the consequences of sin during His
crucifixion as well as the rest of his ministry with all its emotional impact?
Even though none of this was due to His own sin, the
painful consequences were the same never the less.
Have you
ever been estranged from someone you loved; one of your kids, a parent or a
spouse due to some barrier between you? Of course, you say. How did (or does)
it feel? Whatever you felt, God has felt this too. Granted the separation the
Son experienced was due to our sins and not His own it was still separation none
the less with all its ramifications. God understands truly what relationship is
and what losing it feels like, possibly in a way even greater then we do. Since
the level of relationship and dependence between the Father and Son is perfect
and on an infinitely higher level then our own, wouldn’t the pain of its loss
for Him also be infinitely greater?
God not
only understands the joy of loving and being loved, of honoring and being
honored but also losing that honor and the feeling the loss of it. The shame of
Christ’s heinous and reprehensible death was even greater since it was not due
to anything He had done wrong. Much of our
suffering is due to our own sin, His was due only as a
result of someone else’s sin. So God does and can experience all aspects of being in a relationship,
just like you and I; the bad as well as the good. What does this mean for us?
As far as this discussion goes, God and His Son truly and really feel our pain
and weakness as well as our joys and pleasures.
Heb 4:15 For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with
the feeling of our infirmities; but one that hath been in all points tempted
like as we are, yet without sin..
The word tempted here is not the idea of being enticed to wrong
as much as to endure the experience of a difficult event or its consequent
struggle i.e. to be tested or disciplined by it.
Tempted: Πειράζω,
peirazō, pi-rad
God also truly and really
enjoys our love and appreciates our
gratitude and honor as well as the honor and glory exchanged between the
members of the Trinity. This is in part due to His being in relationship
throughout eternity and our being able to enter into relationship with Him
because we are in His image i.e. we are like God. Since we are like Him we can
really and truly bring joy to His heart not unlike the joy His only begotten
Son also brings to His heart. We can bring sadness to His heart when we are
alienated from Him just as when His Son was alienated from Him at the cross for
the same reason i.e. our sin. It is also worth mentioning that Christ is our
elder brother and we too are considered sons of God. Though we are not the eternal only begotten Son we are adopted sons and daughters in Christ
nevertheless who will live with God our Father throughout eternity just as our
elder brother Christ will. As a result of all these things God really and truly
feels the give and take of relationship with us just as you and I feel it with
each other.
The interaction of God as a triune being is key
to what makes God a relational being instead of some stoic impersonal force. He
not only understands and designs relationship he is relationship.
Where do you think we get the capacity to feel the various
aspects, both good and bad, of being in relationship? Does it come out of a
vacuum or simply because we are in rebellion? We were relational before the
fall, were we not? Would it make sense that we as His creatures could feel and
experience something more or completely different regarding relationship then
God Himself could feel and experience? No, these qualities are in us because
they were in God first and are all a part of God’s being as well as ours who
are in His image.
This also explains how we can truly enter into a real
relationship with God and Him with us.
In closing this section we wish to also point out that our
independence is directly in conflict with these realities in a far more
significant way then we may have before now considered. How so? Our attempted
independence is contrary not just to who we are as dependent beings but also
to whom God is as an inter-dependent being. It is a violation of every aspect of our being in the image
of God. God designed us for a relationship of dependence on Him so that we
could participate in the inter dependence He has within Himself. So for us to
attempt to be independent of God doesn’t just
violate our nature but God’s as well.
Now let us take a closer look at the makeup of God
c. God is love, the ground of his being personal and relational. A
communicable attribute
If He is independent this raises the question of why then did He create the
universe and specifically you and I if He needs nothing or no one outside of
Himself. This in turn further addresses the question of what is God like as a
triune being and how this is significant regarding his independence?
The first point is that God is love. Unless we grasp fully God
being three distinct persons and yet only one God, we will not plum the depths
of Gods love for us and His being a God of love will not grip us at the deepest
level as He intends and designed but will simply become an intellectual enigma
i.e. why does God love me? In fact I would suggest
this is all that the truth of God being three in one may be for many in the
Christian community.
The fact that God is love is more then a mere fact about God.
More then any other attribute this one attribute is characterized as central
to His very being. The bible does not say that God is anger or
God is jealousy for example, but it does say He is
love. Now the question I wish to raise is whether God was a God of love before
creation i.e. did the creation, you and I in particular, draw out of God a love
that did not exist prior to creations existence? We would not hesitate to say
that God has always been a God of love and the bible seems to clearly indicate
God IS a God of love and did not BECOME a God of love. But if so, wouldn
d. God loves and values himself; the basis and moral ground for this.
It seems self evident that God loves Himself. But this raises the question of
how is it that this act of self love by God is not selfish if
in fact love is a foundational aspect of his being. The answer in my opinion
gets into the “holy of holies” of the very being of God and why we must not
only worship Him (ascribe worth and value Him) above all things but can do
nothing else once we fully grasp this. And the more we comprehend this the more
we will respond in adoration, awe and love.
First of all it only makes sense that whoever is the greatest,
most valuable and most lovely of all beings (or things) deserves and elicits
the highest affection, admiration and praise of any and all other beings. This
makes sense for us but wouldn’t this be true not only for us but also for God
Himself? For God to value, love and adore anything above Himself would be
morally wrong since He is the highest and most supreme being. It
would also be hypocritical and insincere for God to value another above Himself
since there is no one greater. On the other hand for us to value ourselves
above God is wrong simply because we are not the greatest, most valuable
and highest being. He is most valuable, if only because our very
existence as well as all the rest of creation is dependent on God
The great New England theologian, Jonathan Edwards, goes even
further to say that God
“God’s moral rectitude consists in his valuing the most valuable,
namely, himself
That
if God himself be, in any respect, properly capable of being his own end in the
creation of the world, then it is reasonable to suppose that he had respect to
himself, as his last and highest end, in this work; because he is worthy in
himself to be so, being infinitely the greatest and best of beings. All things
else with regard to worthiness, importance, and excellence, are perfectly as
nothing in comparison of him. And therefore, if God has respect to things
according to their nature and proportions, he must necessarily have the
greatest respect to himself. It would be against the perfection of his nature,
his wisdom, holiness, and perfect rectitude, whereby he is disposed to do
everything that is fit to be done, to suppose otherwise.
At
least, a great part of the moral rectitude of God, whereby he is disposed to
every thing that is fit, suitable, and amiable [i.e., pleasant, admirable] in
itself, consists in his having the highest regard to that which is in itself
highest and best. The moral rectitude of God must consist in a due respect to
things that are objects of moral respect; that is, to intelligent beings
capable of moral actions and relations. And therefore it must chiefly consist
in giving due respect to that Being to whom most is due; for God is infinitely
the most worthy of regard. The worthiness of others is as nothing to his; so
that to him belongs all possible respect. To him
belongs the whole of the respect that any intelligent being is capable of. To
him belongs
I will now go through the above excerpt and add some comments
with highlights, underlines or italics. There is far more that can be said
about this excerpt then I have addressed below since I am focusing primarily on
the moral aspect addressed in it so I encourage you to meditate on it long and
hard. It is rich with many truths I will not be commenting on.
God’s moral
rectitude consists in his valuing the most valuable, namely, himself
If what the above section heading says is true, and I believe it
is, it stands to reason how much more this would be true of us as well as
God. In short, for us to not give
proper recognition to God’s value is equally immoral. Though we often think of immoral actions usually as those
of a sexual nature and though some kinds of sexual behavior is
in fact immoral, immorality is far more extensive and in depth then we may
normally consider and not determined solely by external behavior. The
above and following consideration of immorality explains why certain activities are immoral (sexual or otherwise) i.e. to
place such a high regard or value on anything over and above regard for God, no
matter what form the action manifested, is wrong and in fact a form of idolatry. It just happens that illicit
sex throughout history has been one of the more obvious displays of this underlying
disposition. If one values and worships the pleasure of sexual intimacy making
it the ultimate pursuit in life over and above intimacy with and pursuit of God
then it becomes an act of immorality in the form of idolatry.
(Though this is far less likely within the marriage commitment,
we can still pursue sex within marriage for the wrong reasons as well. If we
see sex as a gift of God to celebrate the union and fidelity of a committed
relationship, it is a reflection of the union we are to have with God and
therefore brings joy to God as well as us. The fact is sex is designed to
reflect something of the fidelity and intimacy between Christ and his bride,
i.e. you and me, the church. That’s why adultery is repulsive to God and why he
call’s his children who wander from Him adulterers)
Stop and consider with me how you or I might be deeply offended
for not being given our proper and due respect,
appreciation, or recognition for some valuable deed we had done. When we are
not given our due respect whether it
is by being ignored and not acknowledged for a good deed or maybe by another
receiving recognition and credit for our deed, how do we feel? Offended, upset,
put off, overlooked, disrespected or dissed as the
youth might say? When this happens we may feel sadness, disappointment, anger,
even rage or several other similar emotions. The bottom line is we were not
given our due and rightful recognition. To say it simply,
we were wronged. Or as the saying
goes, “credit should be given where credit is due.”
So how much more then is God rightfully offended when He is not
given His due recognition or
respect? If everything is created and sustained solely by God alone, do we live
our lives as if this were true? If not, we are not giving God the recognition
and gratitude due Him. And if not, we have offended God.
Now is God offended because He needs our recognition and is more sensitive and more easily hurt
then we are when offended? Or is it rather as the sole Creator, Provider and
Sustainer of all things, His actions
are of infinitely greater significance then ours and to not acknowledge them as
such is an infinitely greater offense because it results in infinitely greater
harm to us and others, his creatures? The truth is God does not need us or our
thanks as we suggested earlier. In reality we are the ones harmed by not giving
God His proper respect.
In light of these
questions let us go back to Edwards for a closer look, highlighting key words
to add to this discussion.
“That
if God himself be, in any respect, properly capable of being his own end (the
reason/goal of all His deeds is to point out His ultimate worth) in the
creation of the world, then it is reasonable to suppose that he had respect to
himself, as his last and highest end, in this work (i.e. His creation); because
he is worthy (most deserving)
in himself to be so, being infinitely the greatest and best of beings. All
things else (any other created thing or being) with regard to worthiness,
importance, and excellence, are perfectly as nothing in comparison of
him. And therefore, if God has respect to things according to their nature and proportions, he must necessarily (it is the moral or the right thing to
do i.e. to do otherwise would be immoral and also against his very nature as he goes on to say a little
later) have the greatest respect to himself.
It would be against the perfection of his nature, his wisdom, holiness, and
perfect rectitude, whereby he is disposed to do everything that is fit to be done, to suppose
otherwise.
At
least, a great part of the moral
rectitude of God, whereby he is disposed (properly inclined or drawn) to
every thing that is fit,
suitable, and amiable [i.e., pleasant, admirable] in itself, consists in his
having the highest regard to that which is in itself highest and best.
(i.e. Himself) The moral rectitude of God must consist
in a due respect to things
that are objects of moral respect; that is, to intelligent beings capable of
moral actions and relations. (this includes us) And
therefore it must chiefly consist in giving due (rightly deserved. Something due is something owed)
respect to that Being to whom most is
due; for God is
infinitely the most worthy of regard.
The worthiness of others is as nothing to his; so that to him belongs (it is rightfully
His and therefore rightfully due
to Him. To not give Him due regard/recognition is wrong and the ground for all
immorality) all possible respect. To him belongs
the whole of the respect that any intelligent being is capable of. To
him belongs
In summary according to Edwards holiness for God would consist
in God’s affection for, regard of, inclination towards and recognition of His
infinite worth above everything else.
Throughout the above quote Edwards uses words such as “due, fit,
belongs, requires” and so on. All words which have a moral quality
i.e. that which is right or wrong. What this suggests is the ground for
all right and wrong is rooted in the recognition
of the true worth of God (or lack of this recognition). And this is not only true for us but for God
as well i.e. not only must we recognize this fact but God, by His own
determination, must as well.
We may have heard that the definition of holiness or
sanctification is to “set apart” or something that is “set apart.” I would suggest
the reason for this is because that which is of greatest value is separate from
all other things i.e. the reason it is set apart is precisely because of its
great value. It is like being in an art gallery where all the paintings are
available for viewing by the general public except one room that holds the
rarest and most valuable paintings and is therefore in a secured area that can
only be entered with special clearance. These pieces are distinct and separate
from all the others and to be looked upon with distinct and separate regard
over and above all the others because of their great value.
In John Piper’s footnotes to the above excerpt he adds these
thoughts, “Edwards calls God’s regard
to himself his ‘holiness.’ It may be more proper to call it God’s
‘righteousness.’ Thus his ‘holiness’
would be the infinite worth that God has
in his own estimation, and his righteousness
would be his valuing and respecting that worth without wavering and upholding
it in all that he does.” He goes on to state that in the
writings of the apostle Paul, “the righteousness
of God must be his unswerving commitment
always to preserve the honor of
his name and to display his glory.” John Piper, The Justification of God: An Exegetical and Theological Study of
Piper distinguishes between righteousness and holiness in that
God’s holiness is the grounds for
all righteousness and righteousness is any and all acts that seek to uphold or
display His holiness. Holiness addresses who or how God is, righteous addresses what God does. Piper is saying any act
that springs forth from a proper recognition of God’s infinite worth i.e. out
of worship for God, is a righteous act. And therefore any act that does not spring forth from a proper
recognition of God’s infinite worth would be an unrighteous act i.e. an immoral
or wicked act. This certainly broadens the definition of immorality compared to
how it is often defined today. It also places the focus on holiness where it
should be. Not on the outward actions alone but the inward disposition that
drives those actions.
When it comes to God, all actions on his part must spring forth
from the recognition of His own worth with the end being to show forth that
worth to others. This is the basis of holiness and righteousness. And out of
this He tells us to be holy as He is holy. What God is saying is simply do all
things for the glory of God just like I do or be holy just like I
am holy i.e. do all things with the view or goal of
showing forth my great worth. In this lies the foundation for all moral behavior according to
Edwards. This also puts a whole different light for many on what it means to be
holy.
According to this definition we are holy when we value God’s worth
as it truly is and therefore all efforts to uphold and display his worth are
righteous acts i.e. the right or fit thing to do. The more we conduct ourselves
in this way the more righteous were are. With this understanding what makes
something righteous has more to do with the motive behind the action then with
the action itself. It stands to reason then that the opposite would also be
true. To not value God’s worth would be unholy and to not uphold that worth or
display it by our actions would be unrighteous. The more we do not do things in
this way the more unrighteous we are. Or
to say it another way, to disregard or ignore the value of God and not seek to
show it forth in our attitude/disposition is the basis for all immoral
behavior.
This is exactly why God says we are to be thankful for all
things. It is the primary disposition that springs from a
core recognition that God is the Sovereign sustainer and provider of all
things i.e. His is the all worthy, almighty God and everything we are and have comes
from Him and we should thank Him as such. Immorality is not merely murder, or
an inappropriate sexual act or other such external actions. It goes far deeper
then this. Even our legal system historically recognized that motive is key and that a life taken in self defense or pre meditated
murder is totally different. The end result may be the same, but since the
motive is totally different, the morality or immorality of the action is as
well.
If we stop and think about this and peel back the layers we will
realize that all actions that spring
forth from a disregard for God’s true worth are indeed immoral. Often we only
consider something immoral or unrighteous simply at the external level when in
fact all immoral acts have their root in an inadequate recognition of God’s
worth. I will go so far as to say that the impression we are often given
(usually by the organized church and religion) that an immoral act is primarily
of an external nature such as murder or sex is nothing more then a diversionary
tactic by the enemy to keep us from seeing that immorality is rooted in
something far deeper, far more basic, more encompassing, more significant, more
extensive and foundational then we ever usually consider.
There is a great advantage to this for us. To hold this external
and shallow view of immorality allows us to go about life with little or no
recognition of God’s great worth while at the same time conducting ourselves in
a way society, especially the religious community (but certainly not God)
applauds as moral. As a result we may go about thinking we are quit “good” or
“righteous” because we don’t lie, commit murder, adultery or theft when the
bible instead calls anything that is
not done for the glorify of God i.e.
out of a desire to show forth His infinite worth, wickedness.
The bible characterizes evil when it says, “My people have
committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of livings waters, and
hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold not water” (Jer. 2:13) What Jeremiah was saying is Israel had gone
after things other then God to sustain them, to quench their spiritual,
emotional and physical thirst and needs. In effect saying there is something other then God that we value and seek
after more then God; the action (forsaking God and seeking things other then
God to sustain them) springs from an inadequate and therefore wrong view of
God’s worth.
Society (and even more so the church itself) gets so hung up on
the external expressions of “sin” that they completely miss what determines
that which makes something “wicked” or “sinful.” Because of this they will say
obvious things such as murder or rape is wrong while they may believe prayer is
right and always good. Or worse yet, congratulate themselves for such “righteous”
behavior. But didn’t Christ himself warn us not to pray like the
Pharisees prayed? Why would he say such a thing!!? To those with a shallow
understanding of sin this makes no sense. That is because they either get hung
up or justify an act strictly by the external
manifestation or display of action. But we get a further hint of what the bible
means by sin in proverbs when it says “the plowing of the wicked is sinful.” We
might wonder how the simple act of plowing can be sinful. But our very wondering
only confirms how little we understand the true nature of sin. It is sinful
because it is an action done solely for the benefit of the one plowing and not
in order to bring honor and glory to God who enables us to plow. How do we know
this, because the passage says it is the wicked that is doing the plowing?
Let’s see how the bible defines wickedness to get a better
understanding. We get a clue in Genesis 6:5 where he states why
He was planning on destroying mankind by a flood when he says, “The
LO
Is that your understanding of wickedness? Would you ever say
there is a time when praying is wicked? The bible does. This is not what most
of us would consider as wickedness and the core problem but Christ did.
