The Truth about God

Has this last year been been harder than other years for you? Has it seemed like things have been constantly changing? In this series of articles, I want to go remind you of some unchanging truths that you can build your life upon no matter what. In this article I will focus first on some of the aspects of God's nature. 

First, God does not change. Neither His character and nor His plans change, and therefore we can trust Him to stay the same and that His promises are true and that His prophecies will come true.

Hebrews 13:8 says,

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever, and 

Psalm 102:25-27 says,

Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, but you are the same, and your years have no end.

When all the world around us seems uncertain and all of our plans for the future are in jeopardy, we can know where to run and where to stand firm. But it would do us no good to run to God unless we knew that He was also good. 

Fortunately, we can know that God is good by examining His world and His Works.

Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever. 1 Chronicles 16:3

Good and upright is the Lord. Psalm 25:8

This last week I saw a number of people posting pictures of the beauty of the world, as frost had fallen on all the trees in our area. We had an incredible winter wonderland around us, and it caused me to break into song praising the creator. 

Whenever we examine the beauty of creation whether out in nature or in the faces of the people all around us, we should along with its creator declare, "It is good," and then remember that the creation is a reflection of its creator.

But where we see the ultimate goodness and love of God is at the cross. God came into a broken world to redeem a people die Himself. God's goodness is ultimately experienced in the redemption. When you experienced it yourself, you can't help but praise Him for his goodness and thank him for the good things that he has giving you.

Third, God is sovereign, so submit to Him.

Colossians 1:16–17

For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

The Truth about Ourselves and the World

Everyday, the Auschwitz Museum posts pictures on social media of people who were killed at the Nazi death camp. I look at the pictures of men, women, and children, and imagine what their lives were like before they were so cruelly killed. I have also been reading Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's book, The Gulag Archipelago, which details the horrors of the Soviet system of repression that killed millions and lasted for decades. While reading about the atrocities of the past is not pleasant, it is important for us to remember man's inhumanity to man. But we do not just have to read history books to detail this, rather all we need to do is turn on the news or go on social media to see modern examples of evil. In fact, all we really have to do is interact with people in everyday life, and we will experience evil in our world and in ourselves. 

Last week, I wrote about God's unchanging good and sovereign nature which helps us have a firm place to stand in our uncertain world. This week I want us to examine the truths about why our world is so broken. To do this we need to go to Genesis 3, where Adam and Eve disobeyed God's command, and as a consequence their relationship with Him was broken and the whole world was affected. The Apostle Paul declares in Romans 3:23, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," which tells us that the problems in the world are not just with those people over there (the democrats, the republicans, the boomers, the millennials, the foreigners, the racists, etc.), but with all people everywhere including ourselves. It's really easy to see the problems in the people or groups that we hate, but it's much harder to recognize that we are in the same category and liable to the same sins. But we tend to minimize sin in our own lives, and give ourselves and our group more credit for being able to fix the world. If we just gave power to the right president, the right party, the right scientists, the right judges, (you know people who think like me), then the whole world would be fixed.

A really good example of this in the past year has been how we have dealt with Covid, and who we blame for it. Over the last few months, the virus continues to break out no matter the policies which we have tried to implement in accordance with this expert or that expert opinion. It's hard to give total credit, and therefore hard to give total blame to any particular expert or system because it seems like so many places in the world with different policies and different ways of dealing with the pandemic have all had to face outbreaks. If it was not so tragic, it would be funny how many times someone has declared that they have figured it out only to be proven wrong a month or two later. Yet we all are still seeking the correct expert and the right science to try to save ourselves. 

I'm not saying that there aren't better and worse ways to handle issues in the world, but rather that we often make the assumption that some person if they did the right thing could simply fix the problems. This is a denial of the effects of the sin, namely that the world is broken in such a way that we cannot totally fix it. No matter who we put in charge, they will still be a sinner and they will still be limited in their abilities. The more they try to fix the problems on their own, the more clear it will be that they are not all-powerful, they are not inherently good, and that they do not hold the future in their hands. In other words they are not God, and so are not worthy of our complete trust and allegiance.

