Sunday, September 23, 2012
Is God Passive?
(This is not written as a debate, but simply as a thought provoking commentary of my own thinking and learning progression as I grow in God.)
If we have not bothered to understand God should we be allowed to weigh Him according to our standards? Should we try to understand Him like he is a man, just bigger, stronger, wiser, older? If we try to enter a relationship like that with Him then are we not just like a youth that thinks they have learned all the world has to teach and therefore they should be able to help their parents see where they have erred in their life decisions?
Would it not perhaps be better for us, the teenage children, to ask to be shown and try to learn the history in actions before we try to advise and teach? Kind of like learning the rules of the game before we try to play it?
In a recent conversation I was involved in, I was faced with the idea that God is passive, that He created all of the world with it's problems and issues and then just dropped mankind off to suffer here and for what? The questions went on that if He's God and all powerful then why doesn't He remove the evil from the world and take away all of the wrongs? I admit that those are questions that I have gone through in the past also and I'm sure most thinking people do. It is difficult to see the weak and innocent persecuted and not cry out to God, Why?!
My question today though is "Maybe we're involved in a struggle and we don't understand our part or role in it?" Maybe the persecution and suffering is because we're not living up to our part in life? Is it possible that it is mankind's own fault because we have not learned "the rules of the game"?
When we start reading God's word and trying to learn and grow in it(or learning the rules), then we do learn the history of man on earth. However we don't learn God's history because God is the beginning and the end, the Alpha and Omega. Kind of hard to go all the way to where God began when it's not recorded and He is "the beginning"! Another challenging concept is that He is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. Doesn't that kind of boggle your mind? Can we mere mortal humans conceive such a Being, much less understand His decision or thinking process? I find that I am challenged to understand anyone that is either 20 points higher or lower than my own IQ, much less understanding God who knows everything from the beginning to the end?!
What I'm suggesting now is that even though we have little hope of understanding "all" of what God is about, we can read scripture, study His words and the things that He's tried to teach us and attempt to grow in what we are able to understand, our role in life. What has He asked of us and do we live and walk by it?
We know that in the beginning He gave one simple rule, don't eat from the tree in the garden. Did man obey that one simple rule? Wouldn't life be so easy if we were faced with only one rule?! But mankind wasn't able to even follow that one teeny tiny little rule. Mankind as a collective ate of the tree and let's be fair, if we were faced with the same thing today most likely we'd have to taste the fruit of the tree just to see what it was all about. "We all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." So, let's move past blaming Adam and Eve and just face where we are at that point, sinful creatures.
Being sinful creatures God could no longer fellowship with us, He is holy and has no part with sin(us). But because God is love He created a way for us to return to a relationship with Him! Yes, He knew man would eat the fruit, just like any parent knows their kids are going to lie to them at some point in their childhood and they have to be taught not to lie. So God knew we would sin, remember God knows we are "but dust". He planned a way around that and gave us a way back to walk with Him daily, just as Adam did in the garden. There is one little hitch in the fact that we walk in the world with Him not in the garden.
In walking in the world we do see the results of fallen man(the suffering and persecution). But where I believe the problem lies is in the fact that we don't "walk with Him" in the world, we walk our own ways and question things in our own understanding. God has given us the ability to have Him live in us, but we don't grasp that understanding much less the power that it would give us in this world.
Even after sending us countless teachers to lead and words from prophets to show us the way, we "like sheep" still went our own way! We go our own way and wonder why the world is such a mess? Do we try to learn the things in scripture and follow them? How much time do we spend in prayer or conversation with God our Father, trying to learn His heart?
So we have His word in written form that we can and should read for ourselves, we should study it even as if our lives should be lead by it! If we earnestly seek Him, we will find Him. If we seek Him insincerely, it's still even possible to find Him! There have been countless intellectual men(C.S. Lewis, Derek Prince to name a couple) that have started out to disprove God, to show that He doesn't exist, but even as they attempted to prove their point they encountered God and were proven the error of their thinking and became great teachers for God! So, if we seek Him in earnest, He will disclose Himself to us.
