Evidence for God- the beauty of creation

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Knowing God

Knowing God. Where do I start? Honestly I feel inadequate to even talk about this topic, but it's the focus of my attention right now, so I will do my best to dig up a bit of the riches of this idea of knowing the creator and God of the universe.

When I see the world around me it's clear that knowing God is not the quest of most of the human race. Yes, we want to be saved, go to heaven, be forgiven, but to know God is not on our list, not on our bucket list. Most Christians can tell you about God, but it's not from firsthand experience, it comes from a Sunday School class, a sermon or time with other Christians in bible study. To personally know God is the highest goal of the Christian faith and yet it's rarely the focus of most Christians I know.

The reason I'm thinking about this is because I am working my way through Ezekiel. Ezekiel is a prophet in captivity in Babylon. As he writes and speaks the words of God one theme repeats itself over and over again....it's this- "Then they will know that I am the Lord." More than 63 times in the pages of his book God's goal is that his people would know him. It's the goal of God from Eden on....that his man would be in intimate relationship with him. God wants us to know him. That's the number one thing, it's God's #1 goal for us- to know Him.

John writes these words from Jesus as he teaches his disciples for the last time, "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, ad Jesus Christ whom You have sent." Did you see that? What is eternal life? Knowing God! That's God's goal. Is it mine? I want to want to, but I don't even know how, where to start, how to know this awesome God who made me. Since it's God's #1 desire for me it must be mine as well. To know God....where do I start? How do I begin?

Over the years I've found that my walk with God, my knowing of him comes from hanging out with Jesus in the gospels. Each day, as I spend time in His word, I read something from the gospels. It's there I most clearly discover what God is like, how he thinks, and so I hang out with Jesus. I walk with him, watch him, listen to him and in that fellowship with him and the disciples I get to know the God who wants me to know him. In Jesus I see the face of God. In being with him I experience the very heart of God...because Jesus IS GOD!

And so, I pray, as Paul prayed in Ephesians 3, "When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God."

Knowing God. It's God's desire for us. Is it #1 on your list?

Lord, I want to know you. I know you want me to know you. Show me how to know you, to really know you. Give me a hunger, a passion to know you. Reveal yourself to me, help me to know your heart, your thoughts about me and transform me because of those encounters with you. Make me like you because of my time with you. Let others see you in my life and desire to know the one I know because they see you in me. Lord, I want to know you.

Eyes on eternity

Frankly, we all need glasses. Most of the people I know are badly near-sighted. Our vision is only able to focus on "here" and "now". Our decisions and desires are all based on this life....taking care of retirement, saving for "the future" and making decisions to "make me happy." Our vision is on an amazingly small part of eternity we call "my life." Everything we do, every decision we make and even how we spend our time is based on our near-sighted focus on "my life" and "now."

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In the grand scheme of things, to be honest, "your life" is not even an event on the timeline of eternity. But, because our vision is so limited, we only see "now" and fail to focus on some amazing things that are important to our lives. Here's a short list of the important things that are blurry to our vision as a near-sighted race:

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1. God. Our vision of him is blurry because we rarely squint our eyes to try to focus on him. It's hard for us to get this most amazing God in focus and so for most of us our vision is quite blurry about who he is, what he's like, what he thinks about me. Not having God clearly in focus will make it hard for me to focus on everything else beyond my near-sighted world. It will make it hard for me to see my life and my situations clearly as well because if I can't get God in focus then I won't be able to see clearly what he's doing in my life.

