Monday Morning Munch No. 7 - Why do bad things happen?

It's a constant question, "Why does God let bad things happen to good people?"

First, I would ask you to define 'good.'

Then you would most likely stumble over an answer and maybe even rephrase the question to say, "Why does God allow so much evil in the world?"

Either way you're asking the wrong question.

Why doesn't God allow us to experience all of His wrath like we deserve?

There is none good, none (Romans 3:10). We have all fallen from God and are completely wicked.

Therefore, if God removed all the evil in the world He would have to remove us to, because when you eliminate the bad things where do you stop? Murders, rapes, lying, cheating or bad thoughts? They're all bad, so if He eliminated those we'd have to go too.

We constantly ask self-centered questions that are phrased in such a way that look deep, philosophical and sometimes even theological when really we just want to know why we're feeling pain.

Then we want to blame it on someone, and who better but God who is in control of all things?

Ahh, but the majority of Americans, even professing Christians, want a God who will only give them what they want, fix their problems and set them on a course of smooth sailing all the way to the pearly gates.

But God is too good for that.

He designs situations to come in our lives that show us we are not all that we think we are. We are finite, breakable creatures who suffer under the divine sovereignty of a good and holy God. Why? So we will realize He is great and we are not. He is perfect and we are sinners. We are needy and He is the fixer.

God shows us our fragile state and helplessness so that we finally recognize our need for Him.

He knows our inability to come to Him on our own, so He came to us. He did what we could not do: live perfectly. Then Jesus, God in flesh, died our death. He took all of God's wrath on the cross, then rose from the dead three days later finishing the impossible task and conquering over death, hell, sin and Satan.

He doesn't stop there.

God then ordains situations and circumstances to bring us to the end of ourselves so we realize how finite we are and how we need an infinite God. In His breathtakingly beautiful mercy, God saves all who repent and turn from their sins, who surrenders their life into His hands and call on Him in humility and brokenness (Psalm 51:17).

So bad things do happen, pain comes in like a flood and it seems like we can't do anything to fix the situation- praise God! In His mercy He's showing your need of someone bigger than you- Him.

Therefore we can say with great hope, that God will never do anything that is not for our ultimate good and His ultimate glory.

Turn to Him. Turn away from your sin and let God take your life. He makes the painful times make sense and the happy times full of joy inexpressible.

“Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering. The love of God is of a different nature altogether. It does not hate tragedy. It never denies reality. It stands in the very teeth of suffering. The love of God did not protect His own Son. That was the proof of His love – that He gave that Son, that He let Him go to Calvary’s cross, though “legions of angels” might have rescued Him. He will not necessarily protect us- not from anything it takes to make us like His Son. A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go into the process.” -Elisabeth Elliot

If you would like to read more on God's sovereignty and hope through the trials, please read:
Encouragement Through the Trials,
How to Have a Life of Worship Through Trials, Obstacles and Fire,
and God is in Control,
for Scriptures and encouragement.

Monday Morning Munch No. 2- Common and Still Useable

Does the Lord use us, common men and women?

The following is a little food for the soul (and hopefully a nugget that will stir questions) that will answer that.

In Acts 3, Peter and John are used of God to heal a man lame from birth. They then take the opportunity to share the Gospel to everyone who saw the miracle. Because of their teaching and preaching they greatly annoyed the Sadducees and temple people, so Peter and John were arrested (chapter four).

When they went before the high priest and were questioned about sharing the Gospel, they did not defend themselves but started talking about all the wonders Jesus had done. Then boldly proceeded to share the Gospel with the very people who were telling them to stop. This is what happened next:

"Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus." -Acts 4:13

What comfort and encouragement oozed out of this passage for me. They were uneducated (in the Rabbinical schools) and were common. Yet they were used so powerfully by God (because of their boldness) so that the high priests were astonished and saw and recognized they had been with Jesus, for there was no other explanation.

Does your life look different than the world?

Is it easily recognizable that you have been with Jesus?

The high priests end up letting them go even after Peter and John tell them they won't stop speaking about the Lord. Why did they let them go?

"(They let them go) finding no way to punish them, because of the people, for all were praising God for what had happened." -Acts 4:21

Take heart today, O my soul, for the Lord uses common men! It is my earnest prayer to be used by God and that everyone I encounter--whether they be for me or against me--would recognize that I have been with Jesus. May all the people praise the Lord. 

Praying we go forth in boldness to proclaim the Gospel,

Ouch

Convicting [v, kun-vikt-ing]: evidence that impresses upon someone the feeling of guilt, defeat, or unreached standards.

