“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.” – John 14:15-17 (ESV)

He is one of the most mysterious, difficult to grasp aspects of God.  The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity.  He can be tough to wrap around our heads around because so much about the Holy Spirit makes so little physical sense.  The Father is in heaven, and Jesus walked this earth with us.  We have some level of understanding, at least on a distant level.

But the Holy Spirit… He is the One Who brings it all home. (And, yes, the Holy Spirit is He, not “It”.  He is as much God as the Father and the Son.)  He makes faith very personal for each and every believer because He dwells inside us:

And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” – Acts 2:38 (ESV)

This is not the place for a discussion about baptism and what it is and isn’t.  But, in essence what is being said here is that once we have turned away from our sin and embraced Christ as our Lord and Savior, we are cleansed and forgiven and we receive the Holy Spirit within us.  And I personally believe this all happens pretty instantaneously.

Why do we need the Holy Spirit?  He is the One Who brings us understanding of Who God is because He is God living within us.  Think about it: the twelve disciples walked with Jesus for probably about three years.  Day in, day out.  They heard Jesus speak.  They sat at His feet.  They witnessed – even participated in – a wide variety of miracles.  And yet, repeatedly, they didn’t get it.  Even in Jesus’ last moments leading up to His crucifixion, they didn’t get it.  They were confused.  They misunderstood what they saw.  Their faith was shaken.

They were human.  And they thought like humans.  Acted like humans.  Flawed, lacking understanding.

We are human.  We think like humans.  Act like humans.  Flawed, lacking understanding.

It is the Holy Spirit Who enables us, empowers us, guides us, teaches us, comforts us… helps us.

At Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came like a rushing wind and filled the disciples, we see God’s indwelling power make the necessary change these men needed.  Peter, who had previously acted like a coward by thrice denying Christ to save his own skin, is now standing up boldly and proclaiming Jesus.  He gave them the words to speak – and in languages they didn’t know so that all in Jerusalem, no matter where they came from, could hear and understand the message of Jesus Christ and be saved!

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” – Romans 8:26 (ESV)

God realizes our weaknesses.  He knows we are merely flesh, and sinful to the core.  Jesus forgives us of our sin; the Holy Spirit keeps us on track, even going to the Father on our behalf (since we ourselves are incapable of even knowing what to pray for).

“…do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,  for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” – 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (ESV)

What God has done for us – the ultimate act of selfless love, humbling Himself by sending His Son to live with us, give us the example of God in the flesh, and die as the perfect sacrifice for our sin, then sending the Holy Spirit to live within us as our Helper – is amazing.

And as I type that word “amazing”, it just doesn’t seem to do justice to what the Lord has done.  He created everything and let man enjoy perfection, only to have Adam and Eve disobey the one thing God told them not to do.  He has gone so far as to not only provide a way back to Him, but to dwell not just among us, but within us.  To guide us.  To strengthen us.  To intercede on our behalf.  God is doing the work for us.  We cannot do it.  We don’t deserve it.  But God, in His infinite love, grace and mercy, has made a way for each and every one of us.  We would be fools to look around us with our limited capabilities and say “yes” in faith to the gift the Lord God has offered us.

“He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.” – 2 Corinthians 5:5 (ESV)

God promised to never leave us, never abandon us.  That promise, with the Holy Spirit living inside us, becomes very literal.  God in flesh (Jesus) came, dwelt amongst men, and left to take His place at the right side of the Father.  But God in Spirit (The Holy Spirit) has come, and remains, to continue the sanctification process we could never do alone.

And how do we know the Holy Spirit is at work?  Well, we know a tree by it’s fruit:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23, ESV).

Hmm… sounds an awful lot like Jesus, doesn’t it?  This is how we recognize the Holy Spirit, how He is “proven”. He isn’t found in religious rituals, or nonsensical utterances, or anything of the sort.  The evidence of the Holy Spirit is the change He makes in a believer.  Because we are no longer our own.  We are God’s. The Father laid out the terms of the deal.  Jesus sealed the deal.  The Holy Spirit helps us keep our end of the deal.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” – Romans 15:13 (ESV)

1  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3  All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4  In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. – John 1:1-5 (ESV)

Scripture is written with an amazing economy of words.  There is not one wasted word, not one bit of filler or fluff, within its 66 books. In order to truly mine the depths of meaning in God’s Word we need to slow down a bit and think about what is being said.  And to whom.  And why.