The biggest and scariest unfixable problem is that we are all going to die, and no human no matter how smart or powerful can fix that. Right in Genesis 3, Adam and Eve were told that the consequence of disobeying God was that they would surely die. So much of our modern life is set up to prolong life and ignore the possibility of death. Unfortunately, even with all of our intelligence, technology, and science, we haven't come up with a way to avoid death. Things like covid, cancer, and old age remind us of the limits of our control.

On a personal level, this was made clear to me in 2012 when my son Micah, who was only 11 years old, passed away. He had an autoimmune disease that affected his kidneys and also developed another disease that affected his blood vessels. Even though we were doctoring at Mayo Clinic with some of the best healthcare in the world, we could not save his life. 

We need someone bigger and better than ourselves to save us from our sin and it's consequence -- death. The truth is that there is only one who has lived a perfect life, died to pay the penalty of our sin, and rose again to show us that His sacrifice was acceptable to God and that death was defeated. We need to acknowledge the truth that we are broken, that our brokenness breaks the world, and that therefore we need a savior. Jesus is the only one that can save us and redeem the whole world (see Act 4:12 and John 14:6).

As you look around at the hurting in the world and perhaps the hurting in your own soul, remember to seek your help and salvation in the only one who has beaten both sin and death. 

Thankful for Covid?

As I have been contemplating Thanksgiving this year, it is easy for me to get caught up in thinking about all the bad things rather than remembering the good things. But as I thought about it, I remembered the concept of "the ugly beautiful" that I read about in Ann Voskamp's Book, One Thousand Gifts. When she was a young child, Ann's family experienced the loss of her three year old sister in a tragic accident, and that event profound affected her family and her growing up years. In the book she writes about being thankful, and she reflected on this horrific event and the negative impacts it had on her family. She came to the conclusion that God can use even the ugly things of life and make them into something beautiful.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:18, the Apostle Paul reminds us to "give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus," and in Romans 8:28, he says "that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." This all things includes that hardest things of life. It does not mean the things themselves are good, but rather that God uses even the bad things for good. Therefore, I want to learn to thank God for the ugly beautiful things. In this year, that means I am have been considering why I can thank God for Covid. What good things has God done because of Covid. 

Refocus on what's important

First, God has used Covid to help me focus on what is really important. A disease that can kill reminds me that life here on earth is not eternal, and not our ultimate purpose. We were made to live for something, no, someone more important. Philippians 1:21 is my life verse and it says, "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain," but I do not live that verse out. Frequently, I live for myself and my own limited pleasures. I forget my Savior and that I have turned my life over to Him to be transformed. When I have to consider my own mortality, I have to reconsider what my purpose. I remember that my life is an eternal, that needs to be lived for and with Christ moment by moment. 

One of the most poignant moments for me about the need to focus on eternal things came this last week when a friend of ours lost her husband, who we also knew, to Covid. This friend walked with us through the hardest moment of loss in our lives, and now is having to walk through a time of deep grief herself. She is declaring her faith and trust in Jesus, and proclaiming her husband's faith as well. In the middle of loss, she has a sure hope that that God is with her, and she will see hee husband again because he knew Jesus too.

To focus on what is important we often need to stop, and Covid certainly stopped a large part of the world. God built a hard stop into his system for the Jewish people called the Sabbath, and He did it because He knew they needed it. During this stop, many families have gotten to (had to?) spend more time together. For our family at least, it provided more moments around the table and more time to remember how important these people are us. 

In other cases, it has meant long separations from family and friends that we care deeply about, and our heart aches as we long to see and hug them again. One friend of mine declared that even though she is an introvert she did not realize how much she still needed people! When things are easy we can take them for granted, and when we take people for granted, we fail to love them like we should. My hope is that we do not just go back to the way things were when we were too busy or too distracted to pay attentions to the friends and family that should really matter to us.