This deeper understanding of morality is encouraging and
discouraging at the same time. It encourages those of us who have turned to
Christ, who has freed us from the condemnation of sin, and our hearts have been
awakened by His Spirit who indwells us. Because now God by His Spirit has
opened our eyes and placed within us a view of God that is true so we have some
awareness of the infinite worth and beauty of Almighty God. As a result we now
hunger for Him. Now our focus is to feed, nurture and strengthen that hunger
and develop an even clearer and fuller view of God. And as we get this clearer
view our outward behavior changes. The point is our focus shouldn’t be on the wrong actions we are so
inclined to commit (though we must see them clearly in order to know what to
remove or forsake) but on finding and increasing our vision of the awesome
wonder and beauty of God demonstrated to us in His infinite mercy and grace and
falling more in love with Him as we see Him more and more clearly.
On the other hand, for the unbeliever this is discouraging
because he is able without God’s help to carry out certain actions that are considered
moral by society’s and the church’s standard and may say and do all the “right”
things. (such as being a hard worker, giving to
others, treating ones neighbor with kindness, or being faithful to one’s spouse
etc. All good things in themselves, but now that we understand the importance
of intent we must ask where do these actions spring from. Are they carried out
to bring honor and recognition to himself or to God).
If these actions do not spring forth from a heart of true worship of God, they
are worthless in God’s eyes and are as “filthy rags” to Him i.e. they will not
be credited to him as righteousness or rewarded. In the unbelievers
unregenerate state he seeks to impress
God or others by his “good works” but this is not the same as desiring God or desiring to truly honor Him out of worship and gratitude by his
actions. In truth, the things of God are foolishness to him. Therefore he must
humble himself and turn in conscious dependence on God for His mercy and grace
instead of thinking he can somehow impress God through dependence on his
“righteous” deeds. He must instead call out to God for mercy to turn his heart
towards God. May God’s grace enable us
to do so if we have not.
So what does all this have to do with God’s loving himself and
the moral ground for this? The fact that God is a triune being makes God
valuing Himself above all others even more awe inspiring and hallowed and
settles many things. Let us briefly review this and we will elaborate on this
point more as we continue on in the following sections.
God loves His Son above all else and the Son loves his Father
above all else. In essence they recognize the great worth of the other and value each other above all others. To
say it another way, they hold each other in highest esteem. We get glimpses of
this throughout the New Testament and particularly the gospels. John 17 for example. Because they are separate
and distinct their love is a real and true love. It is a love that is other
focused yet because they are both persons of the Godhead this addresses God
Oh the mystery and wonder of God! May He help us to grasp the
height, depth and width of His being and therefore the greatness of His love?
Not only is this a wonderful mystery it is also vital to understanding God
truly and clearly and in turn ourselves as well.
e. God is free
There are other far reaching and important
implications to God
“‘Who has ever given to
God, that God should repay him’ for from him and through him and to
him are all things. To him be the glory forever!
Amen."
We also get a hint of this in Job 35: 6
“If you sin, how does
that affect him? If your sins are many, what does that do to him? 7
If you are righteous, what do you give to him or what does he receive from your
hand? 8 Your wickedness affects only a man like yourself, and
your righteousness only the sons of men.”
Everything depends on God. God depends on nothing or no one except
Himself. (The first part of
The bottom line is God does what He does simply because He
chooses to, not because he is compelled or obligated to. In
short He is free. Everything God does He does freely and He loves freely
without external compulsion or any consideration of outside influence or force.
Why is this important? Because it gets down to the bedrock truth that nothing
we have or will ever do CAUSES God
to love us. What causes God to love comes from within Himself, not outside
Himself. As it says in
But at the same time this is humbling. We have nothing to
offer God that obligates or compels
Him to love us. We can never do or be such that God is compelled to act on our
behalf. (How very different this is from most of our human relationships). For
it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from
yourselves, it is the gift of God-- not by works, so that no one can boast. And
to be humbled is to experience God as He truly is for God also tells us He “…
resists the proud but gives grace to the humble”. The greater our humility the
greater we experience of God. Therefore knowing and understanding this concept
of God
f. God’s motive behind creation.
So now we can and must ask, not only why did God create but why did He create us
the way we are and in His image in particular? In short, what motivates
God to action in general and our
creation in particular? If it was not out of need for something we might give
or bring to him, what was it? Let me try to answer by way of illustration.
Let’s say you were freezing and starving in the wilderness in the midst of a
raging blizzard and at the edge of deaths door when you come across a shelter.
Inside are a stove and just enough room and food to keep you alive, (and a
loaded rifle) but only enough for one person. Soon after your discovery another
starving man stumbles onto this same shelter. What would be your reaction?
Would you be willing to let him in and share? Most would defend their new found
prize with their lives because in fact this food and shelter provides just
that, the sustenance and continuance of life. If you knew your own life was at
risk in sharing your new found discovery with this "visitor" and you
believed your present existence was all there was, with no eternal consequence
for the choices you made, I suggest you would not give it up. (Only if you saw
beyond that moment and had an eternal value system as opposed to merely a
temporary one, would you be able to. But that is part of what faith is all
about which we will address later on).
Now, what if you were in the same plight and you somehow
stumbled across a palace owned by a benevolent King. Once inside you were
offered a feast that had more food then you could ever possibly eat, with the
promise of an unlimited supply and rooms to spare? After some time, you had
eaten all you could eat and were comfortable, warm and rested and it had been so
for several days with the assurance you would be provided for from that point
on. Then this other starving person as before wandered up under these new
circumstances. What would be the likelihood of your willingness to share under
these very different conditions? Unless you are the most selfish, untrusting
and cynical of persons, hoarding what you have found, because you suspect the
food may be taken away or run out, you would gladly share it. In fact you would
likely find pleasure in having someone else to share in the same
pleasure of the feast and accommodations along with you. (An impulse in us I
suggest is also an expression of God
When we consider God in relation to this analogy, He would be
like the person under that second set of conditions who has had the pleasure of
enjoying the full, unlimited, never-ending feast of Himself throughout all
eternity past; a feast of communion and community among the Trinity; the giving
and receiving of love, glory and worth; a feast of valuing and being valued.
Then somewhere in eternity past (though time is ever present to God) God
decided (among the persons of the Trinity) to extent this glorious feast of
communion/relationship He has enjoyed within His triune being to include
others.
To expand this let me illustrate further. When we behold
something of beauty for the first time and unlike anything we had seen before,
an awesome and overwhelming sunrise or a majestic mountain range for example,
how do we respond? Are we usually quiet about it? We may be possibly at first
due to being in awe of what we are seeing but likely not indefinitely. If we
beheld such unimaginable beauty and overwhelming splendor, would we keep it to
ourselves? Wouldn’t we want others to come, see and share in the wonder and awe
of what we have partaken in; especially those we love the most! And wouldn’t we
feel joy in sharing this and enjoying it with
them?
When we discover a great restaurant, movie, book or the like,
what do we do? Don
God the Father beheld the beauty, glory and splendor of His Son
and the Son beheld the beauty, glory and splendor of the Father and the
completeness, joy and satisfaction of their relationship was so absolute, so
complete, so fulfilling, so strong and so distinct it issued forth into a
distinct third person of the Trinity in the Holy Spirit; a Spirit of admiration
and awe in the worth that God has in Himself, i.e. the Holy Spirit. God from all eternity past has been inundated with the
joy of giving and receiving value, worship, praise, and glory within Himself
among the persons of the Trinity. An ongoing, eternal spiritual feast if you
will. We get a hint of this when we hear the Son saying, “And now, Father, glorify
me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the
world began." Jn. 17:5. The Father and
the Son have been gazing upon and enjoying the beauty and splendor of the
awesomeness of each other from all eternity past and basking in the joy of this
experience and relationship. In short God experienced the joy of basking in the
wonder and beauty within the Godhead; of loving and being loved and decided
that He wanted others to know and experience this same never-ending wonder, beauty
and love as well. He created because He wanted to share the thrill and joy
Himself with others and did not want to keep the treasure of this awesome feast
to Himself.
Again we turn to Jonathan Edwards. He states this same idea as follows,
"As there is an
infinite fullness of all possible good in God--a fullness of every perfection,
of all excellency and beauty, and of infinite
happiness--and as this fullness is capable of communication, (being spoken,
displayed, or presented to another) or emanation ad extra; (Latin for "toward the outside" or
"going out") so it seems a thing amiable [i.e., pleasant, admirable]
and valuable in itself that this infinite fountain of good should send forth abundant streams. And as this is in itself
excellent, so the disposition (inclination, motivation) to this in the Divine
Being, must be looked upon as an excellent disposition. Such an emanation of
good is, in some sense, a multiplication
(or expansion) of it. So far as the stream may be looked upon as anything
besides (or coming from) the fountain, so far it may be looked on as an increase of good. And if the fullness
of good that is in the fountain is in itself excellent, the emanation, which
is, as it were, an increase, repetition, or multiplication of it, is (also) excellent.
"Thus it is fit, since there is an infinite fountain of light and
knowledge that this light should shine forth in beams of communicated knowledge
and understanding; and, as there is an infinite fountain of holiness, moral
excellence, and beauty, that so it should flow out in communicated holiness.
And that, as there is an infinite fullness of joy and happiness, so these
should have an emanation, and become a fountain flowing out in abundant
streams, as beams from the sun. Thus it appears reasonable to suppose that it
was God
In short, what Edwards is saying is God out of fullness poured
forth all that is in Him to others so that they may along with Him know the
beauty, joy and infinite happiness that God Himself has known from all eternity
past. In so doing, God is in a sense multiplying His goodness by sharing
it with others. This is rooted in God as a Triune being. The joy of giving and
receiving love among the Persons of the Trinity has always been a part of God’s
makeup and being since God has always been the same throughout eternity. His desire for creation was for it and us in
particular to share in joy, love and awe of the greatness of His being.
This requires a closer look at an important question; one that
has already been answered indirectly but worth drawing closer attention to. Was
the impulse to share this feast with others due to something lacking in God or
to the fullness and overflow of God? I believe the picture we have from
scripture, as well as the one painted by Edwards above, is what drives God in
His love toward us is the desire for us to enter and join Him in the feast of
that community which is God and experience Him in all His wonder and glory.
What motivates God is just the opposite of something lacking in God. God was so
totally complete and full that out of this fullness He created. There
was no loneliness in God that caused Him to create for He already had Himself.
But rather He was full and because of this fullness He did not wish to keep the
joy of the community within Himself to Himself but He longed for others to
experience that fullness as well. God’s *“weakness” is His fullness, His
abundance, His overflow which of course is not weakness at all but fullness and
strength.
*(I say weakness because most everything we do springs forth from our weakness, need, lack or finiteness and
therefore it is hard to comprehend a being who is just the opposite of us in
this regard. In fact, I would suggest the only time we act out of true interest
in another is when we are so full of God we become like him and thereby
overflow to others. Which is in fact exactly God’s intent and
design. He desires we “share the wealth” if you will).
The bottom line is the motivation and drive within God to share
comes from fullness or an overflow not from anything lacking within God. Everything God does comes
from fullness, completeness and wholeness. There is no lack in God, ever. And this fullness is directly tied to God
being Triune.
5.
How we are like God.
A closer look.
Now if you were God and wanted someone else to experience the fullness of the
love, joy and glory you shared within the persons of the Trinity, what would
that other being/person likely be like? If you were
God, how would you make that other person so that they could experience and
enjoy you (as God) to the fullest
possible extent? Wouldn’t that other person need to be as much like
you as possible without actually being
you? (you alone are God and no one else can be
you. There can only one Creator; everything else is created by you). It is
worth noting here that the Psalmist asked of God in Psalm 8, “4 what
is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? 5You
made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and
honor.” In the original Hebrew this phrase "heavenly beings" could
also be translated "God" and we have reason to believe this is a more
accurate translation of the passage. If this is a legitimate translation this
is saying we are a little lower then God himself and this would support the
idea (along with other scriptures) that man is in some significant ways just
like God, in short he is in God’s image. 7
In fact mankind is more like God then any other of God’s creatures without
actually being God. 8 We are like little gods in some respects if you will, walking
around reflecting God in our own unique way. (This in part explains why we are
drawn to people more then things and find greater fulfillment in relation with
them because relationship with others in His image comes closest to that
ultimate relationship the Creator has within the Trinity and also the
relationship with our Creator we were designed and long for. We will touch on
this more later). Now let’s dig a little deeper into the person of God and see
more closely how we are like him.
6.
God is relational
Let’s take a closer look at what takes place between the persons of the
Trinity. What we know and hear in the New Testament throughout is the Son came
to glorify the Father and the Father has and will glorify the Son. John 17; John 8:54;
John 17:5.
But what exactly is it to glorify someone or something. When we glory in
something what exactly is it that we are doing? Again, let’s go back to the
illustration we presented earlier about what motivates God. When we behold
unimaginable beauty and splendor, or read great book, see a great movie etc. do
we keep it to ourselves? It depends on how awesome it is but if it is truly
amazing, beyond words, we would grab anyone we could find, especially our
closest loved ones and friends, and tell them about what we have discovered and
bring them to come and see! “Come, see and experience what I have seen and
experienced!” Wouldn’t this be our reaction? This is what I believe gets at the
essence of what it means to glorify something or someone. I would suggest what
we are doing when we respond to the awesome beauty of something is
acknowledging it’s worth and value to us; in short we worship (ascribe worth
to) it which often results in praise of that which we value. In the case of
God, there is an ongoing giving and receiving of glory or acknowledging of the value
and worth of the persons within the Trinity and this involves
relationship at the highest level because it is relationship among the most
perfect of persons. God is a relational being who gives and receives
value (glory) from within the Godhead. The Son honors and glorifies the
Father and the Father honors and glorifies the Son i.e. they hold each other in
highest regard and esteem the other of the greatest value because they in fact
are the highest and greatest. As already hinted to, that dynamic is so strong
and so powerful that it is manifested in a wholly distinct person of the
Spirit. As the Spirit of God holiness is at its (I say its
since in the original gender is neutral) core i.e. it is the Spirit of valuing
and being valued within the Godhead. There is a very real sense in which each
person of the Trinity is dependent on the other and therefore of the highest
value to the other as discussed earlier.
To glorify someone or something is to present or display the
value of them or it for others to see. (God said at Christ’s baptism, “Behold my Son, in whom I am well
pleased… Matthew 3:17
). To praise something is to give voice to the value of that
which we praise so that others hear it.
Part of our being in His image is we are also relational beings.
By relational I mean, we are beings that give
and receive value to and from
one another. In this instance we do this not just with any person but with God
Himself primarily, not unlike God does within the Trinity. In fact this is
ultimately what we were and are designed for and what I believe it means to be
in God’s image. In this way we act like God because we are like
God, i.e. in His image. We are like God in giving and receiving love, value,
worship, glory and praise etc. (all words that express various facets of the
same fundamental thing, i.e. the value of God.), just as He does within the
Godhead. But more importantly because we are like God or in His image we can in
fact enter into and enjoy the community that makes up the person of God Himself and in turn invite and draw
others into that community. And to the extent we are like God is the same
extent we are able to enjoy God. If we weren’t like God in this way we could
not enjoy Him in the same manner He enjoys Himself.
To say it another way, other of God’s lesser creatures can not
enjoy God in the same manner we can. They too are created by Him and reflect
something significant of His beauty and majesty but they are not in His image
as you and I are and therefore can not reflect Him in the same manner or to the
same extent. Of course many feel God’s
other creatures better reflect God because of the falleness
of man, but I am referring to capacity. Man’s falleness
has marred him in a way that God’s other creatures are not. The rest of
creation is under bondage due to our
rebellion but is not in rebellion itself as we are.
In Matthew 22 Christ was asked 36"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37Jesus
replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with
all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
7. The basis of our value. Like God but different
Now there are some significant differences in our relationship with God over
against his relationship with Himself that need to be mentioned. For one, even though
we are in His image, and as much like Him as is possible, we in fact are still not
God. Unlike God, whose value is intrinsic, our value is derivative. i.e. we are valuable not in and of ourselves but
precisely because we not only are able to enjoy and experience God but have the
capacity in some sense to uniquely contain and reflect to others that which is
most valuable, God Himself. II Cor. 4:6, 7 says, 6For God, who said, "Let
light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give
us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of
clay to show that this all surpassing power is from God and not from us”.
To illustrate let’s consider an oxygen tank used for scuba
diving. The tank carries for the diver what is essential for maintenance of
his/her physical life i.e. oxygen. But if the tank runs out of oxygen what
value at that moment does it now have? Without oxygen it is as useful as a
paper weight. In fact it is the opposite of valuable and is now a potential
hindrance and/or threat to the life of the diver. Its value is precisely in its
capacity to carry what the diver must have for life, i.e. oxygen.
When the tank is used as it was designed, it has tremendous value. However the
value is tied directly it to doing what it is designed to do and not in and of
itself.
This directly confronts the lie of the modern psychological
notion of “self worth”. Psychologists only have it half right. We
do need to know we have worth. The issue is how we legitimately experience that
worth. To obtain value in and of ourselves, apart from God, i.e. SELF worth, is
a myth and goes contrary to our very nature and design. It is the psychological
equivalent of self salvation, i.e. it is simply not possible. It would be like
the oxygen tank trying to “feel better about itself” by having itself polished
so it is shinier and looks better then other tanks etc while at the same time
having a major leak in it
In the case of mankind, the reason for our existence is to know
God, to enjoy and experience His worth and glory and in turn reflect to others
that worth and glory so that they may also see it, be drawn to Him, enjoy Him
and in turn display Him to others. It is in this knowing and showing forth of
His glory/worth/value that we find our true worth or glory, for God
said, glorify me and I will glorify you, exalt me and I will exalt you. In this
we find our “God worth” if you will not self worth. 9
To say it another way, our worth is directly tied to our
relationship with our Creator, not to self. Self worth would be similar to the
proverbial "lifting ourselves up by our own bootstraps." In reality,
though it sounds noble, it is in fact an unattainable and futile endeavor with
fleeting and temporary results at best. The person who has the greatest sense
of "self worth" one day, could be dashed to the ground the next by
simply having all they are gaining their sense of worth from removed, be it
their looks, their mind, their physical skills, their ability to produce wealth
or anything else they gain a sense of worth from.