The opening of John’s gospel is one of the richest passages in all of Scripture.  Here we discover the eternal Logos (λόγος), or “Word”. The λόγος has always existed, alongside God and as part of God.

To understand the importance of John’s choice of words is to understand just what the λόγος is.  In Greek philosophy, the λόγος is wisdom, the reason or causation of one’s argument.  The λόγος, while translated “word” does not refer to actual written words per se, but to the meaning behind them, the reasoning for one’s thoughts and actions.

This idea was important to the Greeks (Gentiles).  Stoic Greeks saw the λόγος as the force behind all of existence.  Creation is because of the λόγος.

To Jewish philosophers of Jesus’ day, the idea of the λόγος was equally important.  Philo of Alexander (a Greek-influenced Jewish philosopher who taught during Jesus’ lifetime) saw the λόγος of God as the glue that holds all of creation together and keeps it running.  In short, the λόγος is the very essence of God.

So, what exactly is John telling us in these first verses of His gospel?  Let’s look a little further down in his introduction:  “And the Word (λόγος) became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14, ESV).  Jesus is the λόγος – the very essence of God, Who took on flesh and lived with us, fully God and fully man.  Jesus lived before His earthly birth, part of the triune God.  He is the Light Who overcame darkness.

Moreover, He was active in the creation of the universe.  As John points out, all things were made through Him.  Nothing could exist without Him.  Paul puts an even finer point on the subject of Christ as the λόγος :

15  He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 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. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. – Colossians 1:15-20 (ESV)

To take it even further, the author of Hebrews opens his letter as such:

1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs – Hebrews 1:1-4 (ESV).

Jesus, the “radiance of the glory of God”, the “exact imprint of his nature”.  In other words, the λόγος of God, His very essence made flesh.  If you want to know what God “looks” like, look at Jesus.  He was not just a good man.  He was no mere teacher.  He was human, but He was/is God.  He walked this earth, offering forgiveness, performing miracles, teaching wisdom, and loving as no one else before or since.

Jesus endured all the pain and suffering of a common criminal, and did so for a people He knew would reject Him and call for His crucifixion.  This Jesus, Who died so we might live, is the very essence of God, Who was present at creation (“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…”, Genesis 1:26, ESV, with italics added for emphasis).  And yet He took on flesh, lived as one of us, experienced sorrow and pain and suffering, and did so without sin or fault.  All so He could be the perfect, only acceptable sacrifice for our sin.  He bore our sin, removed our iniquity, and did so as a compassionate act of grace through Love.  Who else but the very λόγος of God Himself could do that?

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. – Genesis 1:31 (ESV)

Did you ever watch “How’d They Do That?”  It was a show that was originally broadcast back in the 1990’s, but you can still catch reruns of it.  They have a film crew visit a factory and show how any number of products and machinery and what-have-you were invented, how they are manufactured and how they work.  For someone who is admittedly mechanically declined, this is pretty fascinating stuff.

The subject of God as Creator is one that absolutely fascinates me.  I’m a person with a creative bent, but God’s way of creating astounds me.  In fact, human beings cannot create the way God does.  I will argue that humans do possess the ability to truly create at all.  We can invent.  We can design.  We can build.  But creation is something altogether uniquely God.

God creates ex nihilo – out of nothing.  Read Genesis 1 and you see the running motif: God spoke and it was.  God spoke and it was.  And it was good.  (Makes sense when you consider that the tiniest subatomic particles of all matter are made up of waves much like sound waves.)

Try as we might, humans cannot pull this one off.  We need material to build with, the piece together and make anything.  We need ingredients that God created.  When I paint a sunrise, I need a canvas, brushes, paints… all manufactured from base materials created by God.  When God “paints” a sunrise, He creates the real thing.  And, no matter how amazing my talents (and, trust me, my talent + painting ≠ amazing), I will never make anything that comes close to the wonder of God’s true creation.

God not only created all things.  He sustains all His creation.