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2. Eternity. One of the things we have trouble with is eternity. It's just so....eternal! Forever and ever and, well, you know where I'm going with that. Imagine we roll out a piece of paper that would go from coast to coast, 3,000 miles long in all, and we use this chart to try to get a glimpse of eternity. Let's begin in California to mark our chart in 1 inch increments. Here's our legend- 1 inch=1,000 years. Basically each inch will break down to 10 lifetimes. Your whole lifespan would be one of the 1/16 inch marks on the chart. Each mile would basically cover a million years. Here's how amazing this is....if we start at the water's edge in California and walk 30 feet we have covered the entire 6,000 years of recorded history that we see in the bible. 30 feet, did you get that? Now, as we move across the country, a million years per mile, we cover a period of 3,000,000,000 in our imagined timeline. Only 30 feet of it was man's recorded history, and only 1/16th of an inch was your life. Here is the amazing thing- That whole timeline we drew as we crossed the country is only a small dot on the timeline of eternity. It's amazing how big this is. I think that's why it's so blurry to our vision. We simply can't imagine it.

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3. Here's the part of this that must come into focus for us- what we do with Christ in this life will determine our eternal destiny. We have this "1/16th of an inch" of life to make decisions about him and those decisions will determine our eternity ahead. The very reason Jesus became a man was to provide a solution for our eternal problem. He said, "God loves you so much that he sent me to die for your sins. If you will believe in me I will give you eternal life." The implication is clear- if you don't beleive in him (trust him for salvation) then you have what every man has apart from faith in Christ- eternal death. It is the most important thing we could possibly do with our lives, the most important decision we will ever make and yet our focus is on "now" and "happiness" and "my needs." Sadly, the enemy of our souls has done an amazing work to keep our vision on the NOW to the eternal loss of many.

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I know, in my own life, I live most of my days with the distant horizon out of focus, but I'm praying for a vision for eternity, eyes that look into the days ahead and make decisions today because they will affect me for billions of years to come. I so wish we had our eyes clearly focused on eternity. I'm praying for eyes to see, so that I can make decisions for eternity and not just for today. I'm praying the same thing for you as you read my thoughts. Eternity awaits, your decisions today are important.....

Thoughts on the day

I'm up early this morning, much to do today....a bible study to attend, a memorial service to do, a book to read, and I have to help Joye with Christmas clean-up. Yes, the tree is still up. I told her to just leave it up, Christmas is only a few months away, but that didn't work, so that's on the list too. But really, it's just a normal Saturday, like so many, and like everyone else I fill it up with things to do. Early this morning I read through a few blogs and checked Facebook just to see what's going on. Checking on new babies arriving, problems people are having, friends who have died. It never stops, does it? Life is busy! I read a post this morning from a friend who has a chance to step away from the craziness of the days to look at what he wants to do next. I pray he will find God's best for his next years and walk with God. He's an amazing guy and I can't wait to see what God does with him. I'm also thinking about a class I have to teach in a few weeks. I'm going to do an apologetics class and am really looking forward to it, but there's a lot of prep to do. And just ahead is a trip to Kenya. 50 pastors to teach and a team to prepare. I think I thrive on "crazy" and look for it if I don't have it. Maybe it's the sense of feeling worth in activity, not sure about that, but it feels good to be overwhelmed. Don't tell anyone I said that....ok? All right, on to the next thing. I don't even have time to put this in paragraphs, just wanted to get it all on "paper." Have a great Saturday.

Saturday's cartoon

Some days it takes more than one cup to get the engine going. This is one of those days!

Fame

Media has made these strange days indeed!

Now, more than ever, world-wide fame is possible for a select few in our cultures. For the most part 6 billion of us will live our lives out of the public eye, but a few are known well by everyone. See if you know these faces and then let's talk...

Did you recognize them? Pretty easy, wasn't it? Here's the interesting thing about fame- it's fleeting, it doesn't last, in just moments we are forgotten and the mass of humanity continues on down the timeline of history. Soon the famous are only remembered in history books or are simply forgotten completely. Fame doesn't last.

And yet, in spite of that reality here on planet earth there will be a day when those around us unknown to a watching world will be celebrated for their lives and their walk with God. Fame is uncertain, but God doesn't forget. God rewards, he celebrates the unknown ones and crowns them with glory.