OK, back to our plan, 1) Study His word, 2) Seek Him, 3) Speak to Him in prayer. About prayer, it doesn't have to be a formal ordeal, after all, God knows your heart, it's not like a person that you've just met that you can fool with acting a certain way until they leave the room. He's always in the room! Might as well be real with Him and speak as you would to your best friend! Like "God, I don't understand why You let this happen?!". You may not receive the "understanding" that you are seeking, but if you continue the conversation with Him you most likely will receive the peace that you "need".
Some people receive answers and understanding quickly from God, like Paul of Tarsus" and some people need to invest perseverance, like Job, don't ask me why, God hasn't revealed that to me! But I do understand, know and trust that He will take care of things when I don't try to take over control from Him. I also know that if I try to take control of things from Him that He will give me the control and allow me to totally mess everything up! My point is that if you ask God questions and you don't receive an immediate answer, don't give up asking. Don't throw in the towel at the first frustration. Anything that anyone learns in life is usually learned through a process of time and practice. I took years of piano lessons and still didn't become a concert pianist, but I can carry some tunes that are somewhat pleasing, and if I practiced more I would become better and better at it, even as walking with God becomes better and better with practice and effort.
OK, so....1) Study, 2) Seek, 3) Pray, 4) Persevere. When we do these, we will begin to walk in our "regenerated reality". Our regenerated reality is who we are in God, and Who He is in us.
(I am not going into all that God did through Jesus to get us to be "born again" there is tons of information written about it and I will probably write something at a later time, but for now let's just assume you already know about Jesus' sacrifice and resurrection and you're part of being born again into salvation!) As a new christian I first learned that God loved me and that I would be saved from going to Hell if I accepted Him as my saviour. Simple concept right? I mean to many it's a win-win concept and nothing to lose! We are loved and saved and nothing required from us, who wouldn't agree to that? However there is a little more that we should be aware of. When we enter this relationship with God we do have responsibilities.
Just as a new citizen to the United States needs to learn the laws and language of their new country, we need to invest time and effort in coming to understand what our new role is in this life we have stepped into with God. What is our part of this deal? Luckily there is much, MUCH, written about that in the New Testament, and to really understand who we are we should read the Old Testament also. The really good part is that God even sends us a Teacher, Helper and Counselor to aid in our learning! The Holy Spirit comes to give understanding to our new life, our new "reality". I believe that God gives enough understanding through His word and His Holy Spirit to the true seeker to find the life He intends for us to live. He gave us His power to teach, heal, to bring life. He gave us Himself to live within us, His Holy Spirit! He gave us the ability to sit at His right hand in the heavens through His Son Jesus! He gave us His "power of attorney" so to speak.
When Jesus left Earth, He gave His disciples, that's you and me, His power that was won on the cross through His death and then His victory over death! So, here we are with all of this power, what are we doing with it? Are we even aware of the power we have? Remember in Star Wars when Luke had to train to use the "force"? Well, the power we have received far outweighs the "force", but if we don't learn that we even have it it's pretty much the same as not having it, it's a buried asset! "Our battle is not against flesh and blood" and our enemy the devil would have our power remain buried forever! However I am here encouraging you to learn about the power that Jesus gave us!
Learn about who you are in your "Redeemed" status. God has said that whatever we loose in Heaven is loosed on Earth, and whatever we bind in Heaven is bound on Earth, do you use that power? We have been given Armor to wear in our battle, do you dress in it daily? Do you enter the battle daily? If we submit to God and resist the devil, he will flee from us, do we follow that, do we make the devil flee or do we let him bully us throughout the day? Jesus told us that we can even move mountains by word and faith, do we believe and live in that?
I believe that when we learn who we are in God and live it, we will no longer view God as passive or unjust, we will be the presence of God that people long for. We will be portals of glory, we will carry the power and truth that Jesus died for and left for us to use to touch the world! People will no longer think that God is passive, they will see His love and actions through our lives. Yes it may seem overwhelming, but it's not, we have already been guaranteed the victory, but if we never step out and claim it, then God will still appear passive or unresponsive to those around us because we're not living up to the responsibility that we've been given in our "Redeemed Reality". If we are "Redeemed" let us live like it, let God shine through our lights, let Him be seen through our actions, let Him be heard through our words. We are God's body on Earth, if we don't fight the good fight then it is our own actions that are passive, not God's.
OK, so....1) Study, 2) Seek, 3) Pray, 4) Persevere! Claim the victory in the battle, it has already been given into our hands!
L. K. Mercer
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