5 For I know that the Lord is great, and that our Lord is above all gods. 6  Whatever the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps. 7  He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth, who makes lightnings for the rain and brings forth the wind from his storehouses. – Psalms 135:5-7 (ESV)

In the book of Job, we see the central character and his three friends going back and forth about Who God is and what He does and why.  At one point, Job – lamenting the pain and sorrow inflicted upon him that he did not deserve – cries out, “Let the Almighty answer me!” (Job 31:35, ESV).

Which is exactly what God does:

4 “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. 5 Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?6 On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, 7 when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? 8 “Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb, 9 when I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band, 10 and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors, 11 and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed’? 12 “Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place, 13 that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it? 14 It is changed like clay under the seal, and its features stand out like a garment. 15 From the wicked their light is withheld, and their uplifted arm is broken. 16 “Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep? 17 Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? 18 Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Declare, if you know all this. 19 “Where is the way to the dwelling of light, and where is the place of darkness, 20 that you may take it to its territory and that you may discern the paths to its home? 21 You know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great! 22 “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, 23 which I have reserved for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war? 24 What is the way to the place where the light is distributed, or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth? 25 “Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain and a way for the thunderbolt, 26 to bring rain on a land where no man is, on the desert in which there is no man, 27 to satisfy the waste and desolate land, and to make the ground sprout with grass? 28 “Has the rain a father, or who has begotten the drops of dew? 29 From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the frost of heaven? 30 The waters become hard like stone, and the face of the deep is frozen. 31 “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion? 32 Can you lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season, or can you guide the Bear with its children? 33 Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on the earth? 34 “Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, that a flood of waters may cover you? 35 Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go and say to you, ‘Here we are’? 36 Who has put wisdom in the inward parts or given understanding to the mind? 37 Who can number the clouds by wisdom? Or who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens, 38 when the dust runs into a mass and the clods stick fast together? 39 “Can you hunt the prey for the lion, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, 40 when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in their thicket? 41 Who provides for the raven its prey, when its young ones cry to God for help, and wander about for lack of food? – Job 38:4-41 (ESV)

There it is.  Straight from the mouth of the Almighty Himself.  Can you imagine how terrified Job must have felt receiving this dressing down from God?  When the Lord begins with words like, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me” (Job 38:2-3, ESV), you know its not going to be fun.

But what God is saying is this:  He is the Creator.  He is the Sustainer.  He is the Giver of all good things.  We can take no credit for any of it.  We weren’t even here yet.  As Augustine observed, ” Let us therefore believe that God works constantly, so that all created things would perish, if his working were withdrawn.”

The Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works. – Psalms 145:17 (KJV)

Take a saucepan and fill it with water.  Put the water on a stove and heat until the water is warm – not hot, but bathwater warm.  Place a frog in the water and slowly begin turning up the heat.  No need to put a lid on the pot.  The frog is warm and comfy – he won’t be jumping out.  Before he realizes it, he will be thoroughly boiled.

OK… first, let me assure everyone that I am not some sadistic frog killer.  I have never actually boiled a frog.  And I hope you don’t either!

But the analogy shows us how sneaky sin works.  If you throw the frog in boiling water, he’ll jump right out.  But… let him stew in the warmth for a while and slowly crank up the heat and he’ll never know he’s being cooked.  At least not until he is medium rare.

That, friends, is our problem.  We get comfortable in the warmth of our own sinful stew and don’t realize when the simmer becomes a slow boil.  We need someone who can / will reach into the boiling pot and pluck us out of our sin.  But that somebody must be pure – without sin, entirely righteous and holy.  Otherwise we’ll just end up in another pot of warming water.

“The wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23a [KJV]).  In the garden of Eden, there was no death.  Only life – eternal, pure existence with God.  Then the fall of man, the entrance of sin, and the rot of impurity.  Sin is the absolute antithesis of God.  It opposes everything God is.  It takes all that God created beautiful and pollutes it.  The problem for us is that, sin is so prevalent, we don’t always notice it.  We desperately need saving from the employment of sin.

“…but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23b [KJV]).  The Hebrew word ‏צַדִּיק‎ (ṣaddîq) is translated as “righteous”.  It means that, in all His thoughts, in all His ways, God is just.  He is the righteous judge.  It is the reason we are instructed to not judge others.  That is His job, and way out of our pay grade.  We simply do not possess the necessary qualifications to judge others.  Why?  We are sinful, and sin turns out thoughts and motives inward.  God is love.  We are self serving.  Our judgments are not pure.