In fact this is exactly what happens when someone experiences a
tragedy of some sort, such as the loss of a limb, or of their sight, or a job,
or a loved one or anything they had depended on for a sense of value, meaning,
and purpose up to that point but had taken for granted until it was gone. It is
during these times we either become bitter because we believe these were ours
by "right" or we fall face down in humility as Job did acknowledging
God as the giver of these things. We will address this more later on in
the section on pain.
To sum up this part, the basis of our value is threefold.
1. We are valuable by virtue or our being in God
2. We are also valuable if we are God
3. We are valuable when we consciously and willfully reflect
and display God to others. The more we choose to display Him the more
we bring the glory of His person to others and the greater the impact and value
we bring in displaying God. This is unique to His children and occurs most
completely when they trust God and choose Him over their own private pursuits.
The first two are true because of what God did for us. First He
created us in His image and then He redeemed us through the sacrifice of His
Son on our behalf. The last one however
is based on the choices we make as His children. The more we choose to go after
God instead of other things, the more we demonstrate to others God’s value to
us over and above other things thereby bringing attention, glory and honor to
Him. In this practical way we increase our value or worth to God and the
advancement of His Kingdom and as a result we experience more of His blessing
and favor.
We are no more or less loved
by God because of our obedient trust in Him, but we do have greater impact for
Him and therefore make a greater contribution in displaying His worth and
glory. In the very act of doing so we are rewarded. God says when we exalt and
glorify Him; He in turn exalts and glorifies us! When we lift Him up, He lifts
us up. So though it is true there are no conditions on God’s love for us
because they are based on the work of another on our behalf i.e. Christ, there
are conditions we must meet in order for God to work in us and through us and
for us to experience all that God has for us.
Whenever we as His children do not have a sense of worth, we are
in effect saying our estimate of ourselves carries more weight then Gods. This
is nothing more then an expression of our unbelief and unfaithfulness to Him
which is symptomatic of our falleness. It is in fact
the opposite of what it appears to be (it is not humility but an overly high
regard for ourselves) and another expression of our attempt at independence and
trying to make life work without God.
Worst of all it is dishonoring and insulting to God because it
says God doesn’t know what He’s talking about or He is of insignificant worth
and therefore so is His image in us or worse yet, He’s a liar and is only
saying we are important for some ulterior motive and He doesn’t actually value
us. This may not be our conscious thought process but if we reflect upon it we
realize this is in fact what we believe.
The solution to having a poor sense of worth is belief and
action. 1. Believing what God says about us. We are created by Him and as His
children, redeemed by Him. 2. And then
doing what He calls us to do in a way He has designed us to and in a way only
we can do unlike any other of his creatures. God has given each of us unique
ways or gifts by which we can reflect Him to others. And when we exercise these
gifts in faith we in fact can make a unique contribution in a way no one else
can. We can be of unique and immeasurable value to the kingdom if we believe
what He says and act accordingly. The more we reflect Him with the gifts He has
given us, the more we point others to Him and the greater impact we have for
His honor. The greater the impact the greater His favor and blessings will be.
God will certainly accomplish his ends on the earth with us or without us. The
question is do you and I want to be a part of or “get in on” what He’s up to,
or just sit on the sideline buying into the nonsense that our worth is based on
what we or others say or think instead of what God says.
Because of our present state of rebellion to God and His design
for us we, as the human race, are cut off from God, the very person we were
designed to be in relation with. We are now empty and alone and cling to
anything that gives us a sense of meaning or life. We are left to ourselves
desperately trying somehow to make life work in every sphere and thereby
attempting to fill the void left by our separation from our Creator; whether
that is morally, spiritually, emotionally, intellectually or physically.
However this is something that is impossible to do. We can only try to find
life, value, worth apart from or outside of God, (e.g. self worth). But
this is only an attempt since no matter how great our “success” compared to
others, it is a drop on the bucket compared to what God has for us. Since we
were created and designed for God we can only be satisfied
ultimately by, in and through God. Not to mention that the very things we look
to for meaning and purpose are created and sustained by Him as well. This goes
back to what I meant by the opening comment that nothing can satisfy us but
Jesus.
So we have a dilemma. We long to be filled but at the same time
we have rejected and are therefore cut off from the only person that can truly
and completely fill us. We refuse to acknowledge God as our Creator and
sustainer, who is the only One who can fill that void. Instead we
desperately attempt to fill our emptiness by choosing anything we can "get
our hands on” but God. We worship and
serve created things instead of the Creator and therefore God has given us over
to our foolishness. Romans
1:24-26. We will discuss what
occurred at the fall more as we continue.
8. The finite and the
infinite
If we dig deeper we realize our capacity for value must coincide with that
which it can hold, i.e. the infinite God. This means we have an enormous
capacity for love, joy, pleasure etc. simply because God is enormous and He
designed us to experience Him in all His fullness. You see, God’s desire is for
us to experience and reflect Him as much as it is possible for a finite being
to do so. Therefore our capacity must also be infinite or at least as infinite
as the finite (You and I) can possibly be. 10
Keep in mind only God can experience and enjoy Himself to the maximum
extent of his being. But if God desired us to know and experience Him to
the greatest possible extent, our capacity would have to coincide with His
vastness as much as possible while at the same time without our actually
being God Himself. 11 To say it simply God, who is
infinitely vast, desired and therefore designed us so that we might know and
experience Him to the greatest extent possible. Nevertheless, even though we
are in His image and as close to being like God as possible, only the infinite
can truly satisfy an infinite capacity and only a person with infinite capacity
can fully and totally hold, experience and appreciate that which is of infinite
worth. 12 This
simply means, even though we are like God, he alone is God and only He can
experience Himself to the fullest extent of His being. But we are second on the list, if you will.
And the closet second possible.
With that said, this leads to an important conclusion about us
as creatures. If we are designed to hold, carry and display the infinite, all
finite things (the creation, whether that be other creatures or created things)
will always ultimately leave us wanting, empty and longing for more.
This goes a long way in my view of explaining why man is so easily prone to
addiction and how man has the capacity for great evil as well as great good.
The emptiness mankind has within himself is so great (in fact it is as close to
infinite as possible since man was designed to hold and experience the infinite
God Himself) that man, without God, will go to extreme and seemingly infinite
measures to fill it. But he will never do so successfully outside
of God; at least not long term. Only God can fill that capacity for that very
capacity was designed by God for God. Nothing else
can or will fit or satisfy it.
9. Was God’s
original plan thwarted by man’s rebellion?
As we have already stated God needs only Himself in an absolute and real sense
due to Him being God and needing no one or nothing outside Himself. This in
turn is tied to the nature of His being a community that gives and receives
love, value/honor and worth/glory among and between the persons of the Trinity.
In addition God has determined to create other beings like Himself (in His
image) with the capacity to enter into and enjoy this community. This
determination resulted in the creation of mankind as well as the rest of
creation. However man rejected his dependent creature hood or the creator/creature
distinction (and still does to this day) and decided he could make life work
apart from God and His design and has been determined to do so ever since his
rebellion in the Garden of Eden. In short man decided to pursue life outside of
God and sought to become independent of Him (“…you will be like the most High”)
in order to make “life” work or to seek “life” apart from or without God. The
design of God for mankind to enter into the community of the Trinity appears to
have been thwarted by this rebellion and subsequent fall and the separation of
man from his Creator.
However, if God is indeed the all
knowing, all wise, all powerful God He claims to be, His design was not
thwarted at all but is being fulfilled. All the things that have since occurred
and those things yet to occur were a deliberate and necessary part of God
Again man had to be like God as much as possible to experience
God as much as possible. This included man
Adam bought into the lie that he could be like God, i.e.
completely self sustaining and independent, by partaking in the tree of
knowledge of good and evil and thereby decided he no longer needed God for
life. In so doing he failed to recognize his very existence and even his
ability to rebel was given to him by God. Mankind has been on this course of
independence ever since. History and present reality shows man is constantly seeking
to make life work apart from God by any means possible. But this is
accomplished only with fleeting success at best and usually with far worse
results. We see example after example of those who have had tremendous material
or social success which affords them any comfort, recognition or pleasure their
hearts desire and yet they are still incomplete and unfulfilled, constantly
having to go back to that which they use to sustain their sense of meaning,
worth and independence, desperately using any means possible, other then God,
to satisfy the "God hole" within them. Even in those cases where man
has tremendous “success” in this life and appears to be content
he is left to ponder if this life is all there is and may even cling to the
belief this life is “it” in an effort to suppress that desire for something
more deep within them. Through this process they derive some comfort that at
least they are "better off then the next guy."
The truth however is without God, man
is alone in the universe and has no answer to the question of why he exists or
whether there is life after death or is this life all there is. The best man
can ever hope for apart from God is an inadequate, temporary satisfaction with
no answers to what happens after
this life. Even if they feel they have an answer it is one that just doesn
10.
Has God changed?
The essence of God will never change. He is all loving, wise, powerful and
just. As the bible says, He is the same today yesterday, today and forever.
However, by God sending His Son several things truly unique occurred in time
and history that were not true prior to His coming. Even though the essence of
God may be the same, the manifestation of that essence has changed. For
the first time from all eternity past the Father and the Son in some way put
aside the full extent, enjoyment and pleasure of the relationship they had
throughout eternity past, simply by virtue of the Son taking on the form of a
man and setting aside the total fullness of His deity. (see
Philippians 2:6-8, John 17:5 and 1:1,14 ) Unless we understand how vital the
relationship of the Father was with the Son, this will not seem significant.
However if the community/relationship of the Trinity is essential and vital to
God’s very being, then indeed, both the Father and Son set aside something
critical and fundamental to their very essence when the Son came to earth. This
separation became even more acute and complete when the Son took on the
consequence of mankind’s rebellion resulting in the Father turning away from
His son. (Matt. 27:46 "My God, my God, why have you
forsaken me?") At that point the community and relationship
with the Godhead was truly and really severed and to our knowledge the
relationship between the Father and His Son was broken for the first time ever
from eternity past.
God truly gave up in real time that which was vital to His very
being in order that we might share
in the very essence of who He is. In some mysterious (in part because time
is ever present to God) but real way God experienced the loss of that which He
valued most, His Son. And He did so for us! As well the Son experienced
the loss of the love of his Father and indeed became the very object of His
greatest wrath and in some incomprehensible way God (the Son) actually died.
Even to this day the Son is somehow different now then He had been throughout
eternity past. In what ways we may never fully comprehend (certainly not in
this life) but we get a hint of this when Jesus returns after the resurrection
and shows the scars in his hand and
side. Christ did not have the permanent form of a man prior to the incarnation
as he does today, as evidenced by those scars. And the scripture says when he
returns people will say, "Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every
eye will see him, even those who pierced him..." Rev. 1:7, suggesting he even now bares those
scares (also indicated by his showing them to Thomas after he resurrected) and
may very well throughout eternity, if for no other reason then as a reminder
every time we look upon Him of what it took for us to be present with Him in
eternity.
11. God by His own design and choice "needs
us" in order to experience Himself fully again.
There is also another vital change that occurred within the
person (not the essence) of God by His
design and choice. He purposely disrupted that complete and perfect union and
love within the Trinity in order to allow others to enter into and participate
in that glorious community which is God. The significance of this is that
presently not all who will enter in have yet
done so. Until those God has designed to join in His love enter in, the
constant uninterrupted love He had from all eternity past is not at this
present time totally complete and in some mysterious sense will continue
incomplete until all God has
designed to enter into that community do so. Why? Since God chose to share His
love with us it was necessary for
God to break the circle of love within the Trinity as children in a circle
might unlock hands to allow others to join in and play. The necessity wasn’t
from need but choice; a choice to share the joy and fullness of Himself with
us. He did this freely, but He also did this really and truly. This was not
some symbolic gesture but a real severing of something vital within His very
being. (Otherwise why would Christ have cried out in agony, “My God, My God,
why have your forsaken me”) This was and is a real and true sacrifice by God
the Father as well as God the Son. The very God of the universe gave up that
which He valued above all things (His Son and the uninterrupted union,
fellowship and community of His Son from eternity past along with the love and
joy of it) in order that we
might share in what He had (yes, He loves us that much!!!) and will again have but in some mysterious way
doesn
*(It could be argued that since the number of those who will
eventually join in this union is already decided, the union is actually
complete as far as God is concerned i.e. in His mind. However just as something
real occurred in the incarnation of Christ (though already complete in the mind
of God) so too those coming to Christ who have not already come is also a real
occurrence. Since we are touching the fringe of the garments of the infinite;
this is only a feeble attempt of the finite to grasp the infinite within the
boundaries of scripture. )
It may be argued that to insure this complete reuniting of the
Godhead again there had to be a certainty of it occurring. Something of
such magnitude and so fundamental to God’s being would not be left to chance.
The surety of God’s “reunion” could only be guaranteed if it was determined
that all who were intended to enter in to the community of God would in fact do
so while at the same time giving those creatures real choice. This is an
infinite concept of which the finite, you and I, can not now fully grasp. A
mystery of man
But even in our finite understanding there is God
So there is a sense in which God presently acts out of need, but
it is not a need for us but a need for Himself.
What makes God independent is the inter dependence of the Trinity. And it is
the perfect giving and receiving of value/worth/glory within the Trinity that
gives God the greatest joy and pleasure. But by His choice and design, he has
temporarily disrupted that inter dependence along with the complete fullness of
the love and joy of it in order to allow others to share in it. And by
our sharing in it we reflect back to God that love and glory that originates
within Him alone. God was simply so happy, joyful, and full of love, that He
longed for others to know and experience what He had been experiencing within
the Godhead from all eternity. The overflowing joy, love and delight in communing
and being united within Himself. Now, the
reuniting and the fullness of the flow of God’s love again, by His choice
and design require our union with Him. So by His design we are now a part
of His experiencing Himself fully and perfectly again. The end result is not
just our rejoicing in Gods perfect and complete love but in His
rejoicing in it again (“Father, glorify me in your presence with
the glory I had with you before the world began)
and our rejoicing in it along with Him. This will be the ongoing celebration
throughout eternity beginning at the wedding feast of God.
The wonder of God’s perfect plan is truly beyond our
understanding. Praise Him for He is full of wonder! To Him be all worth and
majesty both now and for all eternity, for from Him, through Him, and to Him
are all things. To Him be the glory!
In summary when we think about how God made us exactly as we are
so we would best be able to commune with Him; to love Him and to be loved by
Him most, we had to be like Him as much as possible while at the same time
still dependent creatures. And the way man turned out from the creation to the
fall to procreation to the present state of rebellion (a choice) with all the
suffering and pain it has caused is all part of God’s perfect overall plan to
bring about our greatest possible union with Him and His greatest possible
glory. This is God’s goal; that we might know and experience Him as He
experiences Himself as much as is possible for created beings to do so. In
order for that to occur I would suggest every aspect of how things have
occurred and will occur is the deliberate design of God toward that end. Nothing is an accident
or by chance, but deliberate and purposeful. Every aspect of how we were
created, our ability to doubt God, to rebel, fall, and the consequent suffering
to mankind and the rest of creation were all necessary and intentional, to
satisfy this overriding reason for our existence, which is for as many as
possible to be conformed to the image of His Son as much as possible in order
that we come to know and experience all that God is to the greatest extent
possible. In short man’s rebellion and fall along with the consequent pain and
suffering and God’s redemption of man was not God’s backup plan to a messed up
original plan but was the original plan from eternity past in order for God to
achieve this end. All things occur in order for us to enjoy and appreciate God
in all His love, joy, splendor and glory to the greatest degree possible. Of
course this is only the reasoning and speculation of a finite mind within the
boundaries of scripture and no doubt falls far short of fullness of one of the
greatest mysteries of God.
12. Which is God
This brings us to an even deeper issue regarding God
Col. 1:16 For by him all things were
created: things in heaven and on earth…all things were created by him and for
him.
Heb.
Prov. 16: 4 The LO
Aren
If God created us to know Him and in turn experience Him to the
greatest extend possible and He is in fact the all supreme, all sustaining God,
the primary cause of all things created, would it not make sense that our
greatest joy would be in knowing Him and in that knowing, discovering Him to be
the all glorious reason for our existence? And in turn wouldn
There are several ways to say this. If we experience God to the
highest extent possible this is our greatest good, our
greatest delight and our greatest end and exalts
God at the same time. Our experiencing and
delighting in God in all His vastness “shows off” God to be the all glorious
person that He is. We in turn exalt God
Jonathan Edwards says it this way,
"Because [God]
infinitely values his own glory, consisting in the knowledge of himself, love to himself, and complacence (1. Contented self-satisfaction. 2. Total lack of concern.) and
joy in himself; he therefore valued the [His] image, communication or
participation of these, in the creature. And it is because he values himself,
that he delights in the knowledge, and love, and joy of the creature; as being
himself the object of this knowledge, love and *complacence… [Thus]
God’s respect to the creature’s good, and his respect to himself, is not a
divided respect; but both are united in one, as the happiness of the creature
aimed at, is happiness in union with himself." 12
Part of what Edwards is saying is because we are created in God
Elsewhere Edwards says,
"God in seeking
his glory seeks the good of his creatures, because the emanation (coming or
sending forth from a source e.g. "the light emanates from the lamp")
of his glory (which He seeks and delights in, as He delights in Himself and His
own eternal glory) implies the communicated excellency and happiness of His creatures. And in
communicating His fullness for them, He does it for Himself, because their
good, which He seeks, is so much in union and communion with Himself. God is their good. Their excellency and happiness is
nothing but the emanation and expression of God
In another place he says,”...he (God) demonstrates that the
chief and ultimate end of the Supreme Being, in the works of creation and
providence, was the manifestation of his own glory in the highest happiness of his creatures.” And in another place,
"The end of the creation is that the creation might glorify [God]. Now
what is glorifying God, but a rejoicing
at that glory he has displayed?" "The happiness of the creature
consists in rejoicing in God,
by which also God is magnified and
exalted." (emphasis mine)
C.S. Lewis also adds to this when he said, "I think we delight to praise
what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the
enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation." 15
What Edwards, Piper, Augustine as well as Lewis are saying is
our greatest good is God Himself and the way we can bring Him the most glory is
to discover Him as our greatest good. When we discover God to be the all
powerful, wise and loving God on our behalf we exalt Him as being such and
display Him in this same way to others. Again, God is glorified most when we
are satisfied in Him most. In summary our greatest good and God
Section II
=========================================
Why are we in such pain?