(My definition)

Last night we had a really intense church service where videos were shown from the original Experiencing God series by Henry Blackaby. Maybe I was the only one who experienced some heavy duty convicting in the throw-back-to-the-eighties videos, but God was active in stomping down Sophie. I wanted to share some of the quotes I jotted down from Dr. Blackaby. (The ones that really convicted me are in blue)

• God doesn't give me a program of activity, He gives me Himself.
• God always asks us to do things we cannot do so that He comes and does it through us so both you and the people around you experience Him.
• Once you have a word from God, what you do next indicates what you believe about God.
• Let God make you the person He has on His mind. He does this through the Word.
• If I can figure it out, it's probably not God's will. His ways aren't my ways.
• No where in Scripture does God give a servant the right to dream dreams for God to do.
• I don't set long range plans or goals for fear I will reach them and never know what God really wanted. (This hit me like a thousand daggers aimed at my soul and hands tightly clutching my planner.)
• I put my heart before the One who has the long range plans.
• God is our equipment. He gave us the equipment to complete the task.
• The call is not to do something, the call is to a relationship.
• How you love God will determine your actions.
• We are impatient and say, "Don't just stand there, do something." God says, "Don't do something, just stand there."
• Waiting on God is not inactivity, it is the most active thing you can do.
• If we are in God's hands we can do anything God can do.

These are from my pastor:

• Wherever your focus is, there you will be. If you focus on your sins you will never get over them.
• As faith in God produces joy and peace, faith in self will always produce anxiousness and fear because you're putting your trust in someone who is not capable to solve the problems.

It's convicting me all over again just writing these out. 

Praying for desperate dependence on the Author of life and not myself,

Jesus and Jolly St. Nick

In department stores all over town there are signs hanging everywhere reminding you it’s Christmas time, advertisements suck you in to buying this or that, all in the name of Christmas. You get drawn in by all the sparkles, pretty colors and the holiday specials. Of course we all know that Christmas is really about Jesus and His gift to us, but that gift tends to fade in all the glittering lights of the over-decorated stores. Adults get caught up in shopping and children get caught up in what Santa is going to bring them. This leads to the question:

What if Jesus was like Santa?

What if all we had to do was make Him a list of everything we wanted, then wait eagerly for it to arrive Christmas morning? Maybe leave Him a few cookies and milk as a thank you, but that would be it. No more Jesus until we wanted something else. Like Santa’s bottomless bag of toys, Jesus would grant our every want and desire according to the list we sent Him. And Jesus would always give us what we asked for; we would never have any doubts about that.

Unfortunately, for some people this distorted version of Jesus is not that far off from the Jesus they serve, or rather the Jesus that serves them. Their fabricated ‘Jesus’ is more like a fairy godmother, someone who appears only when they need something, and is not unlike children who think only of Santa at Christmas when they’re waiting for him to deliver their presents.

Like kids who think they earned their gifts from Santa because they weren’t naughty is also similar to the belief of some so-called Christians who think they deserve heaven because they’ve been good or because their ‘nice’ outweighs the ‘naughty.’ Yet the Bible clearly says it’s nothing we do that grants us favor with God; it’s not works that save anyone; no one is good enough to be called righteous, no, not one. However, those false converts are not to be deterred, their ‘Santa-ized’ version of God’s Son dilutes God’s judgment, replacing it with the sparkly, glittery, warm-fuzzy, “unconditional love” God has for everyone.
I guess they missed all the verses about how much wrath God has for sinners.

You see, Santa is seen as the epitome of everything good and pure.

Jesus is everything good and pure. Even His holy wrath is pure, perfect, and totally deserved by every sinner.

Let’s do some more comparisons:

Santa works based off a list we send him. Jesus already knows our most coveted desires before we even know ourselves.

Santa gives us what we want. Jesus gives us what we need.

Santa instills no fear in the heart of anyone. Jesus is to be feared.

Santa is a magical fantasy, one that is shattered with the realization that he is just that- a fantasy. Knowing Jesus, on the other hand, is often magical, but He is not an illusion. However, you do have to be on guard for the lies that say Jesus is also only a product of someone’s amazing imagination. But once you’ve experienced Jesus’ power you’ll have no doubts of His realness.

Beginning right after Thanksgiving, parents take their kids to the mall to sit on Santa’s lap and tell him what they want, yet hardly any parents teach their children that God wants them to crawl up on His lap and talk to Him. But even that produces the thought of another good thing, on the endless list of good things, about Jesus; we don’t have to wait all year to send Him a letter in the mail or go visit Him at the mall, because we have a direct line of communication with the Father and the Son that is open 24/7 and is faster than email could ever hope to be. Prayer.

No, Jesus is not like the boisterous, Jolly St. Nick we so often see around town this time of year, but Jesus should be seen as approachable as Santa. He did, after all, give His life for us. The least we can do is boldly approach Him with our gratitude.

So the next time you’re out rushing around the glitzy department stores for gifts, remember there is one gift no man can manufacture; the gift of Jesus. And Jesus is oh, so much better than the fantasy of Santa Clause. Jesus is real, alive, and longs to be the focus of our lives.