Tag: God

God Is Good

On By BrianIn PASSION ReflectionsLeave a comment

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. 
(James 1:17, ESV)

He is the Good Giver – Every good and perfect gift is from God.  All the good you have received is from God.  Think about all good things in your life – good relationships, provisions, life, good health, work, rest, pets, hobbies, warm weather, and so much more.  Every good thing you have is a gift from our good God.  And those good gifts are coming down – not they came down in past or will come down in future or sometimes trickles down.  No, it is a continuous coming down.  God’s goodness is always flowing down.  They have a new observation deck at Tahquamenon Falls to watch the water coming down.  And it is always coming down.  It never dries up.  In the same way, God’s good gifts are always coming down from the Good Giver.  His goodness never dries up.

He is the Good Creator – Father of lights points to the idea that God is the Creator.  He is the Father or originator of heavenly lights – the sun, moon, and stars.  And when God created them, He said that it was good (Genesis 1).  He is the Good Creator. 

He is Morally Good – Father of lights might also point to His purity.  He is the Father of lights not darkness.  “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (I John 1:5).  There is a moral purity, a moral goodness that characterizes our God.

He is the Unchanging One – God’s creation is always in flux.  The earth moves around sun, so the shadows are always changing.  But God is not like the shadows, He doesn’t change.  He wasn’t good yesterday but not today.  He was good, He is good, and He will be good.  God is good all the time, and all the time God is good.

God is the unchanging morally good Creator and Giver who continually showers us with good gifts.  Praise the Lord!

Amazed Trust

On By BrianIn PASSION Reflections

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?
(Psalm 8:3-4 ESV)

God made the heavens. He made the moon and the stars. As we look up into the sky on a cloudless day or on a starry night, we see the vastness of what God has made. There are millions of stars! How does God even remember me? Why would He even care about me?

But this passage is clear that God does remember me. He is mindful of me. In fact, we are always on His mind.

And God cares for you. Not just about you, but for you in all kinds of little and big ways. He has blessed you with so many blessings throughout your life, and He continues to bless you. He is with you to strengthen you and help you in your trials and struggles. He will never leave you nor forsake you.

The vastness of His creation and His very real care for you, calls you to an amazed trust in Him. The God who powerfully spoke our world into existence, remembers and cares about you! Be amazed, and trust Him.

For God’s Sake and Their Sake

On By BrianIn PASSION Reflections

Be kind for God’s sake. If you mistreat my son or daughter – who bears my image – you mistreat me. In the same way, if you mistreat a person – bearing God’s image – you mistreat God.

To hate someone is to hate God. To insult a person is to insult God. To ridicule a human being is to ridicule God. To mistreat an image-bearer of God is to mistreat God. How dare we treat people that way! How dare we treat God that way! Be kind for God’s sake.

Be kind for their sake. In Romans 2:4, Paul tells us that it is God’s kindness that leads us to repentance. Yes, we had to be convicted of our sins, but it was His kindness in Jesus that drew us to Him.

If what we dish out is judgment and hatred and anger, we will only turn people off from Jesus. A spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down. You attract bees with honey not vinegar. We attract people to Christ not with our condemnation but with our kindness.

World has spades of hatred and anger and insults and ridicule, but we are called to be different. Let us be known as a kind people, so people want to know why we are so kind to them. And then we have opportunity to tell them about Jesus, who was and is so kind to us. Be kind for their sake.

False Desires

On By BrianIn PASSION Reflections

In Christ, we become new creations, called and able to reject false desires. 

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
(II Corinthians 5:17)

In Christ, God has made you new.  Your old sinful way of life is gone.  You have a new life in Christ, so you don’t have to follow false and deceptive desires.  His Holy Spirit enables you to reject fleshly desires (Galatians 5:16).  His grace trains you to reject worldly passions and live a self-controlled, upright, and godly life (Titus 2:11-12).  In Christ, you can overcome.

Indeed, He calls and enables all of us to reject deceptive desires like lust, coveting, greed, gluttony, and selfishness.  He calls and enables all of us to reject false feelings of hopelessness, despair, and worry.  He calls and enables all of us to reject wrong self-perceptions of superiority, self-righteousness, and worthlessness. 

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
(Romans 12:2)

Instead of conforming to the false desires of our world, we are to renew our minds with God’s truth that we might discern what is good and follow that. 

Rejecting false desires isn’t easy.  God never said it would be.  Indeed He tells us that it is a war:

Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.
(I Peter 2:11)

These false desires are at war with you to destroy you.  We must fight.  But God not only calls us, but also enables us, to reject false desires.  May we live in His strength!

God Is Love

On By BrianIn PASSION Reflections

God is love (I John 4:8). God is eternal (Jeremiah 10:10). God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). When you put those three truths together, we find that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in a perfect loving relationship for all of eternity. He is radiant glorious love in action for all eternity.

God is love in Himself. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit forever loving each other. Which means He didn’t need to create us to have someone to love. Instead, He chose to create us, and this eternal love between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit spilled over to people like us. That ought to boggle our brains!

And when we sinned against Him, rejecting His amazing love, He chose to show the extent of His great love by saving us through the cross. He went to great lengths to save us, so that He might continue to extend His love to us forever. Not because we are lovable, but because He is love!

So how should we respond to His amazing love? Jesus sums it up in Matthew 22:37-40. Love God with all your being. Love your neighbor as yourself. In other words, love as God loves. Here is our challenge. Here is our purpose. Here is what life is all about. Love as God loves.

God and Our Vision of Life

On By BrianIn PASSION Reflections

We believe in the one true and living God,
who eternally exists in three unique persons –
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Each one is identical in nature and substance,
with the same attributes and perfections.

Our culture tells us that it is all about you.
You create your own story,
your own identity,
your own reality.
You do whatever you want to do,
because you are center,
everything revolves around you.

Is it not obvious that this doctrine of God refutes this vision of life?
Flips it upside-down?
Or rather right-side up?

There is one true living God, and I am not Him.
So everything revolves around Him, not me.
He is center, not me.
I am to do whatever He wants.
Because this is His great story.
He determines reality.
He gives me my identity.
He makes me part of His story.
So I am going to live for Him, not me.

This doctrine totally changes our vision of life,
and so will change how we live each day.

Doctrine Matters for Our Relationship with God

On By BrianIn PASSION Reflections

What is required to have a growing relationship with God, to know God more and more?  I must learn about Him.  Doctrine teaches us about Him – the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – so that I might know Him better.

Imagine a young man and a young woman meet, and they want to get to know each other.  What do they do?  They spend time together.  They talk to each other and listen.  They learn about each other.

If you want to get to know God better, you need to learn about Him – who He is, what He has done, what He is doing now, and what He will do in the future.  That’s doctrine.  It’s not dry!  It is relational.  It is exciting! 

And as we learn more about God – His love, His faithfulness, His mercy, and what He has done to save us by becoming one of us to die on a cross – we not only get to know Him better, but we love Him more.  Our love for Him grows.  We learn of His love for us, and we grow in our love towards Him.  Our relationship is not dry, but a loving relationship between God and us.

And as we learn about Him through doctrine, this love then leads to worship.  Theology should always lead to doxology.  Doctrine should always lead to praise.  In Ephesians 1-3, Paul lays out the doctrines of salvation and then closes in 3:20-21 with worship to God.  The same thing happens in Romans.  Paul lays out wondrous doctrinal truth in chapters 1-11, and then closes in 11:33-36 with praise to God.  As Paul reflects on doctrinal truths, he can’t help but break into joyful worship. 

Doctrine teaches us about God, that we might grow in our relationship with Him, loving Him more, and falling down before Him in worship.