(An anatomy of pain)
======================================
In addressing the question of pain in this following section I
wish to acknowledge my appreciation to Dr. Larry Crabb.
If you have read any of his work you will likely recognize his influence in my
thinking in this next section. If you have not, I highly recommend you do;
particularly anything from his book “Understanding People” up through his most
current works, though all his works are excellent. His books can be found at http://www.newwayministries.org.
I also wish to acknowledge my appreciation to Dr. John
Piper. His influence is more evident in the first and third sections, but it is
equally present and evident in all parts of this book. His book
"Desiring God" was the first of many of his books I read which played
a crucial impact on my life and thinking during a difficult time on my life. I
haven
I have concluded these two men have addressed different sides of
the same coin of knowing God. Crabb’s strength,
coming from the field of psychology, is more on his exceptional insight into
the inner workings of human nature and mans dilemma. Piper’s strength, as a
theologian, is more on his insight into greatness of God and the solution to
that dilemma. Both make unique and important contributions to knowing God from
their respective fields of study. I am a far better man as a result of
reading both of these authors. If reading this book does nothing more then
encourage you to pick up the works of either of these men then writing this
will have been more then a worthwhile effort.
I also wish to acknowledge and thank Professor James “Buck”
Hatch, who taught at
Points
covered in this section are:
What is pain but simply the absence
of pleasure? We often think of pain as the presence
or experience of “something painful” and refer to that experience as causing
pain or being painful. But in this section I wish to show that in fact pain is
the constant and very ongoing state of our being and it is the absence or loss
of the good gifts of God that merely exposes our underlying, ever present state
of pain.
This problem of pain also raises the question of what gives us
the most pleasure. Knowing the answer
to these questions is the key to understanding pain as well as understanding
the very reason we exist.
Before we start let us briefly review what has already been
covered in the first part of this book; we were created by God, for God. In
other words our purpose for existence is to *know God to the greatest extent
possible and is so doing, make Him known. We are not just to know Him
intellectually but at every level. We were designed to know Him as a person and
therefore personally. This in turn requires that we know what God is like. What
“makes Him tick” if you will. Until we understand and know God we can not
understand ourselves, why we exist but also more specifically how both of these
issues relate to why we experience pain. For a more in depth discussion of
knowing God as a person you may find a review of the first part of this book
helpful.
*The Westminster Confession says the chief
end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. I agree. The ultimate end
of all things is to bring honor and glory to God. But I also believe the
writers of the confession understood and believed in order to glorify and enjoy
God we must know Him first. Glorifying God is the ultimate end but knowing God
first is the necessary means to that end. In stating this as I have I am
suggesting that in order to glorify God we must first know Him intimately. The
greater we know Him the better we will glorify Him.
Pain, an event or a condition?
We can not really understand pain unless we first understand
that pain is not caused by
something that happens to us but
rather it is something we feel due to
something lost or missing. We usually feel pain when something or someone
is either taken from us or because we failed
to obtain something we greatly
desired. We feel pain when we experience the absence or loss of an important
person, relationship, ability or some “toy” or anything else we use to bring us comfort and pleasure.
But what is really missing, what is
it that is really the cause of pain?
Think through with me what happens when we “feel” pain in its
various forms. It may not always feel like pain but rather emotions’ ranging
from boredom to reactions such as frustration, fear, anxiety, and anger to
outright anguish or despair, even to the point of considering suicide. These
are all clues that we are experiencing pain at some level. For a more obvious example, if we are
competitive and lose some sort of contest or game we desperately desired to win
or even worse, we lose our ability to compete itself, or if we are rich in some
way, whether materially or talent wise and that richness is lost or taken away
either through some accident or by the ill intent of another, or if we lose a
very important loved one through death or divorce, and so on the list can go,
what do we feel? (These are examples of emotional pain. But in the physical
realm, if we loose good health, a gift from God, we usually experience physical
pain.) While going through the pain of a newly experienced absence of something
or someone, aren’t we really experiencing the exposure of the true state of our beings? Yes, we certainly feel loss and often excruciating ache
when these events occur; but why? What are we feeling the loss of? Is the loss
of things and persons, or whatever it is that has evoked and exposed our pain,
the real reason we are in pain? Or is there something else going on far more
basic and far deeper?
I would suggest that when we peel away the surface layers and
get down to the bedrock of our being, what we are feeling is really the exposure of our true underlying
condition or state. And that is the state of separation from God whom we are
designed for and in fact are totally dependent on (even though we rarely
acknowledge this dependence). We are only more or less aware of this lost and painful condition depending on our
circumstances at any given time i.e. when things are “good” or pleasant we are
happy and when things are “bad” or hard we are not. In order not to feel this
underlying state of pain we are in, we don’t turn to the only person we were
designed to find completeness in. Instead we have stubbornly, skillfully and
subtly learned to use whatever is
most readily available to give us the most pleasure or comfort in order that we
might anesthetize our underlying painful condition. 17b
The greater the gifts we have at our disposal to numb that pain, the less we
feel it. The less those gifts are available to us, the more we feel it. But it isn’t in fact the absence of these
gifts that cause our pain. The
absence of those created things we have grown to depend on only brings this
painful state to the surface and to our awareness. The pain was there all along.
To better understand this we must again remind ourselves that we
are designed by God and for God. Therefore we are totally dependent on God in
everyway, be it physical, spiritual or emotional. We have rebelled against the
true nature of our dependence on God (that we are creatures and He is the
creator) and as a result we are in a desperate state of seeking anything other
then God to fill it. The more successful we are at finding things to replace God, the less we feel that
separation with its consequent pain.
To add to this and complicate things further, whatever we use, whether it is a thing or a person,
we rarely recognize it for what it truly is, a gift from God, thereby missing the real reason and message behind
that gift that God loves us. Instead we often use these created things as
substitutes for God without any acknowledgement to God of His providing them. I
would suggest everything we seek in this life (unless sought specifically to
further God’s Kingdom and glory) is used as substitutes to fill the void of our
separation from our Creator, even by those who have trusted in Christ’s
sacrificial death on our behalf. It isn’t until and unless we are reconnected
to God in such a significant way that we are whole enough again to enjoy these
gifts for what they truly are and not cling to them in hope they will give us
something only He along can. The more
connected we are, the more we are able to enjoy them properly and the more
willing God is to freely give them to us.
On the other hand, the more we look to and depend on these to
fill the emptiness caused by our separation from our Creator, the less they
satisfy us. Yet, at the same time the more we turn from God the more we must
have them and the tighter we hold onto them. The tighter we hold on to things
the more it hurts when they are lost or taken from us. In the physical world,
if something is held loosely it doesn’t hurt as much when it’s removed from our
hands. But the tighter something is held the more force is required to remove
it and the greater the pain we feel when it is removed.
If what we hold onto keeps us from finding what is best for us,
or eventually results in our harm, to remove it is a loving act. This is true
on both the emotional and spiritual level.
When we go through great pain the first reaction of many is to blame
God. However the greatness of our pain has more to do with our underlying
fallen condition which we are seeking to numb through misuse of God’s creation
rather than an indifferent and uncaring God. In fact God allows us to go
through pain for the very opposite reason we usually suspect. He allows us to
experience pain so that we might recognize it is Him we are missing and turn to
Him and find in Him what He alone can give us and not to these other things we
depend on. I believe all pain ultimately comes with this loving intend and
design behind it. The greater the pain we experience the greater the
opportunity for God to comfort us and the greater the evidence of God’s love
for us. But to benefit from God’s love we must choose to receive painful events
as they are intended. If we do not combine our painful experience with faith,
these experiences will only embitter us. We will look at faith more in depth
later.
When our hearts are so tightly wrapped around things or persons
other then God, there is no place for God to dwell within and commune with us
i.e. created things have become that which we cherish and value above God. In
short they have become what we grow to depend on for life other then God. We
seek them, cherish them, depend on them and as a result we desperately fear
losing them and live the balance of our lives expending our energy (also a gift
from God) in maintaining and preserving them. In turn we cling to them. They
become our focus, our very life. They become little gods to us if you will; our
idols. Even though the things we value today appear more sophisticated then the
idols of the OT, the bible still calls this idol worship i.e. placing something
before us that we value and depend on for life more then God and apart from
Him. We worship these because they are worth
more to us and we value them more
then we value God.
A large part of our problem is this internal battle of being
connected to God or to things is a never ending struggle we are rarely fully
aware of until we lose those things we depend on for “life” other then God. God
however knows our true heart and why we do what we do. We only think we know.
He is always working in our lives according to His wise and true understanding
of how we operate. And God is always working to expose our attachments to
created things and our disconnectedness to Him in order that connection with
Him might be restored or increased. Our fallen condition is so complete;
cherishing the creation above their Creator feels normal and o.k. The earth is
rich in things that are useful and enjoyable so why not use them, we conclude.
Everyone else does, so why shouldn’t I.
All these add to our not seeing the danger or harm in living our lives
in this ultimately destructive manner. These issues only confirm further how
desperate our true condition really is. How strong the hold created things have
on us and yet how subtle. We are so blind we don’t realize how blind we are.
Yet intuitively (I suggest this occurs only by God’s Spirit) we sense something
is wrong; something is missing; and most particularly when we are “in pain.” To
understand these things more clearly, we need to take a closer look at why we
are in the state we are in.
Why is separation from God painful?
We have already stated that experiencing pain is simply being
made aware of something missing or lost? But what is it more specifically we
have lost? On the emotional level it is a loss of our own sense of value,
meaning or importance; a sense that we are not loved or lovable. But at the
deepest level, our spiritual core if you will, this is in fact due to our
separation from full communion with our Creator. In truth, as we have already
suggested, it is God Himself we are missing? But why does separation from our
Creator create this sense of worthlessness and therefore pain?
If He is the one we were made to commune with and in whom alone
we truly experience the complete and never-ending fulfillment of our
value, meaning and purpose, then it makes sense that to lose the one
relationship from which we derive these things and which alone can truly
satisfy this need, would result in a constant state of pain. To feel worthless,
to have no meaning and purpose to our existence is not what we were designed
for and therefore not a pleasant condition but a state we seek to avoid at all
costs. We are driven to fill the void created by our missing Creator; the true
lover and only satisfier of our heart and soul.
But why is He is missing? Simply stated it is because we, as the
human family, had a deep and vital personal relationship with Him at one time
but lost it. Knowing and being in
relationship with Him was why we were created, and why we exist and originally
what made our “world go around” if you will. The loss of that relationship was
of ultimate significance and greater then any loss we can now experience; a
loss not totally unlike someone prematurely loosing a spouse whom they deeply
loved but are now left with the deep ache and emptiness of the memory of that
lost love. However the loss of God is on a much greater scale and to a much
greater extend and far deeper then any earthly love while at the same time not completely
unlike it either. These lesser losses are only a shadow and reflection of the
loss of God. That original loss was so great we now desperately avoid the ache
of it in ways we aren’t even aware of. In addition, we just don’t recognize it
is God Himself we have lost. (This brings to mind the old saying that “time
heals all wounds.” Does it really? I would suggest time doesn’t actually heal
anything but only allows us to find new and different ways to anesthetize and
reduce the memory of the pain of the original loss).
The fact is, whether we acknowledge it or not, we are dependent
creatures created by our all wise, loving, powerful and sustaining Creator for
a relationship with Him who alone satisfies us at the core of our being. The
real problem is our rebellion from
this dependence and our desire to be independent of God (…if you eat of the
tree you will be like God… In ways
God never intended, I would add). Our true and most significant problem isn’t
our pain but our ongoing denial of dependence on our Creator God
i.e. the denial of our creature hood. In our denial we live as if we are
independent, self sufficient beings; able to obtain only what God can give us.
This is the very belief our first parents bought into and the direction they
chose to take and which we now take as well.
Depending on how much God has blessed us, we can “get away” with
this denial for a time. That is why Paul says of those He calls to Himself, “Not many of you
were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble
birth…” 18 The more
blessed we are the more blessings we have available to us to maintain a false
sense of independence from God. Many of us get away with this our whole lives
until God intervenes through some circumstance; often a painful one, or event
or person that causes us to turn back to Him in the original relationship He
designed us for. It is this denial of dependence that pain is intended to expose. But in our stubborn
rebellion, we refuse to see it.
The reality is if we don’t eventually turn to God we will not
continue in our present state of denial forever. Ultimately the denial of our
dependence can no longer be lived out. The reality of our true condition will
become undeniable but unfortunately for most when it’s too late to do anything
about it i.e. after we have left this present existence where we have the opportunity
to humbly acknowledge our dependence on God.
Not
just any relationship will do
When it comes to relationship we have all heard the saying, “it
is better to have loved and lost then to have never loved at all”. 19
There is some truth in this and there is something about us that longs so
deeply for love we are willing to risk loosing it, in order
to experience it. And those of us who “fall in love” for the first time marvel
at feeling something we have never felt before. Something deep inside us is
touched that stirs us in a new and powerful way. So much so that we don’t ever
want to loose that feeling but in fact want even more and we want it to never end. Once aroused our desire for
love is endless and insatiable. Often for the first time we feel a longing that
is so strong it even aches. And when we do loose it, (and we always do to some
extend, since what was stirred can only ultimately be satisfied by the infinite
God Himself and not someone finite) we may painfully recall and replay that
“lost love” we once had. Some even
divorce because of this, always looking for that rush of an ideal and new
relationship again; a kind of relationship “junky” if you will. (Elizabeth
Taylor comes to mind but certainly not the only example of this) “The love just
isn’t there like it used to be” we might say, using that as justification for
leaving a “boring” marriage. However, though having a good marriage is
important and something we should diligently pursue, often the real and
underlying issue of a “boring” marriage is a disconnection with God first which
results in a disconnection with our spouse.
We have also all heard of that person, or in fact my be or have
been that person at one time, who is afraid to love again for fear of reawaking something inside so powerful that we
don’t ever want to feel the pain of not being able to fill that powerful
longing or of having love lost or taken from us again.
Both of the above scenarios are in fact the flip side of the
same coin. The first focuses on the hope
of never ending love and the second on the fear of loss of that love and losing it again. In either case we long for
the same thing; never ending love. Though we may not give it much thought until
we “fall in love”, we know in our hearts we desperately need to love and be
loved but not just any love; a love that will never end. Unfortunately we rarely stop to ask why we are we this
way and where does this comes from?
In fact we were and are designed for a lasting, unbroken, uninterrupted relationship of giving and
receiving love, importance and value. Not just any relationship will do
however. We were created for a relationship with our inexhaustibly deep, multi faceted, infinitely
powerful, eternal and incomprehensibly beautiful Creator; a relationship of
never-ending and unbroken love and communion. But why are we designed this way?
As discussed in the first part of this book, we are made in the image of God so
we might best enter in to communion with Him, which means we were designed for
a relationship that is a reflection and extension of the overflow, love and
value within the community of the Triune God. The same dynamic and energy that
binds and energizes the very being of God is in us; placed there by God Himself
at our creation and later reawakened when His Spirit came to live within us at
our new birth. We are created by God and for God; an infinite person of never
ending strength, love and beauty. And
then we are “recreated” at our new birth for a restored relationship with Him
that was lost due to our rebellion.
All other relationships outside of this original one with our
Creator are only a faint reflection of that eternal relationship that exists
within the Triune God Himself. Out of
the Triune community of love and glory comes the
secondary relationship between God and humanity which is also an extension and
reflection of that original relationship between the persons of the Trinity. As
the greatest commandment tells we are to love God with all our heart and second
commandment is like it which is to love each other. And why does God say this
is not only a commandment but the greatest one? 23
Because it reflects why we were created and the highest purpose of
our existence, to love and be loved by God.
In our constant longing for pleasure and beauty, usually sought
from and experienced through another finite individual, (though sometimes
through inanimate things) we are actually longing for God Himself, the ultimate
being who is the never ending pleasure and beauty we seek in everything
else. We simply rarely recognize this, if at all. As
Now in our present state of separation from our Creator we are
longing for what we use to have as
sons and daughters of Adam. It is a longing for paradise lost and the
restoration of our original condition. The greater our awareness of that
longing, often through the loss of those things we depend on other then God,
the more it hurts. And the more it hurts the more we can come in contact with
our true condition and why we are here and what it is we need. Again the end and intent behind the pain is
our good and not our harm or destruction as we think.