Add to God’s righteousness the fact that He is holy.  He is filled with pure goodness and love (because, as we have learned, He is love).  The ESV Bible renders the Hebrew word ‏ ‏חָסִיד‎ (ḥāsîd) as “kind”.  Indeed, holiness is truly kindness.  God does not need us, but we need Him.  He does not treat us like we are the mere creation of a distant deity.  He is our Father.  And He is righteous, holy, kind, love…

It is why He sent His Son Jesus to die on the cross.  In doing so, good (holiness, life) overcame evil (sin, death).  We cannot jump out of the pot ourselves.  We need someone qualified – just and pure – to save us, once and for all.  And Jesus did just that.  We frogs should all be eternally grateful – a grand understatement if ever there was one.

5  Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. 6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. 7  Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. 8 It will be healing to your fleshand refreshment to your bones. – Proverbs 3:5-8 (ESV)

Say we had never met before.  And, honestly, there is a pretty good chance – if you are reading this blog – that we haven’t.  I would suggest we meet at a neutral, public place (most likely a Caribou Coffee or Dunn Brothers) where we could sit down, grab some java and talk.  (For those of you who know me already, I’d love to sit at the ‘Bou for some coffee and conversation as well.  E-mail me or message me on FB.)

As our conversation went on, we would share little facts and details of our lives – work, family, interests, faith, etc…  Nothing too deep or personal (after all, we just met).  And we would most likely trust that what the other is saying is truth.  Unless, of course, one of us goes off on some tangent about being the first man to open a Burger Chef restaurant on Mars only to have to close it down when you discover the Martian atmosphere has too little oxygen to support the flame for your burger grills, so you relocate to Mattoon Illinois where you discover your true life’s ambition is politics, so you move to Europe and run for King of Belgium, only to abdicate after scandal breaks because you make some ill-conceived slanderous comment Belgian waffles, and so on and so on…

We have to enter into the conversation with some level of cautious trust.  As time goes on, and we get to know one another better, that trust level grows.  Over time we build a relationship on that shared trust.

Today seems like a good day to discuss faith.  The subject was broached yesterday as we discussed the Bible because, frankly, if you do not trust Scripture – God’s written revelation of Himself to His people – you will never trust God.  And if you never trust God, you will never have a meaningful relationship with Him.

As we continue seeking God through Advent (and beyond), faith will become more and more helpful in our understanding of the Lord.  The reason is that we humans, quite simply, are not God.  We are flawed and imperfect.  We cannot understand the past or discern the present with 100% clarity and understanding.  In fact, whether due to misunderstanding or bias or any of a number of reasons, we often (maybe even usually) get our perceptions wrong.  Add to that the fact that we do not know the future, and you see why it is far better to trust God and His Word, instead of relying on ourselves.

Faith is far stronger than “fact”.  Our idea of fact is based on what we (think we) know for sure.  However, faith – believing what is unseen – brings amazing results.  This is where God works; it is His milieu.  God’s thoughts and reasoning are far above those of limited man, so the only way we are going to comprehend the Lord with any depth is through faith.

That does not mean that reason does not apply.  It most certainly does.  And, my prayer is that, as we go along, your faith is deepened and each of us sees just how reasonable following Jesus Christ really is.  You see, God is so often the God of the Unexpected.  To Him, what we consider “miraculous” is mundane (as if anything to do with God could ever be mundane).

Take a moment and read Matthew 14:22-33.  The apostles are in a boat, out on the sea of Galilee, very late at night.  The time of night should have been no concern to the fisherman among them.  These guys worked the night shift, fishing when it was cooler and the catch would be better.  But, on this particular night, the waters were rough.  And out walking on the waves they see… an apparition?  A ghost?  No – it’s Jesus!

And when Jesus tells them Who He is and not to fear, Peter – who loved and was devoted to Jesus in his own very flawed, very human way – wanted so badly for it to be Christ on the water that he cried out, “If it’s really you, call out for me to come to you!”

And He did.

And Peter did.

Peter walked on the water.  Not by his own power, but the power of God working through faith.