If we are going to be able to learn from this time, we also need to focus on and repent from the the things we were not doing right. God tells us regularly in His word that hard times are times to examine ourselves and rlturn from our sin. If we are not focused on eternal things and we have not been loving our family and friends the way, it means we been focused on the wrong things. God is using Covid as a way to stop us and have us reconsider what is really important, so that real change can happen in our lives.

So I thank God for Covid because He is using it to help me and others to focus on what is really important.

Character

In this process He is using hardships like Covid to develop our character, so that we can become the people He created us to be. In many gyms and weightrooms hangs the sign, "No Pain, No Gain." God built the world in such a way that hardship and pressure are the forces that can break or strengthen objects and people. Here are some ways that God can is using the pain of Covid to form our character.

* Perseverance - How many times in the year have you thought or said, "Is it over yet?" I have many, many times felt a weariness with having to get up the next day to face so much uncertainty. To have to go through the motions of life not knowing if this or that event is even going to be held or whether or not I will get to see this or that person. For some of you it has meant dealing with long-term Covid symptoms. Will today be the day I can go without a blinding headache; I can get out of bed and move around; that my fevor breaks; that I can breath properly again? How do we do life in such conditions? God has given us the opportunity to perservere in and through these challenges. Although none of us has done it perfectly, many are learning that even when life is uncertain they can still get up tomorrow, serve others, do their jobs, and run the race of life even with a stitch in their side (I used to be a cross country runner!)

* Hope - The end result of a learning to perservere with God's help is a life of hope. Right now we see many people despairing, lonely, depressed, and even suicidal. If our lives are not focused on and then refocused over and over on Christ, then in the middle of crisis we will discover those other things will let us down. Money, success, sports, health, and even family and friends will let us down. Only through Christ can we find meaning for our lives and He then puts the other good things in our lives in proper perspective too. So when everything else goes away, we still have Jesus, and He is more than enough.

If you are finding yourself in despair and depression right now, I would encourage you to look to Jesus. If you have never really known Him, spend time getting to know Him now. He is worth it. Get off the internet and news, and read the Bible. Try the Gospels to learn about Him. Read 1 Peter to learn about hope. Read Philippians to learn about joy. He does not promise a change of circumstances in this life, and in fact He promises His followers extra hardship, but He does promise to be with us and to bring us to glory. Covid has reminded me over and over about my need to refocus on these truths and find my hope and joy in Jesus.

* Love - In many places and times in our world, love is simply a transaction between people to get what they want. As long as you are giving me what I need, I will give you what you need. But real love, God's love, is not like that, and He wants us to learn how to love unconditionally like He did and does. Covid and 2020 in general has provided many opportunities to love others even when we do not feel like it. How many times have you had serious disagreements over the proper way to try to combat Covid, or who to vote for, or how to handle race relations? As you gather or don't gather today, are there people close to you with whom you are not happy because of their choices and ideas? Well, guess what? That is a perfect opportunity to learn how to love people better! Yippee, we "get" to love our enemies (and family), because that is exactly what God has done for us. I know it has been an especially challenging season for people in any kind of leadership position, and so often we can get mad at their decisions but how often to we pray for them and thank them for taking on the hard jobs. Our church and our leadership team has had some intense moments this last year, but I love those people more now because we have had honest discussion while still showing love to each other. Take this opportunity to express your love, especially those who are hard for you to love. Thank God for giving us a chance in 2020 to learn to love in the middle of the ugly beautiful.

God's grace and mercy

One of the reasons that prompted me to write this is that I have often focused on the wrong things this year and not been thankful. I listen to the news and talk almost constantly about the bad stuff that has happened or that might happen. Instead, I want to learn to see the good that God is doing, and also remember to thank Him for the good we regularly have. Things often are not as bad as they could be, but I forget to thank Him for His daily grace and mercy.