The
depth of our pain tied directly to our capacity for pleasure and God’s
greatness
Doesn’t our ability to experience pain to such great depths say
something very significant about our capacity
for pleasure? And doesn’t this great capacity also say something significant
about what it takes to fill it? Capacity must match the object that capacity is
designed to hold in order for that capacity to be filled. The greater the object, the greater the
capacity must be. While at the same time, the greatness of the capacity tells
us something important about the greatness of the object. I suggest that our great pain and as well as our capacity
and desire for great pleasure are directly tied to our being designed for the
greatest joy and pleasure in the entire universe. And that is nothing less then
a relationship with the highest, most loving, wise, powerful and giving of all
beings, God Himself. Our experiencing of great pain is only an indication of
our being designed for great pleasure. Not just any pleasure but the ultimate
never ending pleasure of knowing the God who is behind all the beauty and gifts
which we enjoy daily. If we find the
gifts so beautiful and become enthralled with them, how much more beautiful the
Creator of those gifts must be.
Who would best be able to love and experience God to the
greatest extent possible in all the fullness of His power, splendor, majesty
and glory? Wouldn’t it be God Himself? And this is exactly what occurs within
the Trinity. Now consider why God created us? Wasn’t it so we too could experience Him to the greatest
extent possible in all his fullness, splendor and glory, not unlike God
experiences Himself? We get a hint of this in the greatest commandment to love
the Lord our God with our heart, soul, mind and strength. In order for us to
love and experience God in the same way and to the same extent He experiences
Himself, what must we be like? Like Him
or to use a biblical description, in His image, in every way possible while at
the same time not actually being God, (there is only one God, one Creator, and
one Sustainer). I suggest that our being designed to know and experience
God to the fullest extent possible, just like He knows and
experiences Himself, is at the heart of everything that has and will
transpire regarding man’s creation and existence. Not just throughout this life
but throughout eternity as well. And in this life, due to our rebellion and
subsequent separation from the Creator, that includes and involves pain.
Our knowing and experiencing and enjoying God in all His
splendor, majesty and beauty and in turn glorifying Him as such, is the
ultimate truth and cause behind every action of God toward us as well as toward
all the rest of creation. This is the central truth and motive behind the
creation of man, the fall of man, the struggle and suffering of man, the
bondage of creation, the redemption of man as well as creation and the ultimate
glorification of man. It is to know God in all the fullness of every facet of
His being, His love, wisdom, power, justice, beauty and majesty to the greatest
possible extent for in so doing we bring Him the greatest honor and glory. If
that is His goal, and we believe it is, then anything and everything that moves us toward that end is a loving
action by God toward us. Even the painful loss of those temporary things we
hold near and dear.
Knowing this to be true we can say along with Paul in II Cor. 4:10 and following, “We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life
of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11For we who are alive
are always being given over to death for Jesus
And what is that unseen eternal glory that His children are
promised one day that is great enough to enable us to endure any present loss,
no matter how hard or how painful and worthy of our pursuit, if not God
Himself? Only God could be worth such a pursuit and such “sacrifice.”
Pain, good or bad?
In our natural state we are inclined
to see pain only as a bad thing. Certainly death, destruction and loss are not
good in and of themselves. And in truth much of our pain exists not by God’s
original design but only because of our rejection of Him at one level or
another.
(there is suffering however that is
not tied to sin at all as indicated in Heb 5:8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. 9 And being made perfect, he
became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him… Christ being sinless certainly did
not experience his suffering due to any sin on his part)
But because of God’s goodness and grace there is always
potential for good in our suffering. Dashed hopes and frustrated efforts can
often leave us wondering if there is a real and lasting fulfillment in the
things we seek and hold on to. They can cause us to reflect on whether we were
designed for something more, something greater. That wondering is good because
it can help us to reevaluate the legitimacy of our current pursuits and cause
us to ask whether our pursuits give us what we really are longing for and if
they really satisfy us at the deepest level. And it often isn’t until we
experience pain at the deepest level that we realize that created things, no
matter what form they come in, will not sustain us and are
not ultimately what we want or need. They don’t satisfy us at the deepest level
and never can. But often it isn’t until we are in the greatest pain and at the
most desperate points of our life that we began to understand this. The things
we depend on may comfort us for a season as long as things “go well” but
ultimately they come up short when things “go wrong” and the gifts of life are
gone, be it by our inability to reach them or some external circumstance
blocking or even taking them away. When this occurs we are left desperately
empty at best or reeling in desperate and excruciating pain at worst.
But as already suggested we have a dilemma. On the one hand we
desperately need God but in our fallen state, (even as His children) we do not
recognize it is Him we need or least not the full extent to which we need Him
and therefore do not reach out to God for comfort but instead to whatever we
can most easily “get our hands on” that gives us the most immediate comfort or relief for the moment. Be it drugs, sex,
entertainment, food, or whatever you wish to fill in the blank with. The list
can be endless because the greatness of our void is so vast and the
availability of God’s **gifts so abundant. And in our most painful times when
nothing eases our pain we often get angry and sometimes bitter. In many cases
this leads to depression, a common malady among us humans. Feeling pain, anger,
and depression of course is not pleasant, so again if we stubbornly refuse to
turn to God, we fall into this cycle of experiencing pain, then seeking
whatever we can find to help us avoid
that pain. When we are not successful in avoiding it in our usual ways, we seek
something new which helps us ease
the pain we are in. Our life becomes a vicious cycle and mad pursuit of either
relief from pain or the pursuit of comfort. And we continue in this pattern
unless and until God intervenes or we call out to Him to intervene. Otherwise
we “successfully” find something else to comfort us, but only for the short
term with our long term existence continuing in our state of pain without God
or the creature comforts we now enjoy.
(All of what I describe above is especially true in our American
culture. This also explains why many in
In our fallen state of rebellious independence we usually do not
call out to God but instead reach only for those things that do not require us
to trust or depend on God to obtain. We have found that things are easier to
control and manipulate then another person, especially God, the ultimate
person, who is controlled by no one. And if we can’t control Him, then our
choice is to either trust Him or reject Him and find someone or something else
that we have some control over to fill the void. The fact that He controls all
things and everything depends on Him for its very existence doesn’t sit well
with us in our rebellious condition of wanting to sustain our own lives without
Him.
**When I speak of the gifts of God I am including all that makes
up our person as well such as our eyes that allow us to behold beauty, our ears
that allow us to hear the sounds of this world, our ability to smell, taste and
touch or be touched; our mind to ponder these things. The time itself we have
to use all of these gifts as well as whatever health we may experience just to
name some of the main ones. I list these because we don’t normally consider
these as gifts since most of us have been in possession of them all our
existence. The amazing and sad part is we often don’t even think of these as
gifts until they are gone.
Pain; a bad thing or a state of being?
On one level we are right about something being wrong with pain.
We were not designed for pain and for those of us who have been forgiven and
had our relationship restored with our Creator through Christ’s work for us; we
will one day no longer experience pain. As scripture says, there will be no
more tears. The issue however isn’t the legitimacy or illegitimacy of pain or
the desire to avoid it but rather what are we designed for and how is pain
legitimately addressed when we experience it.
As already stated, pain is the result of our separation from
God. This separation is simply the present state of our existence and pain is
simply the consequence of that separation. Since we were designed by God and
for God it is not the original state we were created for. Our problem however
is not the pain itself but our not seeing the true reason it exists and
responding accordingly. If we do not see our true state and why we are in pain;
that ultimately God Himself is the reason we exist and separation from Him is
why we are in pain, we will not turn to Him for the solution but instead
continue to cling to things that sustain our independence from Him. This may
work for a “season” but ultimately will result in our going into eternity
without God as well as without all the gifts we now enjoy.
Again pain is not so much the presence of something painful but
the absence of someone beautiful; not just anything or anyone, but God himself;
the Creator and Sustainer of all things and the very reason for our existence. In truth every time we
experience pain it can and should be a reminder that something is very much out
of kilter; something is terribly wrong; something vital is missing. In our
rebellious unbelief however we, by choice, refuse to recognize it is God that
is missing and attempt to replace God with anything we can find to give us
relief. To use a biblical characterization, we have all turned away; everyone
to his own way.
Let us use a physical analogy to illustrate this. Our bodies
must have food and not just any food, but food that consists of all the
essential groups that science and the health industry has long ago confirmed
are vital for normal bodily function and health. These consist of fats,
proteins and carbohydrates that are rich in nutrients. If we do not have these,
what happens eventually, regardless of how good the nutrient deficient food
tastes? We break down, get sick and eventually die. Imagine living only on
candy. It may have a certain appeal for a time but we all know the outcome;
loss of good health (which likely includes our teeth) and eventually premature
loss of life. Now let’s translate that to the spiritual realm. We are not just
physical, as much as secular humanists say otherwise. (Even they recognize
“emotional pain” even though logically it doesn’t fit in their world view). So
when we stop and think about these things, we must ask ourselves how anyone can
function properly in the spiritual realm on something other then what it was
designed for. Substitutes may work for a time but because that was not the
original design, things eventually break down and stop functioning at some
point. In the case of the spiritual realm this is spiritual death.
Pain itself is not so much good or
bad but simply the result of our current state of separation from our Creator.
A state we stubbornly refuse to acknowledge. Our refusal to acknowledge this is
our true problem, not our pain. How we respond to this separation with its
consequent pain determines whether it will aid us in finding God or hinder us.
When pain is “combined with faith” it drives us to God. Without faith in God it
drives us away from Him to other things or people. Of course if pain is an aid
or means in causing us to come back to God that is good. So pain like
everything else can be an aid in our finding God or a hindrance. Faith is the
difference and key. We will discuss faith more fully in the last section.
We deserve better and
Instead of addressing the root of our pain, i.e. the separation
from our Creator, and acknowledging the need to be reunited with our Maker, we
self medicate. This process is so much a part of how our world operates that
often even we, as His children, don’t even stop to question whether it’s a
legitimate way to handle pain. We simply buy into the worlds lie and assume a
pain free existence is our birthright. After all, we live in
20 If this is our belief we will usually become angry when we are
in pain because we believe we are being denied what is rightfully ours. On the flip side of this, if we become angry as a
result of pain, this is a clue that we in fact hold to this belief at the core
of our being. In our anger we are doing nothing more then demanding whatever is
“causing” the pain to stop or change. At our deepest level when we are
experiencing our greatest pain, if we believe God exists at all, we sense that
God is the only one that can “fix things.” So in our anger we are in essence
saying to God, I deserve a pain free existence and you God, need, no ought to do something about this and
fix it, and do it now! We don’t just
expect relief, we demand it! And
then we ask why, when we don’t get it. The greater our pain the more we demand
relief. Our anger is only a symptom and indication of this deeply held and
embedded belief that God owes us a pain free
existence. It is our right and we deserve better, and we deserve it
Of course this isn’t usually our experience at the conscious level. Usually we get angry at
whatever is keeping us from what we seek, such as another person or some event
that obstructs us from reaching what we desire. Nevertheless we have bought
into this idea that we should not experience pain for any reason. Pain is not only bad, it is wrong and we have a right to a comfort filled, pain free
existence. (so much so that this has become the “war
cry” of certain political philosophies) And God is wrong not to give us such an
existence. We want paradise restored and we want it here and we want, no, we
expect and demand it now! We want heaven right now and right here on earth, not
later. 21
If we take a moment we realize how arrogant this really is. Job
characterizes this problem clearly in Job 35:
9 "Men
cry out under a load of oppression;
they plead for relief from the arm of the powerful.
10 But no one says,
who gives songs in the night,
11 who teaches more
to us than to the beasts of the earth
and makes us wiser than the birds of the
air?
12 He does not
answer when men cry out
because
of the arrogance of the wicked.
13 Indeed, God does
not listen to their empty plea;
the Almighty pays no attention to it.
Emphasis mine.
The above is a penetrating passage for it gets to the heart of
our problem. We don’t truly want or seek God when we are oppressed in hardship
and suffering, we want relief i.e.
the things that give us such. And because this is what we are really after
when we cry out to God, we are puzzled and dumbfounded when He doesn’t respond
to our demands and pleas and we whine when God doesn’t “hear us.” Often we
simply get angry at God and use His non response as proof that He doesn’t
really love me and can’t be trusted because He doesn’t answer my prayers. If he
really loved me, we reason, He would give me what I want, He would let up and
ease my suffering. (Now say this is with the voice of a 3 year old wanting
candy and you get the idea of what we may sound like to God when this is our
attitude). This reveals the true nature of our pleas and where they come from.
Not from a heart of grateful dependence, but from a heart of arrogant
independence. As James says, we have not because we ask not and when we do we
ask with wrong motives i.e. for our own pleasure. Therefore God ignores such
cries. What a tyrant He must be (tongue firmly planted in cheek).
We don’t seek God unless we understand the truth nature of our
condition and why it exists. To experience God’s ignoring our pleas seems harsh
and even cruel when we are going through overwhelming pain. Added to this is
the constant programming of our thinking by the world system that tells us we
shouldn’t and don’t need to experience such harsh pain. We are told and agree
that we deserve better!
In addition to these is the assistance of that great
counterfeiter and deceiver, Satan himself. His ultimate goal is to keep us from
seeing and honoring God and he allures us with the good and very gifts of God
Himself and promises us a sense of purpose, meaning or comfort through
unlimited forms (remember the temptation of Christ in the wilderness?) to keep
us from seeking God instead. He tells us along with the world, “if you are in
pain try this, or try that” Of course with every solution, whether it be drugs,
sex or whatever else we use to get a quick fix for our pain, there are always
consequences or “side effects.” Most are
long term hiding the impact of our choices for a time but some are not.
If we think about it, what is the appeal of virtually every
commercial? At some level they all offer us comfort, pleasure, happiness,
importance, purpose, love and quickly (gratification is no longer adequate. We
want instant gratification. What a
sad commentary on our culture) and on and on it goes, through the products or
services being promoted. Sometimes the appeal is to convenience and 22 ease
of operation which in and of itself is not bad. But usually it is a blatant
appeal to somehow find life in some form or fashion with no recognition of or
need for God as the giver of all good things.
Who needs God anyway when the world is my oyster?
Driven by our desire to avoid trusting God and to remain
independent of Him, we have turned the relief of pain into a sophisticated fine
art. And Satan is more then willing to accommodate our bent. Not only do we have
an incredible amount of creature comforts (especially in the “West.” A friend
of mine recently had his mother in law from
The causes and benefits of desperation
Because we usually view pain as coming from hard circumstances
we experience we usually view these “painful circumstances” as a bad thing. But
as we have already discussed these experiences can actually be a good thing?
When we are stripped of those things we derive pleasure from or when we go
through such a hard circumstance that the things that normally give us comfort
are no longer adequate to comfort us, it often drives us to the core of our
being and causes us to look at why we are here and what it is we really need
and seek. It helps us to reevaluate our
real purpose for existence. It refocuses us on what is really important in
life. It causes us to ask the very basic question of whether we exist only to
obtain and experience the fleeting and temporary pleasures of this world or do
we exist to experience something more complete, lasting and permanent. Pain can
be a very effective tool in aiding us to see life truly and clearly i.e. from
God’s perspective, which is the only true one. It can aid us in seeing that our
true purpose is to experience the lasting and eternal joy of knowing our
Creator, God Himself. To come to this understanding and the resulting communion
with God is the best of things. (But often we don’t even begin to come to this
realization without great suffering and desperation). When this occurs, pain
becomes an important means or tool by which we find and experience God;
therefore we can say along with James 1:2, I count it all joy when I go through
various trials and also that all things do work together for good.
The more we come to a place where we can’t function without God
the more we will seek and experience God as our strength and our sustainer.
Finding God often comes out of sense of desperation; that desperation often
only comes from experiencing great pain and suffering which creates its own
kind of focus and effort.
But that desperation can come not just from externally imposed
events but also from self imposed effort.
The bible calls this self denial or self discipline and obedience.
In other words God can discipline us so as to cause us to focus
and look to Him for strength and deliverance. Or we can fight to discipline
ourselves by faith in order to gain clearer focus on God. We do so by using
those aids He provides to help us see Him more fully and clearly. These are
sometimes referred to as means of grace. Things such as prayer, studying His
word, praise, fellowship with others, loving and serving others as God loves us
through using the gifts He has given us.
Exercising ourselves in these activities (And make no mistake,
self denial, discipline and obedience require the utmost effort. An effort of
the heart, soul and mind that manifests itself in our actions) involves denying
ourselves those things that we often use to distract us from our state of pain
and also causes us to loose sight of God at the same time, e.g. it may be fine
to work on our favorite hobby but it may be better
to spend time with God in prayer instead. (If we have walked with God for any
length of time we can relate to that loss of hunger for God after indulging for
long periods in “good” activities. It is a sense of emptiness and even loneliness
that we didn’t have before we engaged in what might otherwise be a socially
acceptable activity). This is not an easy thing to determine or do and requires
the utmost faith believing the long term benefit of such actions far outweigh
any short term loss.
There is always the battle between seeking self comfort and
seeking God. Each has their own unique kind of pull on us. One pull is from the
Spirit of God living in us and the other is from our fallen inclination towards
self comfort, or the flesh as the bible calls it. As we grow in the Lord we
learn more and more that the distractions in life may offer immediate relief
and comfort but leave us feeling empty, flat and wanting more when done.
Whereas seeking God though often hard at the time and not always comforting
initially, with perseverance is far more fulfilling and lasting. Which one we
choose to pursue is vital to our knowing and experiencing God more fully.
However we are easily distracted and loose sight of the value
and joy of pursuing Him and therefore our desire for Him wanes. When we slip
into choosing self comfort, we grieve and quench His Spirit within, lessening
His pull in our hearts. Often we must simply choose to act in obedient faith
when there is no desire to do so or no indication of immediate reward for that
choice. (Which also tells us that a desire for God itself is a gift from God
that we shouldn’t take for granted. As Philippians says, “work out your
salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good
pleasure.”) In these instances the only strength we can find to act is our belief that God is faithful and the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. *Faith itself
becomes the dynamic that drives our actions. That desire or pull for God is
fueled by the faith driven discipline of using the means or tools God has
provided and prescribed for us to find and experience Him. As scripture says,
faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. This is always a battle
however; the battle of faith.