And everything was going great, until…

Until Peter took His eyes off Jesus.  He turned away from faith to face the “facts”: he was standing atop crashing wavs in the middle of a storm.  He was human.  He can’t walk on water!

He panicked.  But, Jesus saved him.

Oh ye of little faith.

Oh we of little faith.

Faith is what it takes to understand the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Faith is what we need to know God better.  Because, left to our feeble comprehension, God and His will and His ways are impossible to understand.  We start with a little faith.  We crack open the Bible and begin reading, and seeking Him in His Word.  We pray and begin looking for Him in the everyday of our lives.  We seek Him diligently, trusting that He is here and, in His time, will reveal Himself to us.  And, one of the most remarkable a-ha moments is when eyes are open and we see that He has been with us all along, every step of the way.  Through every trial and every hardship, every celebration and every mournful day.

7  “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11 If you then,who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! _ Matthew 7:7-11 (ESV)

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. – 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (ESV)

I am a conspiracy theorist at heart.  I take nothing on face value.  I am one of those people I talked about yesterday: I like hard facts and proof.  Trust does not come easy for me.

But when I look at The Bible, when I see it for exactly what it is… For me, understanding that Scripture not only claims to be God’s Word but absolutely has to be God’s Word is a great faith enabler.  (If you are looking for a great book to bone up on your apologetics or help with understanding the veracity of Scripture and the truth of Who God is, Who Jesus is and that, yes, He is The Way, The Truth and The Life, I would recommend Josh McDowell’s The Evidence That Demands a Verdict, a very insightful tome.)

The Bible is God’s Word to His people. When we’re seeking God, this is the place to start. It is here that He reveals Himself to us.  The collection of 66 books runs as a thematic narrative, It was penned by around 40 different writers – some educated men, some simple shepherds and fishermen, even one who was a reformed Pharisee (Paul, who wrote the largest percentage of the New Testament).

The books that are contained in the Bible were written over the span of around 1500 years, in three different languages (Hebrew, Koine Greek and Aramaic).  When you consider all these facts, then see that the Bible does not contradict itself within these pages, you begin to see there is something indeed quite special about this collection.

For me, one of the factors that shows the Bible’s veracity is it’s cohesion.  Think about it: Moses was a stuttering Israelite raised as an Egyptian royal. David was a shepherd who became king.  Solomon was a king – and the wisest man on earth – who fell in disgrace and foolishness.  Jonah was a hesitant prophet. Matthew was a tax collector (scourge of the earth in Jesus’ day).  Luke was a physician.  Peter and John were simple fishermen.  Now, on top of that, try to imagine a running narrative that holds together, without error or hiccup, being written from 500 AD – the days of Attila the Hun, the decline of the Roman Empire and the rise of Mayan Civilization – until now.

There is also the amazing economy of the writing.  There are no wasted words in all of Scripture.  No filler.  No meaningless lines.  It is a collection so rich with wisdom, history, ethics, poetry, prose, prophecies fulfilled and to come, and truth that there is no possible way the Bible is anything short of what it claims to be: the entirely inerrant Word of God, written down by men by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Consider this also: The Bible is God – Existence Himself, Our Heavenly Father – showing Himself to us and defining the terms of His relationship with us.  The Creator of the Universe has given us His Word not for His benefit, but for ours.  But it s for our benefit by God’s terms, not ours.  The wisdom contained within far exceeds the wisdom of man.  The expectations set for us are not those that would be set by sinful, self-serving humans but by a loving, omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), omnipresent (everywhere all the time), eternal God Who reaches out to His people wherever they are, regardless of position or station in life.  From the highest king to the lowest tax collector to the humblest fisherman, He is God.  He loves us.

There is absolutely no way The Bible could be anything less than God’s Word.  It is too enduring, too cohesive, too wise and accurate, to be anything less.  So we better take God at His Word, seek Him in His Word, trust that His Word is true and faithful and worthy.

6  “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; 7 let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. 8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. 9  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. 10  “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, 11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. 12  “For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. 13  Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.” – Isaiah 55:6-13 (ESV)

To that I can add nothing more. Except a hearty “Amen!”