You may not be famous to the world, but God knows who you are. Fame here is short-lived, but being known by the God of creation is eternally rewarding. As I write this I think of Jeremiah's words to Baruch, his scribe, as he said to him, "Should you then seek great things for yourself? Do not seek them." The truly famous people around you may be completely unknown to the media of this world, but their fame will be known to all one day. Are you seeking great things for yourself? Don't bother, let God sort it all out. He will promote you, he will make you truly famous in a way that will last beyond the next 15 minutes.

Thought for the day.....

Living in a foreign land

This morning, as I drove to the coffee shop, I heard one of my favorite bible teachers say,

"Christianity is now and always has been countercultural."

Somehow we think that we can reconcile our faith with our culture, but it was never meant to be so. It can't be done. These are two different worlds, two different systems, two different kingdoms with different rules and rulers.

The kingdom of God is a kingdom of life and the rule of a good God in and through his people.

Then, all around us, is the kingdom of this world, a kingdom of death and the rule of horrible cruel king, Satan.

Two entirely different systems, two different kingdoms with entirely different goals.

We live in the kingdom ruled by a cruel king, even as we serve and are subject to a different king, a different ruler.

How can we think we can reconcile these two kingdoms and make them compatible?

How could these two systems ever reconcile? They can't!

One, a kingdom of life and the rule of a good king.

The other a kingdom of death and a tyrant as ruler.

How did we ever think that we could make these two worlds co-exist? They won't!

Many still try to create and impose on the culture this idea of a Christian nation. There is no such thing! This quest for a Christian nation has focused our attention on the wrong things. We can never achieve it because we aren't supposed to! We are called to share the good news of Jesus Christ with people, one by one, and as they trust Christ you find a community of people ruled by a different king, part of a different kingdom, but we will never take over the kingdom of this world, not now, not as we envision. It's not our job!

The king who will take over one day will come and rule in his time, but it will not be by our efforts or by our best attempts to take this world system by force. It simply won't happen, it isn't what we were called to do!

So here we are, citizens of a different kingdom trying to live in a foreign land. How do we do it? How do we live with this reality that we, as Christians, are countercultural and always will be?

None of us like not fitting in, but if you are a Christian you simply don't fit in with this world system and aren't supposed to. Being a citizen of a different king makes us foreigners in our country of birth, but it's a reality we must be aware of. If you are a Christ follower you will never fit into the culture around you....unless you abandon the very king you have claimed and surrender to the one who rules here.

It's quite challenging living in a foreign land, isn't it?

Lessons remembered

More than 40 years ago I had an encounter with one of my professors in university that has impacted me more than anything he said in the classroom. It's funny, but I spent hundreds of hours in his classes, loved him as a teacher and believer, but remember only one thing he ever said. Here it is,

"Every morning when I dress I struggle with Jesus' words, "if you have two coats and see someone in need...." I have two coats and am still not sure what to do about it." -Andrew C. Bowling

There it is. A heartfelt struggle with the basics of the Christian faith. He had a PHD and was teaching bible at a Christian school, but still struggled with the nuances of the faith in an honest and real way. I never forgot those words, they have been part of my thinking, a worm weaving through my brain for decades.

Last night I remembered his words when I got a call from a man in our church who asked, "Could I borrow $20.00. I need some food....." And I thought (thanks Dr. Bowling) "I have $20.00 extra." So I went to meet him and gave him $40.00. I'm not saying that to brag, I'm saying that because it's important. If we never wrestle with the real issues of the faith how will anyone ever know we are living out what we believe?

Do you struggle with the words of Jesus? Are you trying to figure out how to live them out? I hope so. I hope, like my old prof, Dr. Bowling, you are looking for ways to live out the faith you claim. People will never forget what you say and what you do as you imitate Christ in the real world.

It's this simple

Alone

There is a strange thing that happens to all of us. It's something we were never meant to feel, an emotion, a feeling that we were never meant to know and yet we all have felt it. We have all had an overwhelming feeling of being alone.