* If we become "burned out" from some arduous effort,
I suggest the problem does not lie with the effort, but the motive behind it.
If God is what we are after and what drives our actions, we will not become
burned out no matter how hard we pursue Him. We can never go “to hard” after
God.
Our problem in a nutshell
We are in fact dependent creatures.
Our pain is nothing more the absence of the Creator we were designed for,
dependent on and must be connected to in order for us to be complete as God
originally designed. Before our separation from our Creator we didn
And as long as we are able to provide
for and comfort ourselves at the most basic level, we don
Taking the pain out
of pain
A big part of what makes pain so
painful is not seeing it for why it truly exists; evidence of our separation
and need for God. In addition we miss the intent of God in allowing or
sometimes causing circumstances that result in pain. God’s desire is to draw us
back to Him through everything we experience, including pain; to cause us to
call out to Him so we may have true and lasting life in Him. Because we, even
as His children have a hard time emotionally accepting the completeness of
Christ’s work on our behalf, (a condition also brought about by the fall i.e.
the difficulty we have accepting unconditional love) we still think we somehow
have to appease God’s anger, earn His acceptance and make payment for our sins in addition to the work Christ has already completed on our behalf. We may believe that the painful events of
life somehow do this for us. Even when we know better theologically, this is so
embedded in our damaged “psyche” at the deepest level, it’s hard to identify or
“shake off.” Only over time as God demonstrates His grace to us over and over
does His unconditional love in Christ start to “seep in” and we experience this
at the core of our being.
When we know, as His forgiven,
accepted and loved children, that the ultimate outcome of our pain is intended
to be a good end that comes only with God’s good intentions instead of it
coming because of God’s judgment or “getting even or back at us” for doing
something wrong, is the sting of pain removed. For example, if we experience
pain at the hand of an angry vindictive person it carries an emotional quality
that is totally different then when we go through that exact same experience at
the hands of someone we know is seeking to redirect us to a loving end for our
good. When we know there is a good and loving intent behind the action
it takes the sting out of the event and we can now consider
it all joy
when we go through hard times and endure these pain filled experiences. We
along with Christ who knows the fellowship our sufferings can endure the cross
because of the joy set before us.
Paul asked the question, “death,
where is your sting?” 1
Corinthians 15:54-56.
In this passage he points out that the sting of death is sin. However now in Christ the condemnation of sin is no longer an
issue (addressed more fully in my commentary on
This passage says we are conquerors
precisely because hardships do not separate us from God’s love but in fact come
to us only because of God’s love. As His children, God is for
us, not against us!!!
Why are we so drawn
to created things instead of the Creator?
Now if you stop to consider that this
whole idea of our life apart from God being nothing more then a pursuit of comfort
or pleasure and the flip side of that coin being the avoidance of pain, it will
be helpful to stop again and revisit who we are and who God is. As we discussed
earlier God is a God of love. His first and primary expression of love is
within His own person among the members of His Triune being. Within His person
is the giving and receiving of value; the recognition of His own worth within
the threefold expression of His person. We in turn are created in His image so
that we too can enter into and participate in this giving and receiving of
love, value, worth etc. In short we were designed for the joy and pleasure that
comes from and can only be satisfied in our participation in the community of
the Godhead. But when we turned away from God in the belief that we, apart from
God, could better gain for ourselves what in fact only God could give, we
severed that relationship.
When you think about it, this was not
only a lie but a slap in the face of God. It was saying to God, “you are not
sufficient or worthy of our love and trust. You aren’t the giver and sustainer
of all creation, with all its gifts and benefits. Creation doesn’t need you and
I don’t need you to make life work. I have found something better then you.” When we stop to consider this, how absurd and
arrogant we are to believe these things. The result is our present and constant
state of separation from our Creator and therefore a constant state of pain.
But most importantly this was a choice we made and still make.
We are always in pain even when we
week to numb it through the use of God’s creation. But that is only because we
are totally dependent on our Creator to be whole and have rejected that
dependence. Pain is a constant part of who we are now only because of our
rebellion from our Creator. The bible uses language such as, lost, fallen,
blind and dead, to describe our current state. As a result we now seek and must
find whatever we can to fill and replace what we lost. We are constantly on
“the hunt” if you will to fill this enormous vacuum and feed our emptiness
created by the separation from our Creator due to our rejection of Him. We are
walking spiritual and emotional black holes, if you will.
To illustrate how desperate we are
and how much we depend on “creature comforts” to ease that desperate state, let
us consider solitary confinement. It has been said that this is the harshest
form of punishment that can be experienced. Have you ever wondered why? Could
it be because the things we use and depend on most to ease our pain or give us
pleasure are no longer present? In solitary confinement all one has is the
reminder of their emptiness. The only possible comfort, aside from God Himself,
would be one’s mind and what they could conjure up to distract themselves
mentally. (But even this is using a gift of God to maintain one’s independence
from Him). For any who doubt our desperate state, stop and think about being
isolated from everyone and everything for an extended period of time or try
closing yourself off in a dark room for several days and see what happens. The
thought of it makes most of us shutter.
If it doesn’t, try it and see what happens.
What makes hell,
hell?
Stop and think about hell. Isn’t in
part what makes hell so terrible the lack of any comfort due to total isolation
from everyone and everything without end? In hell one not only is missing God,
who they have rejected all their lives, but also all the creature comforts
created by God, which they now enjoy, only because God allows them to, even
though they don’t acknowledge them as gifts from God. These are the things they
have sought and clung to all their lives for self fulfillment. All of this is gone in eternity, forever!
Often we see cartoons depicting hell
as one big party where all the “sinners” are together having a blast, indulging
in anything and everything their heart desires along with others of like mind,
without any concern of consequence (they are
already in hell). But we get a
very different picture when we look at scripture. Think about Lazarus who the
bible clearly suggests was all alone
in his torment separated not only from God but from all earthly comforts. (Luke
16:19-25Luke
16:19-25.
It is worth noting that Lazarus begged to have his thirst quenched; an
expression of the true state of longing in his soul without earthly
comforts/gifts present to satisfy that longing. In this case water) Is
it possible that the greatest terror of hell is experiencing fully our
separation from God and the unrelenting burning of that emptiness for all
eternity with no relief or way of quenching it? An emptiness that is so strong
that it is a burning within even greater then a literal fire without? A
condition that will never end not because God is harsh but because that state
of separation they have lived in all their lives is now fixed and without any
of the creature comforts present they have indulged in all their life (which
were never theirs to begin with, but only gifts from God) and there is now no
chance of remedy for such a state. A state that continues because one refused
to see the true nature of things while given the opportunity and rejected God’s
offer of reconciliation with Him through His Son. Now they must live with this
knowledge throughout eternity. A state they choose throughout their life that
has simply come to its natural culmination and full fruition. No wonder hell is
characterized as a state of torment.
And wouldn’t it make sense that we would continue on in this current state of
emptiness and pain if we refused to acknowledge that what is really missing is
the Creator of all the pleasures we have indulged in all our life. Pleasures we
have used throughout life to comfort the pain of our separation from Him,
without any recognition or gratitude to Him as the true Creator and Sustainer
of these gracious provisions?
If one chooses to reject God, the
giver of life and all created things, why should we expect God to allow those
who have made such a choice to be allowed to continue in, sustain and maintain
that state of rebellion through the use of His good gifts on into eternity just
as they did in this life? He only allows us to continue in a state of rebellion
now not because he condones our
choices but in order to give us every opportunity to turn back to Him. But that
in itself doesn’t guarantee His offer or the enjoyment of His good gifts will
go on forever. In fact from all indications in scripture the offer is gone once
this life is over. But instead in his arrogance, man interprets God’s patience
and goodness to mean he deserves the
blessings of this life. That God is somehow obligated to give them to him/her
and he has a rightful claim to them. How far from the truth we are.
It has been said, earth is as much of
heaven an unbeliever will ever experience and as much of hell as the believer
will ever experience. This in fact may be very close to the truth.
In hell man will not only remain in
the same current state of rebellious separation from God but will also
experience the natural consequence of that separation; a separation not just
from God himself (who he never wanted or acknowledged), but from all the gifts
of God he now clings to (and has his whole life without ever giving thanks to
God) in order to maintain his current independence from God. The fact is in
this life all who do not recognize God as their Creator and the giver of life
and all things is living on borrowed time. What we now have and enjoy are not
guaranteed to us or deserved by us as we have imagined but are gifts that we
can lose at any time. Life itself is
a gift and we have no guarantee of tomorrow. To not recognize this now, while
we can, is to eventually loose all of it; everything we now enjoy forever.
The truth is the gifts of God in this
life should point us back to God (Rom
2:4)
and cause us to exalt in God as the giver of life and all things. But this is the exact opposite of what we do!
Paul clearly addresses this very issue in Romans 1:18-28 and specifically in verses 21-23:
21For
although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to
him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although
they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory
of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and
animals and reptiles… They worshiped the creature (i.e. created things) rather
then the Creator.
Is it any wonder God will let us go
on into eternity and experience the full fruition of a lifetime of rebellion?
We should not be shocked at such a reality. In fact God would not be just to do
otherwise.
Just like a loving parent God will
sometimes remind us of who we really are, (creatures totally dependent on our
Creator) and what we really need, (God Himself) through the painful loss of
something valuable to us. We know as parents it is a hard thing for us to give
our own children a “reality check” when we see them “off the mark” but just as
we do what seems unfair and hard at times in the minds of our kids, we do so to
keep them from a greater harm and pain. God does the same for us and for the
same reason, because He loves us. It isn’t about punishment or retaliation as
we often think but just the opposite. As scripture says, who the Lord loves, he corrects. Though this passage
is addressing Christians, God loves all of His creation and will until their
final rejection of Him. Of course those who continue to reject Him will
eventually experience the full consequences and judgment of that rejection.
They will go into eternity without God where they can no longer receive and
experience that love that for the present moment is extended to them. If you
are reading this today, that in itself is a gift. God up to this point in spite
of your ingratitude has sustained your continued existence. Are you grateful?
There is no guarantee of tomorrow. Will you continue in unbelief of God’s
goodness He is now extending to you? Or will you fall down in rightful worship
and humility acknowledging your great offense to the Giver of all things? He
has made a way to restore you through His Son. Will you receive it?
How to break the
pull?
So what is the key to not being draw
away from God by created things? Is there a way to loosen the illegitimate grip
that creature comforts and “worldly” pleasures can have on us? In many circles
in order to break away from a destructive behavior the emphasis is often on our
just “gutting it out” and “denying” ourselves those things we lust after but
know are wrong. It’s just a matter of will
power we are told. But does this even work? I think the shocking and all
too frequent reports we hear of apparently godly ministers who preach this kind
of discipline falling into destructive behavior such as adultery is clear proof
it does not. This type of event in itself should raise a huge red flag that
this approach is not only inadequate but misleading and destructive. It only
gives an appearance of godliness but when tested, fails miserably. (we will look at this more closely in the section on
obedience)
Could it be that instead of focusing on
stopping certain actions or behavior we need to instead focus on pursuing that which satisfies more? (Of
course until we grow to the point that we actually enjoy God more then created
things, our pursuit of Him will have to be an act of faith instead of an act
that brings immediate satisfaction. I will say more on this later in “a gradual
unfolding”). I would suggest the only way to break any illegitimate grip is too
drink so deeply of God that we no longer find satisfaction in anything else.
(Might we go after God with more energy if we took more seriously what the
scripture means when it says that “at the right hand of God are pleasures for evermore” Psalm 16:11? i.e. unending, nonstop pleasures!).
But how does that happen? It comes by
our being weaned away from dependence on things other then God. But how are we
weaned? It seems to me there are two ways. Which comes first depends on the
choices of the individual and their history. In addition, these two means of
weaning are not always mutually exclusive of each other. In fact it seems they
often go hand in hand. We will treat them separately however for sake of
discussion here to get a clear distinction of the two.
One way is by seeing and in turn experiencing God in such a way that we are so
enthralled by Him, anything and everything else pales in comparison. This is to
see Him in all His wisdom, beauty, glory, power and majesty. This is to taste
of God in such a way that everything else is bland next to Him.
The other way is to see the inadequacy of created things to
give us what we need at our deepest level and out of that experience turning to
God and discovering He alone can give us what these other things could not. And
this seeing usually doesn’t occur without experiencing pain so significant that
the things we depend on for life fall woefully short in comforting us during
times of great pain or those things we are depending on are removed from our
lives by some painful event.
As already suggested, both of these
often occur together and are the flip side of the same coin. But for the
purpose of discussion we will now deal with the former of seeing the beauty and
glory of God first.
The following is the testimony of
Sarah Edwards in her encounter with God during the revival of the First Great
Awakening in
At some point during the revival she
expressed ‘a delightful sense of the
immediate presence and love of God’ that ‘was so near and so real that I seemed
scarcely conscious of anything else’…a delight that lifted her ‘above earth and hell, out of the reach of
everything here below’, so that she was able to look ‘on all the rage and enmity of men or devils with a kind of holy
indifference and an undisturbed tranquility’. She also felt ‘more perfectly weaned from all things here
below than ever before. The whole world, with all its enjoyments and all its
troubles seemed to be nothing: -- My God was my all, my only portion.’
‘I
was entirely swallowed up in God, as my only portion, and His honor and glory
was the object of my supreme desire and delight.’ Her
encounter with God ‘was worth more than
all the outward comfort and pleasure which I had enjoyed in my whole life put
together. It was a pure delight which fed and satisfied the soul. It was
pleasure, without the least sting or any interruption. It was a sweetness which
my soul was lost in. It seemed to be all that my feeble frame could sustain, of
that fullness of joy which is felt by those who behold the face of Christ and
share His love in the heavenly world.’
‘The
spiritual beauty of the Father and the Savior seemed to engross my whole mind;
and it was the instinctive feeling of my heart, “Thou art; and there is none
beside Thee.” I never felt such and entire emptiness of self-love or any regard
to any private, selfish interest of my own. It seemed to me that I had entirely
done with myself. I felt that the opinions of the world concerning me were
nothing, and that I had no more to do with any outward interest of my own than
with that of a person whom I never saw. The glory of God seemed to be all, and
in all, and to swallow up every wish and desire of my heart.’
You will notice how she describes
awareness that nothing else mattered or affected her. All she desired and
relished was God and His Son. There was a kind of fullness she experienced that
left her indifferent to all other pleasures and lifted her above all pains and
distractions. Nothing else mattered to her for “the glory of God… (swallowed) up every wish and desire of (her) heart.”
Can we say the same? Certainly if
this was the experience of Sarah Edwards, can it not also be our experience? If it is not, why not? Why should we settle for anything
less? Isn’t this what we long for in the deepest parts of our heart and soul?
Can we rest until and unless we have to same level of union with our Father?
Though this experience of Sarah
Edwards appears to be a somewhat sudden, for many of us our experience of God
is a process over time that has its peaks and valleys with hopefully the
overall trend of increasing and upward movement towards God. Not doubt God laid much groundwork in Sarah
Edwards’s life before she was came to the above experience. She was the mother
of 12 children, often alone for weeks, sometimes months at a time as her
husband had to travel often. This alone as well as other factors no doubt were
a constant reminder of her need for God and no doubt help prepare her for the
above experience. Any parent who has experienced the tremendous responsibility
and challenge of raising children can appreciate its unique pressures.
As a side note, I also recommend you
reread her testimony with the consideration of how it describes what takes
place within God Himself i.e. is the state that Sarah Edwards describes above
anything like the state within God Himself? Might this description give us a
hint at what drives God in His actions toward us? Does this tell us anything of
the wonder and fullness within God that moves Him to act on our behalf? I think
it in fact gives us a hint of these very things and small sampling of the very
heart and desire of God himself. With these question
in mind, I encourage you to read again her testimony.
How to
break the pull, part II
Above we addressed breaking the pull
through seeing God more and more fully in all His beauty, glory, and majesty so
that we are so enthralled by Him, anything and everything else palls in
comparison. Now we will address the other means by which the pull is broken.
Seeing the inadequacy of created
things to meet our deepest need is the other side of how God breaks the pull of
things in our life. And unfortunately we
often go this route only because we hold so tightly to the blessings of this
life that their removal is not only necessary before God can show us Himself,
but extremely painful. The greater our hold on them (some may suggest this as
“their hold on us” but I believe this doesn’t place the responsibility where it
should be, on our choices) the greater the pain when they are lost or taken.
We often don’t see the inadequacy of
things without pain so significant that the things we depend on for life come
up short in comforting us. But often this apparently is necessary in order that
we may turn to God instead for fulfillment or comfort. When we have “ripped”
out of our lives, through hardships, the things we cling to, we have only one
of two options. We either turn to God to draw our sustenance from Him (this is
often a “I must find God or I will die” experience) or
stubbornly refuse to turn to Him and continue further into our state of
separation seeking even harder how to make life work without God. If we choose
the later we ultimately go into eternity in this same state of separation from
a loving God who is the giver and sustainer of all things.
Pain is an opportunity to experience
God in a new way, if we allow it. Paul’s thorn in 2
Corinthians
is a classic example of God using pain and Paul’s gladly accepting his
circumstances once He understood how it could produce the fruit of knowing God
more fully. As this passage says, when I am weak (in my ability to make life
work on my own) I am strong (in faith through which God strengthens me).
Therefore he gladly accepted his thorn once he understood and believed this
truth. But for this kind of experience to occur we must believe as Paul did the
promise of God. That God was using this for his good and had a good intend
behind it. Otherwise we will not embrace this as from the loving hand of God.
This will be addressed more fully in the section of faith.