For instance, even Covid is not as bad as we originally thought. In March, I was thinking that the fatality rate was going to be much higher than it proved to be. I expected that several people in our church could pass away and many people in our local communities. I am not denying that Covid is serious (remember I just had a friend pass away this week), but should we not thank God for His mercy in not allowing a much worse tragedy? Have our prayers for mercy for many of our sick friends not been answered with a yes? I praise God for allowing many of my friends to recover from Covid. I thank Him for many others who have not gotten sick or who have had mild cases. I praise God that although He allows diseases, He also made us with immune systems that fight diseases. I thank God for modern homes and good food so that many of us already live longer and healthier than most people throughtout history. I thank God for wisdom from doctors and researchers who have developed many treatments that did not exist even 100 years ago. We are blessed in many ways and God can and is using Covid to remind us of those daily blessings.

Conclusion

Being thankful in the midst of and even for the hardest things in life gives us a new perpective. They remind us of God's sovereignty and His goodness. Therefore, instead of a life filled with fear and uncertainty worrying about new hardships, we can live with hope, joy, and love. Going forward, I pray for myself and you, that because of the hardship faced we will be more prepared for the next challenges and for eternity with our Lord and Savior.

Why do we have so much fear?

In an age when so many people (especially young people) live in fear of climate disaster, and all the news we get is negative about the future, I think it's important to have some realism about what's actually happening. We need a better historical perspective. Here Bjorn Lomborg shows us the life is actually safer from natural disasters that it used to be. The physical parts of life used to be much harder and much more dangerous for most people. We especially in the west live in much safer times, but we probably live in more fear than people in the past did.

As I heard one Pastor put it recently, we have an idol of safety. We want to feel safe in all circumstances, and we magnify every danger if it makes us feel unsafe, even if we are actually physically much safer than we used to be. I'm convinced it's a control issue. We want the illusion of having control of all the parts of our lives, but we can't, because we aren't God.

But there are several problems with focusing on eliminating danger and staying safe as an ultimate goal. One is that we live in fear instead of a life of faith and trusting God with our future. Second because we don't want to fail and we don't take the risks necessary to accomplish bigger things. This is not just in physical areas, but also relational and emotional risks.

This is why identity in Christ is so important. If you know that you are loved by your creator and that your eternity is secure, then you can live without fear.

Fear can motivate people to action, but it's a horrible way to live. If instead you can live in the safety a God's love, then you can still respond to challenges and not be crippled by your fear of what might happen.

Humble yourselves before the Lord.

Daily thoughts from my Scripture reading.

Jam 4:6 — 10

But He gives greater grace. Therefore He says:

God resists the proud,

but gives grace to the humble.,

Therefore, submit to God. But resist the Devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, double-minded people! Be miserable and mourn and weep. Your laughter must change to mourning and your joy to sorrow. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.

This is so counter cultural. The world tells you that you need to build yourself up, and that if you listen to your heart whatever you want to do is fine. God says that we cannot build ourselves up and that we need to recognize our sin and humble ourselves before Him. Then our Identity can be remade by Him! Lord, I humble myself before you. You are the only one who is great, and I am nothing with you. Thank you for loving me and lifting me up, not for my own glory, but for yours! Please transform me so that my life reflects you more and more.

Good News: You Can Be Part of a Family

Years ago, when I worked as a nurse's aid, I remember a conversation with a young co-worker of mine about her upcoming marriage. She really loved her fiance, but she was worried about whether they could make the marriage work. She came from a broken home, and he came from a broken home. In fact, even their grandparents had been divorced, so neither of them had any examples of successful long-term marriages, so she was worried that they would not know how to keep things together if things got tough. 

So many of the people who come to me for help with life problems have also experienced broken families and the resulting pain and isolation that comes from that brokenness. Lots of people are so jaded by the hurt they experienced in their families or that they see in other families, that they have decided not to get married or not to have kids. Unfortunately, this generally does not make life better, because families are the best place to find companionship and support, and without them, many people get more and more isolated and lonely.

So here is some good news about families. Most people in America still get married; 69% of men and 76% of women. Most people only marry once and most of those marriages still last a lifetime. Marriage provides incredible benefits for all involved, such as higher incomes and wealth creation, longer life expectancies, and better outcomes for children. So if you are married or thinking about whether to have a family, I want to encourage you to have hope that it can work and that it will be a good thing for you.