Alone. It's a terrible feeling, a sense of abandonment, rejection, isolation. Alone is a place we all dread and avoid with noise, busy lives and activity, but alone is there. It's the great fear of every man, every woman, the fear that we will be alone.

It was never meant to be this way. God didn't design us to be alone. It was never an experience of Adam until sin came and then a sense of "alone" came. It's part of sin. We were designed to forever be in fellowship with God. We were designed to constantly sense and be in community with him, but when sin came along with it came "alone."

Jesus came to take care of our sin problem, but he came to do so much more. He came to resolve my aloneness, my isolation, my emptiness. He came to provide a way for us to once more be in constant fellowship with the one who made us. Jesus said, as he anticipated his disciples abandonment, "Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me."

And now that is our solution as well. Now we, the very ones who dreaded being left alone, can have that ever present Father with us, in us, abiding, living with us every moment. Now, in Christ, one of my fearsome problems, the problem of "alone", is solved by the ever present Lord of heaven living in me, with me, and I will never be alone again.

Thank you, Lord.

Saturday's cartoon

I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Phil. 3:4

Training is the most difficult of disciplines. It's often done when no one sees what you are doing. There is pain, struggle, discouragement and the constant thoughts of giving up. It's hard, but the reason we do it is because the prize, the race is worth it. You can't run the race if you're not ready and that's what training is all about. Daily disciplines that no one will see are part of what it takes to run the race that everyone will see. "I press on..." Paul understood the struggle, the temptation to give up, but he set a goal and gave all he had to the race.

Questions for the day: Do you have a mark, a goal in your sites that you are reaching towards? Do you know it will sometimes be hard? Are you committed to doing what no one sees so you will be rewarded when everyone does? How's your training going?

Quote of the day

"The greatest obstacle to my Christian life and an intimate relationship with God is me."

He came

Is there a God?

Does he care?

Is he involved in our world?

Does he even know what we are going through?

Does he understand the pain, the hurt, the suffering we live in here?

These questions are really important because we, as residents of this little planet, all wonder if God is there and if he cares. We want there to be a God. We want him to care about us. We want to know he's more than just the God of creation. We want and need a God of our days, a God of our pains. We want a God who shows us he cares about US.

God's response? He came.

You may ask, "He came? What do you mean God came?" The answer is quite surprising. We might think that the sign of God's care for us would be rain, gold, food, lack of pain or a hundred other things, but the ultimate sign of God's care for us was his coming to our little planet as a man, as one of us. God became a man and lived here, lived with us, saw our pain, felt our pain, cried our tears, understood our struggles and then provided the perfect solution for it all.

Is there a God? Does he care? His answer? YES, he came. And in that coming he changed everything forever. How could one man make such a difference? How could one person living for just a few years change the world? He can if he's God and he is.

How do we know God cares? He came.

Tuesday morning at Starbucks

It's Tuesday. A busy day ahead. I'm sitting at Starbucks for a moment with a cup of coffee and a coffee shop full of people. Some are visiting, others are isolated with headphones and computer telling everyone they are not available. It's a social place. Coffee is the catalyst and a place to sit and visit makes it the local pub of our day. Most of the people here know each other, it's clear they are here often. The baristas are addressing customers by name and everyone is in good spirits. It's a community of moments and soon they will scatter to school, work or back to the house. For a few moments community happens, laughter erupts, the din of voices interacting fills the room. I think it's this sense of community that draws people to this place. A place where anyone can come, get some coffee and be part of something.

As I watch those around me I'm thinking this is exactly what the church is supposed to be. We are called to be a place where anyone can come and be part of the community. Anyone. Somehow we have made it an exclusive club that makes most of the world around us uncomfortable in our churches. Of all places the church should be a place where everyone is welcome, loved and cared for. I wish we could recapture that idea of community rather than what the church at large has become. How do we recapture the love of Christ that reaches out to the hurting, confused and struggling around us and make them feel at home in our church families? How do we become a community that those without a place would be welcome in our midst?

Just a few rambling thoughts at Starbucks on a Tuesday morning.