Even the best of us, when we are
blessed abundantly and know these blessings are from God’s hand, can be drawn
away from God by the gifts around us. The History of the people of
But truly we are no different. Because
of our fallen state of rebellion our propensity, just like the nation of
Isn’t this usually why we place such
a high value on having money and also why God said you can’t serve both Him
When we seek or hold on to the things
or people in such a way that we depend on them to sustain us, instead of God,
we are in fact hurting ourselves. And how is that, you may wonder? Because we
are seeking to make life work in a way God never intended or designed. We are
violating our very being and how we were designed. It’s like trying to run a
car on water instead of gas. It just doesn’t work. We are only using created
things as substitutes for God Himself who is true life. To do so will only
result in either our immediate or long term loss or harm and possibly our eventual
destruction, maybe in this life and certainly in the next. When it doesn’t
result in short term loss, it always does long term where we eventually go into
eternity without God and all the comforts of this life.
If we do not let go of depending on
things that can never satisfy us at our deepest level we will never experience
all we were designed for by our loving Father. God will never be able to flow
through us all the blessings and benefits He desires if our hearts are clinging
to or “clogged up” with depending on or worshiping things. How can He when we cling to them so tightly and treat them as that
which we must have to live, instead of recognizing that it is Him we must have
to live and these come to us only by His
hand to sustain us. They are not life but simply provisions created and
sustained by the source of all of life and all of creation and therefore the
One who is true life.
In our minds, the loss of things or
people may seem cruel, unfair, or unjust when in fact these experiences are
designed by God to bring us to a place of greater pleasure and the blessing of
increased union with Him. It is like a parent not granting a child’s wish to
use his allowance to buy candy because the parent knows saving and using it for
a something else is far better. In order to find Him we must lose our
dependence on those things other then Him from which we draw comfort and
sustenance. Or as scripture says, to find life we must lose life and to live we
must first die. If and when we understand the implications of this truth, that
all life and joy and pleasure is in Him and nothing else, we began to see these
losses as acts of love and can actually rejoice in them more and more. We can,
along with James, “count it all joy when you suffer...” But if we do not trust
God and have not experienced His beauty and majesty to a sufficient degree the
loss of people or things can overwhelm us instead and cause anger and
bitterness.
This is what I meant earlier when I
raised the question of which of these two means of breaking the pull of things
comes first. Is it the tasting and seeing God or the denying (or being denied)
those things that keep us from tasting and seeing God that comes first? It
depends on the individual and these are not always mutually exclusive of each
other nor seem to be in a particular order. In fact as already mentioned it
seems they often go hand in hand.
Whatever
brings us to that place of wanting God above anything and everything else,
whether it is through the realization that nothing else gives true and lasting
satisfaction or by our becoming so enthralled with God that nothing else
compares to Him, both occur only because God loves us.
This is what we are told and this is what we must hold on to by faith until
that belief translates into an experience of God that lifts us above all the
joys and pains of this life into His very heart as it did Sarah Edwards. But
this usually does not come easily and without great struggle. However as our
taste for God grows so our faith and our capacity to enjoy Him also grows. The more we
taste, the more we long to taste. The more we taste the more lovely heaven
appears to us and the greater our longing for it and the less the pleasures of
this life entice us. (In truth it is Him we long for, for He is what makes
heaven what it is) We will address this more in the a
latter section “Choosing the battle. A closer look.”
May we come to the place along with
the Psalmist and say, “My soul thirsts
for thee and my flesh longs for thee in a dry and weary land were there
is no water. Thus have I beheld thee, in the
sanctuary; to see thy power and thy glory.” Not
until our world becomes a dry and weary land with no water for us will we
thirst enough for God that we drink of him.
And once we drink deeply enough, nothing else will ever satisfy. As we
grow from “glory to glory,” we will die more and more to this life and come
more and more to life in Christ.
A gradual unfolding. The reversal of the
fall
For many of us, our seeing and
tasting of God is a gradual unfolding. Though for some it can
certainly can have sudden and dramatic advancements as it did for Sarah
Edwards. I think Paul’s experience of being caught up into the third heaven is
an example of this kind of sudden experience. Certainly his encounter with
Christ on the road to
2Co 3:18
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of
the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory
to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the
Spirit.
We were made to have communion with
the infinite, all powerful, wise and loving Creator and Sustainer of the
universe. In addition God is so full and complete within Himself that the
dynamic of His very being is to pour forth his fullness on all His creation and
us, His children in particular. Yet, in our present state, we are a mere
fraction of our former selves even though our capacity to know and enjoy God is
still in tact because we are still in His image. But in our capacity we have
shrunk down into a self absorbed, self comforting fearful knot of pain. Instead
of being outward focused on the all powerful, glorious, vast and majestic
Creator we have turned inward and “shrink wrapped” our hearts around finite
created things. Things we have temporary control over that require the least
amount of trust, if any, to obtain and use. We have become focused inwardly due
to the internal void left by God’s absence and seek whatever substitutes we can
find with our own “hands” to fill that emptiness. And when we find something
that gives us the most pleasure or best relieves our pain, we cling to it. We
cling to these small, created things (they may seem big to us at the time but
that is only because our experience of the vastness of the Creator is limited
if existent at all) with everything we can muster. Even if they are damaging us
at the same time such as abuse of drugs or alcohol, they are giving us short
term relief. Since we are inclined to immediate satisfaction we often do not
look beyond the immediate to the long term effect of our latching onto whatever
created thing we are dependant on. We hold on desperately to His creation
instead of the Creator and build our lives around created things instead of
around Him.
It is also worth noting the more
gifted we are the more sophisticated our means of relieving our pain or finding
pleasure. I raise this because some may
delude themselves into thinking their means of distracting or comforting
themselves isn’t as bad as the drunk or the gambling addict. However it all
comes from the same place, a desire to use whatever means we have at our
disposal to relieve our pain. Therefore it is no better then the “baser” ways
of dealing with life.
But how can created things every
compare to their Creator? How can a created thing ever fill the void left by
the absence of the source and Creator of those very things we cling to and
depend on? And when we stop and think about it, if these things are so
wonderful, beautiful and desirable, how much more so the Creator and sustainer behind them must Himself be? By their
very nature they can only be a shadow or tiny glimmer of the source of their
true beauty, wonder, and pleasure? C.S. Lewis says it this way,
“…the
books or music [or any other item or individual for that matter] in which we thought the beauty was located
will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through
them was longing. These things [or individuals] – the beauty, the memory of our own past – are good images of what we
really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into
dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the
thing itself; they are only the scent of the a flower we have not found, the
echo of a tern we have not heard, news from a country we have never visited.”
When we
are stirred by the splendor of a sunset, the captivating beauty of a woman, or
the strength and protection of a wise, gentle and caring man, the grandeur of a
mountain peak, or the allurement of the ocean waves breaking on the shore, what
is it that is stirred in us? We may think the allurement is in that which draws
and captures us but in fact is it is something greater and more powerful. It is
the longing for the source of all beauty, strength and wisdom. It is a longing for
God Himself. The God we were designed for and once knew but have abandoned.
Elsewhere
Lewis says, “Pleasures are shafts of
glory as it strikes our sensibility…I have tried…to make every pleasure into a
channel of adoration. … Adorations says, ‘What must be the quality of that Being whose far-off and momentary coruscations are like
this!’ One’s mind runs back up the sunbeam to the sun…If this is Hedonism, it
is also a somewhat arduous disciple. But it is worth some labour.’
Created things are not only
infinitely small in comparison to their Creator but totally dependent at every
moment on Him for their very existence. Yet we so desperately avoid Him and
cling to them instead. (How futile and silly when we ponder it. Simply from a
logical perspective, why would the Creator of these things allow this pattern
to continue if His purpose behind the creation is to glorify himself and draw
us to Him through that creation?) If
we depend on created things for life instead of our Creator, our hearts as well
as our very being shrinks around these comparatively small, created things
accordingly and as a result we remain small and even shrink emotionally,
spiritually and maybe even physically in some way. (I highly recommend C.S.
Lewis’s book the “Great Divorce” for an interesting read regarding this idea).
We are not unlike a spiritual and emotional vacuum so strong within a container
that the container collapses in on itself like some kind of spiritual and
emotional black hole. In fact our condition is so severe the bible
characterizes us as being spiritually dead. We are only a marred and faint
image of our original design. We have become twisted, tightly convoluted balls of self absorption and self
comfort. In the process we miss experiencing the full extent to which we were
designed to see, taste, feel and experience God, His creation and all He
desires to lavish on us. We have short
changed ourselves by seeking things in exchange for avoiding the pain of His
absence. We miss out experiencing life to the fullest because we miss out on
experiencing God Himself, the Giver and Sustainer of all other things.
At some level I think we believe if
we allowed ourselves to feel the full weight of our emptiness, it would be too
unbearable and would emotionally crush us. And in fact it would if God were not
there to fill us. (It helps to remember the greater the “object” that is
missing the greater the void or vacuum it leaves. There is nothing greater then
God and therefore no greater void [and the pain of that void] then that which
God filled at one time). But we have rejected God and do not truly believe He
is there or at best He just doesn’t care and therefore we are alone in the
universe to “fend for ourselves”. We don’t believe God and therefore do not
trust God. As a result we stubbornly cling to the creation. We refuse to
believe there is anything, other then created things, which will satisfy our
deepest longings. (In our minds, we have no other choice. Since we reject the
Creator, we cling to the next best thing that comes along. We believe this is
all we have, unless of course we end our lives altogether. But ending our life
does not address the problem either as we addressed earlier regarding hell). We
have turned inward and remain that way, holding on so tightly in fear and
desperation to whatever we can find for comfort that we never allow God to meet
us the way He desires and has designed. It’s like being in the midst of some
paradise with beautiful surroundings all around, created for us to participate
in and enjoy. However we don’t even notice or see it all because we are so
focused on our toe we have just stubbed, desperately trying to ease it’s pain.
We do not allow God to meet us at those deeper and fuller ways that only He
can. We do not let Him come and meet us in all His fullness and glory because
we are too preoccupied with comforting ourselves.
When this happens, who is “missing
out?” Certainly God enjoys our delighting in His love, because He loves us and
is love, but God is self sufficient within the fullness and communion of the
Trinity. Even though it grieves God truly and deeply to see us not experience
all that he has for us, He is not lessened by it. He is still God with us or without
us. We alone are missing out on all He wants us to have and experience.
For those of us who have trusted Him,
it is the reversing of this condition of inward self absorption that God has
engaged us in and seeks to wean us from. His objective is not belittling or
shaming us over our self absorption. Christ already addressed our guilt and
shame at the cross. But instead his desire is to draw us back to Him. This
process involves the spiritual and emotional turning, pulling, stretching, and
sometimes tearing of our hearts and souls away from whatever we have wrapped
them around and depend on other then God. It is an ongoing redirection of the
focus of our lives from the inside to the outside. This is always a painful
process; the experiencing of spiritual and emotional growing pains if you will.
We will address this later more fully under the topic “spiritual maturity.”
Finding and experiencing God is a battle but one worth fighting
Knowing God is not just a pleasure to
enjoy but a goal to pursue and a battle we must engage in. We are in a battle
to see, know and enjoy God and to increase and strengthen our capacity to do
so. This requires, struggle, faith, and effort. Even though the battle is not
easy and in itself necessarily pleasant, the fruit and reward of it is.
It was once asked of an Olympic
swimmer who had won a metal, what it took to prepare for the games. The swimmer
laid out a routine that involved months of 6 to 8 hour days of training in some
form or another. The interviewer asked if it had been fun in preparing for the
competition, to which the Olympian said, “Fun!? No, it wasn’t fun at all!” The
interviewer then asked if it was worth it to which the Olympian replied,
“absolutely!”
Paul also talked about training to
run the race and beating his body into subjection. Involved in this is
expanding or increasing one’s capacity to participate in something bigger then
they can presently handle. This is true of experiencing God in the spiritual
realm as well. Seeing God for who He really is often isn’t a sudden event but
usually an ongoing, ever increasing development, which requires much
discipline, struggle and ongoing effort. As mentioned earlier the bible gives a
hint of this progression when it says we are being transformed with ever-increasing glory or from “glory to
glory.” But this transformation isn’t from the effort of raw willpower, but
rather the exercising of our spiritual muscles (we will address this more fully
in the section on obedience). Our capacity to enjoy and experience God is
increased as we exercise our faith
in Him through obedience. This requires trusting that He loves us and has our
best interests at heart, even when it looks like the opposite is true.
What Paul was illustrating for us in
the above race analogy was simply this idea of ongoing obedience. Obedience is
a kind of self imposed suffering if you will. Unlike externally or
circumstantially imposed denial or disciple that comes to us from outside
factors this is self denial or self discipline. The bible characterizes
this as a conscious and willful dying in order to live. Dying is painful and
certainly a form of suffering. Of course it is talking about a spiritual or
emotional kind of dying; a dying of our belief that created things and our
dependence on them give us life instead of God Himself. And not only believing
these things but then acting upon that belief i.e. what might be referred to as
“stepping out in faith.” This can involve something as basic as walking away
from a TV show and spending time praying and meditating on His word instead
because we believe there is greater
reward in doing the later activity then the former even it we don’t see or feel
an immediate benefit. The bible also describes this as taking up your cross and
following Him. Again we are reminded of this when the bible says in order to
find your life you must lose it and to live you must first die.
You will notice in considering this
there is not only a choice but there
is also a promise; the promise of
finding life. But we must not just understand the promise; there must be our believing that promise, which we
must choose.
The power of self denial is not in
focusing on the denial itself, but on the reward
promised through that denial. We die in order to live. Living is what we are after and it is
really ultimately God Himself who is life. Self denial or self discipline is
simply the means to an end and not the end itself. And that end is God.
But often our faith is so small that
we only hear the dying and loosing part and we shrink back from obedience
because we do not understand or yet have the capacity to taste the joy of where
that obedience is taking us. We often simply do not see God in all His wonder
and awe clearly enough if we see Him at all. In truth if we had just a glimpse
of how great God is and what we would have in knowing Him fully, we would
pursue him with apparent reckless abandon in the eyes of most. Not unlike the
one who sold all he owned to buy a
field because he discovered it held a treasure he valued more, Matt.
13:44. How foolish the man must have appeared to
those who asked why he was selling all his possessions. To live in this manner
can bring ridicule and derision from a world that values i.e. worships
everything but God.
However when we are convinced that
nothing is going to bring satisfaction to our weary and empty hearts besides
God, we will go to great lengths to obtain Him, not unlike the above man who
sold all he owned. When our hunger for God exceeds our fear of pain or the
desire to avoid it we will go hard after Him no matter how much we must give
up, how painful it may be or how much resistance and ridicule we may experience
in the pursuit. Obedience becomes to us the means of getting to God so we might
experience more of Him. Like Paul we beat our bodies into subjection so we
might press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of us i.e.
His great love for us. We press toward the goal to win the prize for which God
has called us heavenward in Christ. And like Christ we endure the cross for the
joy
set before us. We must look on the struggle as an aid or means to finding God not an inconvenience or distraction
from the pleasures of life. When we do we will say along with James it is a joy
to suffer/struggle because we know it leads us to Him. This is the key in being
able to thank God for all things, whether hard or pleasant. Our focus must be
the joy of having God and know Him more fully and not the painful struggle just
as it was for Christ who endured the cross for the joy set before him. The
struggle isn’t the point. It is merely a means to an end; the joy of communing
with God. He is the point.
With this understanding we now see
that sin is anything and everything that clutters our path to God or hinders
and obstructs a clear view of Him. Our eagerness and passion to remove sin
grows as our vision of Him becomes clearer and stronger. The more we taste of
Him and delight in Him the more distasteful those things become that clutter
our path and keep us from Him. Over time the things of this life simply no
longer satisfy us any longer and we come to despise and loath more and more
anything that hinders us from seeing and communing with Him.
This brings into focus the importance
of seeing our sin clearly and truly but not for the reason we might think. Our
focus is on getting to God, drawing nearer to Him, not dwelling on our sin.
With this understanding we see that the problem of sin is it obstructs or hinders us from drawing
near to God, the true source of life, purpose and meaning i.e. sin is no longer
a “guilt thing” but a “growth thing.” Therefore we now look at our sins (as
opposed to dwelling on them in guilt) only long enough to see and understand
how they hinder us from being nearer to God so we may clearly see what must be removed in order to have
His presence restored and increased. When we know the grace and forgiveness of
God we understand that we loose that sense of His presence not because God has
turned away from us in judgment but that we have turned away and drifted from
Him.
Yes sin alienates us from God but
only on our end, not His. It is like we are next to a warm fire on a deadly
cold night and something either pulls us away from that fire or comes between
us and the fire blocking its light and warmth. The problem isn’t that the fire
stopped burning or no longer gives off warmth and comfort. We simply are either
to far away or something is blocking the fire so we no longer feel its warmth.
If we were freezing how quickly would we identify and remove that which is
blocking it or caused us to wander away from the fire? We wouldn’t feel guilt
over the obstacle being there. Our only focus would be to identify and remove
it as quickly and completely as possible to be warm again.
Also the greater I value what is
being blocked, the quicker I will seek to remove the obstacle blocking it. If
God is not more important to me then anything that hinders my experiencing Him,
its removal will not matter as I do not value Him enough.
We certainly shouldn’t abandon sin so
we can walk about showing God and others how righteous we are. This is silly
when we consider it, for we in and of ourselves could
never be righteous enough for God to accept us. This mind set produces nothing
but pride and arrogance and unfortunately is not uncommon. Nor does it
accomplish anything to do “penance”
over sin. It is a waste of time and energy and dishonors the completed work of Christ on our behalf
as well. Christ already addressed the guilt and condemnation of sin. We can not
add anything to its removal by what we do. As Christ said, it is finished. Sin is dead and we are dead to sin in the sense it
can no longer condemn us, accuse us, or cause God to reject us and stop loving
us.