On the other hand, many people, whether they were the partners in a relationship or children, have already experienced family breakdown and are living the fallout. Perhaps you are skeptical of family or people in general because you have been hurt too many times, but you still want people that love you unconditionally and welcome you just because you are one of the family.

Well, I have some more good news for you. Even if you have no family on earth left, God desires for you to come into His family, and He is a good Father. Through the work of His son, Jesus, He wants to make you His child and an heir along with Jesus to an eternal fortune (Romans 8:14-17). Right now you can know come to God as Father and be adopted into His family by accepting Jesus as your savior and Lord.

Beyond that, when other children of God gather it is called the church, and there you should be able to find people who love you like a sister or brother, because that is what you are. The family of God on earth is not perfect, but as we strive to get to know our Father better He commands us to love our brothers and sisters (1 John 4:21), so the closer we get to God, the better we will care for one another.  

If you are lonely, depressed, unsure of your identity, then please come to God and let Him call you, son or daughter. Then please find a church where they love each other like family, and where they welcome you with the Father's love.

Good News: You Can Be Forgiven

Twenty-five years ago, the president of the African nation of Rwanda, an ethnic Hutu, was killed in a plane crash. The Hutus were the majority group in the county, but the country had historically been run by the minority ethnic group, the Tutsis. Many Hutus blamed the Tutsis for the plane crash and went on a killing spree against them. After two months, more than 800,000 Tutsis had been killed, primarily by machetes and clubs. Unfortunately, the rest of the world failed to take action to stop the genocide. Eventually, a rebel Tutsi group retook the government and stopped the genocide.

This was not the first time such ethnic cleansing has happened, and unfortunately, it is not likely to be the last. What is unique in this instance though is the good news that followed the bad news. Instead of simply retaliating against their neighbors when they had the opportunity, the Tutsi leaders chose a path of reconciliation. Those who committed the horrible murders were sent to jail, but they were also given the opportunity to repent and ask forgiveness for their crimes. Many of those who lost family members have forgiven the murders of their family.

For instance, Tasian Nkundiye murdered his neighbor with a machete, but after serving an 8-year prison sentence, he now lives in the same neighborhood as Laurencia Makalemera, the widow of a man he murdered. He says of her, “I am very grateful to her. Ever since I apologized to her after prison life, confessing to my crimes and asking her for forgiveness, she has accepted me. I even leave my children with her when I am away.” What could have turned into a generations long feud between two people has been changed to a story of redemption and renewal because of forgiveness.

The Rwandans, both those who perpetrated the murders and the victims, benefited from the idea that sin can be forgiven. Since they have undertaken reconciliation the country has become a safer place, which in turn has lead to economic growth.

The idea of reconciliation and forgiveness came from and has been lead by Christians. As my article last week pointed out, the Bible tells us that everyone is a sinner and deserves punishment, so we all need forgiveness. But God loves us so much that He sent His son to die and take the punishment for us (Romans 5:8). He offers us forgiveness for our sins and promises that if we ask for forgiveness, He will give it (1 John 1:9). In other religions, you have to do good deeds to overcome your bad deeds, but you can never be sure you have done enough. In a secular worldview, you cannot overcome your bad deeds because your actions are simply a result of forces outside of your control. Jesus offers us a unique way out of sin and guilt, because he died in our place so that we can be forgiven and our relationship with God can be restored.

Furthermore, once you receive forgiveness, you can offer forgiveness to others because you have experienced the freedom that God's mercy provides (Ephesians 4:32). Forgiveness from God, from others, and towards others when they have wounded you, provides a path out of the trap into which sin leads us. Our relationship with God can be restored, and He then helps to restore our relationships with other people.

Therefore, if you are struggling with sin in your life right now or have long-term guilt over past sin, God has the best news for you. He wants to forgive you. He wants to restore you. You do not have to earn it, and in fact, you cannot ever do enough to earn it. Forgiveness is a gift from God, but you need to receive it. I encourage you to read and pray Psalm 51, and see that God desires to cleanse you and give you joy.