Pursuing God is like seeking the
mythical pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (though He is certainly no myth
and of worth far beyond all the gold in the world). We rarely see the pot of
gold but we can see the rainbow and by it know which direction the gold is.
There are many obstacles between us and the pot of gold that block our way and
obstruct our view. Like weeds that cover our path or mountains that block our
view and make traveling hard. Obstructions have to be scaled or cut down and
constantly grow back; so it is with sin. We must constantly work on removing or
overcoming that which comes between us and God. In this analogy, the rainbow
would be like the word of God (either written or lived out through the lives of
others) that tells us which direction to go and reminds us that there really is
gold at the end of our travels even if we can’t always see it clearly at times,
if at all. And if there are clouds, then we wait and pray until the clouds open
again to reveal the rainbow above so we can move on to our desired goal. So it
is with God. We get glimpses of Him in our travels. Sometimes we come to high
places were we have a clear view and can easily see the pot of gold at the end
of the rainbow and we are encouraged and refreshed. And sometimes we may even
find a coin along the path to remind us and give us a taste of what’s ahead.
But sometimes we are in the low places where we can see nothing but weeds, mud,
rocks or crevasses. But even then if we don’t look at our immediate conditions
around us but look up we will see the rainbow. And if we have traveled the path
for any time we will have gathered enough gold along the way to remind us of
why we are here and where we are headed.
The more we see God and experience
Him, the more we will desire and pursue Him. On the other side, the more we
step out in obedient faith in pursuit of the promise of having Him the more we
will see Him and the greater our ability/faith becomes to walk away from the
things that draw us away from Him. Seeing inspires faith but faithfulness also
improves our seeing. Faithfulness is never easy, but painful and always
requires faith that looks beyond our circumstances. Faith that believes God is
at the end of our pursuit and that in Him is life above and beyond anything we
may currently give up in the pursuit. “16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are
wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For
our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far
outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is
seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen
is eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4.
He is greater and more satisfying then anything we might
to give up in order to draw closer to Him. Knowing and
believing this enough to move closer
to Him is our work, this is our part, and this is the battle God has
called us to and the only one worthy of all our efforts and struggles. By God’s
grace may we see Him more and more as He truly is so we might press hard into
Him by faith until our faith becomes reality and we have Him who we have sought
so earnestly, for “…anyone who comes to
him must believe that he exists and
that he rewards those who earnestly seek him…”
But why must we struggle and battle to see and trust God
at all? Why doesn’t God simply remove our sinful and rebellious bent away from
Him once we become his child? (this is a corollary
question to why does God allow pain). We see and appreciate the full extent of
Gods solution (i.e. Christ’s work on our behalf) to the same degree (and only
to the degree) we struggle and battle with the problem of our falleness. (our stubborn
inclination to resist trusting and depending on God) Paul expressed this when
cried out in
Until we swim against the current we
do not know the true strength and pull of the river. It is not until we
struggle and battle with our sinful inclination that we discover how great it
is and how desperately we are in need of a remedy. If we don’t know the strength
of our bent away from God we will not understand nor appreciate how great God’s
solution and provision is. The more we
wrestle with our problem the more we see our need to cry out and lean on God
for His grace to overcome it. The more we cry out the more of Himself God gives
to us and the more fully we appreciate the greatness, wonder and beauty of His
gracious solution and provision. This process causes us to see and appreciate
the full extent of the Christ’s complete and all sufficient work on our behalf.
Where sin abounds grace much more abounds.
But how hard and how long must we
fight? We can never resist the pull of sin too strongly. God will always give
us grace as long as we look to Him no matter how deep and long we struggle. The
more we struggle/wrestle/fight with the problem of our sin/rebellion the
greater the opportunity for His grace abounds to us and the more grateful we
are for the solution of His provision (Christ paying for the just consequences
of our sin). The more gratitude we display the more we exalt Christ. His
infinite and eternal worth becomes more evident to us and others and endears
Him to us the harder we fight, causing us to worship and adore Him. Those who
are forgiven much love much.
But fighting against our sin and
rebellion or the sin and rebellion of others is difficult and exhausting. We
can grow weary in the battle and wonder if it really worth it. But God reminds
us to,
“…lay aside every
encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with
endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, he
author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the
cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of
God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against
Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” Heb 12:1-3.
We must remember that the goal and
end of our fight and battle with our falleness/sin/rebellion
(as wells as that of others) is so we
might draw nearer to God. And as we do we receive strength to overcome our
struggle against sin and begin to see Him more clearly and fully. We are to
look to Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith and fight just as He did
for the “joy set before Him.” That joy is nothing less then knowing and
experiencing God Himself. Do we believe these things!!? If we do we will
energized to press on. If not, we will grow weary and give up. To not fight is
to say He isn’t worth the fight. The gain of knowing Him and being reunited
with Him isn’t worth the loss of present pleasure. If we do not fight we do not
just lose out but we also dishonor both God and His Son. What we believe is key to how we carry on our lives.
Fighting results in us experiencing
God more fully in all His grace and love for us. This is not only our greatest
and most satisfying joy but it in turn enables us to reflect Him to others more
completely, thereby bringing more glory to God and His Son. This in turn brings
joy to God’s own heart for we are told without faith it is impossible to please God. Heb 11:6. Therefore
we are to fight the good fight of faith and not grow weary in well doing; for
in due season we will reap if we do not faint.
Self denial, what it
isn’t
As already hinted, self denial is not
simply gritting it out and willing ourselves into doing what is
good or willing ourselves into walking away from something we
enjoy or find comfort in. But doesn’t self denial involve our choice and our
wills? Of course but not in a way we may think. It is rather turning from an
inferior pursuit because we believe
there is something better. Not always immediately better, but certainly
ultimately better. So the choice is concerning what we believe or don’t believe and then taking action accordingly. It is
not the choice of simply willing ourselves to behave or not behave in a certain
manner alone.
So this raises the question of why do we believe God’s course is better?
Initially because God say
If we "deny" ourselves something we want by simply gritting it out
and “willing” it to happen, we only become self righteous and proud if we are
"successful" (and when we are it is usually short lived and always
exhausting) because it is an act of the "flesh" or an act generated
in our own strength and determination, not an act out of the hope and strength
that springs forth from faith in God’s promises. But if we deny or overcome
something because God offers and promises something better, the result is
humility and gratitude because we did it in dependent hope of God’s promise
of something better i.e. Himself. And when we act in this hope, we are honoring
God as worthy of our hope and trust, who can satisfy us unlike anything else
and therefore His Spirit within us wells up, under girds and empowers our hope,
faith and ultimately our efforts. We are then walking by the power of God’s
Spirit and not in the energy of “self determination.”
This is the choice we must make
regarding true self denial, to believe
God or not. And we are presented with this choice often several times a day.
Are we like Paul, deliberately beating ourselves into subjection, deferring
immediate gratification in order to
gain the greatest prize down the road or do we give in to the immediate reward
of self comfort? Are we holding on to God and wrestling with Him as Jacob did,
refusing to let go until he weakens us to the point we are ready to receive
what He longs to give us? This is indeed a battle as Jacob discovered. Or do we
give in when our hunger becomes more then we can take and we opt for something
that gives us an immediate sense of relief or comfort as Esau did when he
walked away from the promised inheritance of God for a cup of pottage. Unlike
Esau we should instead let the pain from our longings and unfulfilled desires
drive us even harder to God, not away from Him. To truly live to God and
experience what He promises we must die to self
fulfillment, self satisfaction, or self comfort now for the greater prize and reward later, sometimes not until eternity.
Often God does graciously reward us
in this life for our faithfulness even if it isn’t always immediately. When He
does, it is always and only if it aids us in honoring Him directly or allows us
to aid others in honoring Him. The ultimate reward is in God Himself who we
will not fully experience until the next life but in His grace He gives us
tastes now of that truly satisfying pleasure in Him along the way so we may in
turn bless others by pointing them in that same direction. In so doing we are
blessed. The more present blessings cause us to honor God, the more God pours
out these blessings on us. But if we let these draw us away from Him, he may
remove them as He often did with the children of
Self discipline,
what it isn’t
What
exactly is self discipline? Some would say if someone is consistent and
persistent in performing a give action in a regularly scheduled or routine
manner that pretty much sums it up. And in one sense this is correct. But is
this all that is needed or occurs in self disciple? Or is this only the outward
evidence and fruit of something more basic? We could ask the same question
about eating. Is this all that happens for example when we sit down to eat
supper at a regular time every night? Is eating in an ordered and regular
manner by itself being disciplined or is the main reason we do so because we
are hungry and need and desire food instead of simply willing
or forcing ourselves eat?
If
eating at a scheduled time so that we can obtain the needed nutrients for
staying alive is the only reason we come to the table, we are missing out on a
key element and the possibly the essence of mealtime. We eat because we are
hungry and because we find pleasure in satisfying that hunger. Scheduling
a meal time simply insures we do that in a regular and predictable fashion.
So
eating a meal at a scheduled time every day is a form of discipline. But is the
form the key element of discipline or does the underlying drive behind the form
play a significant role? Even those who promote the discipline of goal setting
and planning will tell you that you must visualize your goal clearly and the
more vivid you make it the better. Why is this? So you can see your goal so
clearly you actually experience it at the emotional level. In fact they
recommend you visualize actually having that goal in hand and imagining
yourself enjoying it. Your vision of the goal should be so clear that you can
almost see it, smell it and taste it, thereby engaging your desires as well as
your will. The more you do so, the greater drive you will have to put yourself
through the riggers of discipline necessary to obtain your goal.
Without
hunger for God, carrying out the prescribed actions laid out for us in His word
is merely going through the form or motions of obedience but does not
addressing the heart or essence of it. God said he doesn’t delight in
sacrifices but a broken and contrite spirit. The heart is key, not the
actions. Christ also said “…
a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship
the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind
of worshipers the Father seeks.”
It
is also significant how the bible characterizes God’s attitude in these
passages. It suggests that he delights
and desires those who hunger for
Him. He desires our hearts first, not our actions and He offers His heart
to us in return. How can we do less then God Himself and not delight and desire
him enough to pursue those behaviors and habits’ that allow us to taste of Him
i.e. to discipline ourselves to that
end. The whole purpose of the outward behavior is to enable us in fulfilling
the desire for God that drives the action. Anything less is grinding things out
in our own strength. A fuller discussion of self discipline and self denial
will be covered in section IV of this book on obedience.
A
battle of accepting or pursuing. Both require faith
Our capacity to enjoy God can also
come as a result of suffering that is not self imposed as in self discipline
but comes to us outside our choice or control. This also results in a denial of
those things we find enjoyment and comfort in. But this is not a self imposed
denial but denial that is externally
imposed on us. This is commonly what we mean when we say someone is suffering.
This is in contrast to self denial or self disciple which is a kind of self imposed suffering or dying to self
which I referred to above.
The good news is in either situation
the outcome can be beneficial. However externally imposed denial is passively
experienced and self denial is willfully, actively and deliberately engaged in.
Self denial is deliberately carried out because one chooses to believe God’s promises and understands
the benefits of doing so and acts accordingly i.e. it is an act of faith that
believes the chosen action will aid and increase one’s experience of God. This
act of faith is rewarded either with present and immediate blessing or deferred
blessing; but it is always rewarded. Believing this to be true gives us the
strength to pursue the path of self denial.
Externally imposed denial however may
or may not benefit us depending on how we view it. If we see it as coming from
the loving hand of God for our ultimate good (
However externally imposed denial, or
suffering may come solely because we live in a fallen world and are the
recipients of someone else’s bad choices which are beyond our control or
choice. But even these events can not occur without Gods knowledge, care and
good plan e.g. Joseph’s ordeal of being sold into slavery to eventually wind up
second in command in Egypt.
Whereas the other choice is to do something because we believe the
pursuit is for our good since it is honoring to God and will draw us nearer to
Him.
One thing we can be sure of; God
desires us to know Him and we will be stretched by God no matter which way the
denial occurs. If we do not seek Him deliberately and willingly, He may allow
or bring things into our lives that will turn us back to Him. He is always
actively seeking to draw us to Himself simply because it is in our best
interest and brings Him greatest honor. The question is do we wish to be active
in our pursuit of God or wait for God to come after us in love to draw us to
Himself. With the deliberate pursuit of self denial there is always greater
opportunity of progress then when we resist God and he has to draw us to
Himself “kicking and screaming”. Either way, He will draw us. Phil 1:6 being confident of this, that he who began a
good work in you will carry it on to
completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
So our capacity to experience God can
come either through a kind of self imposed suffering we usually refer to as
self denial or through suffering that comes to us outside of our choice or
control. And when suffering comes to us outside our choice or control we will
not automatically benefit from it. We only benefit by it when we choose to
believe God is all loving, good, wise and powerful and has only our best
intentions in allowing it. Otherwise if we choose not to believe these truths
about God’s character, it short circuits the process and can make us bitter and
angry toward God. And since we are naturally inclined to not trust God, this is
often the result. But unbelief resulting in bitterness is not God’s fault, it
is the fruit our chosen unbelief. We simply refuse to believe God is who he
tells us He is and therefore miss out on the benefit of His good designs behind
all the difficulties we may experience.
Self denial or self imposed suffering
and suffering that comes to us outside of our choice both require faith. The
first says I believe the end which I am seeking is of greater worth and benefit
then that which I am denying myself of to obtain it. We benefit from the second
only when we recognize God is bigger then this present challenge and has
allowed this to aid my finding and experiencing Him more. The end result is the
same, finding and experiencing God more. And the means are the same i.e.
believing finding and knowing God is far better then any present loss, whether
it be a self imposed or externally imposed loss.
Choosing the battle;
a closer look
If God is like the bright sun, how
can we expect to gaze upon him if our eyes have not adjusted enough to see Him?
To suddenly step out into a bright summer day after sitting in a dark room is
blinding at first and takes time for our eyes to adjust. In the same way we
have to adapt to seeing and experiencing God. And just as the brightness of the
day is uncomfortable and unpleasant at first, so it is with God until we adapt
to gazing upon Him. But once we adjust how clearly we then see the beauty of
that day and how limiting it is to go back into the dark. *
*God says to Moses in Ex 33:21,
"you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live." (The face
possibly representing God is all his
glory for Moses did see the back side of God) And after being in God’s presence
on Mt. Sinai Moses was instructed by God to cover his face before going back down to the people of
To use another analogy, we are like a
tightly formed flower bud that opens up over time as the warmth and brightness
of the sun stirs it to grow causing it to spread it’s peddles. The more we expose ourselves to the warmth
(love) and light (truth) of God the more we open up to Him and begin
experiencing all He has to offer.
Or experiencing God could also be
compared to eating a delicious food. The taste buds needed to taste it are
presently dormant and undeveloped, so the food is bland and tasteless to us.
But if we continue to eat, (only at first believing
the food is tasty because we are told by the chief and others that have already
eaten that it is) those taste buds are stimulated in the actual eating and we are able more and more to savor the
food that once held little or no flavor for us. The more we eat of it the more
we are able to taste how good it truly is and the more wonderful that taste
becomes, ever increasing in strength and intensity without end.
On the other hand, every time we
yield to the allurement of something other then God we not only miss out on
experiencing more of God in all His goodness and splendor but we reinforce that
allurements hold on us and weaken our taste and affection for God. As a result
our capacity for enjoying the allurement remains in tact or even increases and
our capacity for enjoying God goes unnourished and unaffected so much so that
it can even wither and eventually die altogether. We remain like a closed
flower that is never exposed to the sunlight and eventually withers all
together and dies.
Is God pulling on your heart now? If
so, it is only by grace that He beckons you. Don’t take his gracious alluring
for granted and assume because it is now present that he will continue to pull
again tomorrow. And thank Him for his persistence and constantly seeking to
draw you to himself. And make no mistake, God drawing
us back to Himself takes real and constant effort by
Him. To not cooperate with that tug of God is resisting Him and His work in
your heart. The bible says God will not always strive with man. Because of the
unbelief of Israel God often called them a stubborn and stiff-necked people and
eventually removed them from His sight. It also says in
I think this is in part what the
bible means when it tells us not to grieve or quench His Spirit within us. That
stirring up of desire for Him is not a part of our fallen make up but only
placed there by His Spirit within us. And if His spirit is quenched or grieved
in us then all that is left to rule our hearts is the pull away from God that is always present in our hearts. When this
occurs we are living by the “flesh” as the bible characterizes it and not in
the power of His spirit. This is a very real and slippery slop that some do not
recover from and therefore miss out on all the glories God longs to give us in
this life and even more in the next. We must understand any desire to seek
after God is by His Spirit he has placed within us. This is His gift to us. Let
us not take Him or the desires he plants for Him in our hearts for granted but
let us “work out our salvation with fear
and trembling (the fear that without his working in us we will be left to
our own devices and dullness toward Him) for it is God who works in us to will
and to do of His good pleasure” i.e. that desire is not from us but from God.
Don’t take it for granted.
The saying goes, “no pain, no gain”.
This typically refers to pushing ourselves physically to improve our strength
or endurance in order to achieve an end we believe will bring us something we
value. For example, we may want to win first place in some event to gain a
sense of value and importance over our competitors. But pushing ourselves to
increase our strength and endurance can also apply to the spiritual realm. To
stretch and thereby increase our capacity to enjoy and experience something we
would not otherwise be able to requires from us a conscious effort and a
choice. But unlike physical training and effort, we are exercising something
other then our bodies. We are exercising our heart, soul, mind and internal
strength. This is the very calling of the greatest commandment to love God with
all our heart, all our soul, all our minds and with
all our strength.
What is it we must stretch and
develop spiritually in order to reach our spiritual goal? Is it not our faith?
Faith that believes the goal we seek is of greater value then whatever we may
be giving up to gain it and therefore pushes us to deny a lesser immediate
gratification for a greater long term benefit. John Piper says it this way,
"The key to faith