24 Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” 26 Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” 28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him,“Have you believed because you have seen me?Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” – John 20:24-29 (ESV)

Columbus Day is one of my favorite holidays.  Not that I enjoy the celebrations (what celebrations?).  I get a kick out of the fact that our post offices, government and banks take the day off to commemorate the man who did not discover America.  And then there is George Washington and the cherry tree.  “I cannot tell a lie,” the young future general and president is quoted as saying.  History and myth so often intertwine that, over the years, it can be hard to discern the two.

Even Christmas itself is an inaccuracy.  Historians claim that Jesus was, most likely, not born in December, let alone December 25.  The day we celebrate Christmas is, according to some historians, the Christian adoption of Saturnalia, a week-long Roman celebration of the god Saturn that was held from December 17 to 23 each year.

Historians even managed to get the year of Christ’s birth wrong.  Allegedly.  Which is a shame because our calendar is based, in large part, on the year of Jesus’ birth (originally 1 A.D., with all years before marked B.C. [before Christ] and after noted as A.D. [Anno Domini, “the year of our Lord”]).  Historical birth date claims vary.  Some think Herod died in 4 B.C., which would historically place Jesus’ death around 6 B.C.  Some historians try to tie the Star of Bethlehem with certain astounding astronomical anomalies that would date the birth of Jesus as either October of 7 B.C., or June of 2 B.C. – two dates that do not jive with Herod’s 4 B.C. death date.

In the end, does any of this amount to a hill of beans?  We view history from a much different point-of-view than people did 2000 years ago.  We are much more involved in the data – facts, figures, documentation, proof, artifacts, carbon-dating.  In Jesus’ time, the facts were important.  But far more important was the story.  History was recorded with an eye toward getting the meaning right.  It didn’t matter that Matthew may not be chronologically perfect.  He was making a point about Jesus, and the scenes recorded in the Gospels are arranged to make that point.  It doesn’t make them inaccurate or wrong.  It just makes them more narrative.

Humans like assurance.  We need the false sense of security that information provides.  We want to know all the facts, exactly and accurately. Otherwise we will tend to doubt what is being presented to us.  Essentially, we have the same problem Thomas had.  “Unless I see Him with my own two eyes – see the nail holes on His hands and stick my hand in the pierced wound in His side, I will not believe.”  Jesus response: “Blessed are those who have not seen and still believe.”

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1, ESV).  And faith – not data – is the base for understanding.  Take a moment and read Hebrews 11 to get a better of grasp of how – and why – it is better to base our beliefs on what God – you know, The Great I AM THAT I AM, Existence Himself – has to say as opposed to what educated humans “discover”.

And God, in His infinite understanding, kindness and mercy – doesn’t just leave us hanging with a simple “trust Me, I am God”.  He gave us His Word.  In the Bible, we are told all we need to know (and we live on a need to know basis).

So, how can we trust the Bible to be right?  Well… it takes faith.  Believing is knowing based on what God says, not what we think we have figured out.  And, as for the trustworthiness of the Bible… well, there’s our cliffhanger.  We’ll pick this up again next time.

In the meantime, if some historian somewhere could just find Jesus’ birth certificate, we could get an awful lot of confusion straightened out.  Or it could just stir the pot even more.

…God is love. 1 John 4:8b (ESV)

I have a hard time wrapping my head around the subject of God’s love.  Honestly, if someone treated me the way I have treated the Lord at certain times in my life, I’d have walked away from that relationship a long, long time ago.  And, right there in those two sentences, the difference between how I “love” and how He loves is illustrated.

God is love.  Apart from God, there is no love.  The reason is that, in and of ourselves, we human beings do not possess the capacity to truly love. Not by God’s definition of the word, that is.

Agapē is a Greek word that literally means “a love feast”.   In the King James Version it is often translated as “charity”.  God’s love is utterly selfless.  Unlike relationships between humans, God has no need of us.  He does not benefit from loving us, the way we benefit from His love for us.  We are truly the benefactors of the One Who does not merely love, but is love.  God’s love is pure.  It is not need based.  It has no conditions.

The apostle Paul, writing to the church at Corinth, illustrated beautifully what love manifest looks like:

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;  it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. – 1 Corinthians13:4-8 (ESV)

Since we are seeking God, and God is love, I think it would be a good exercise to take the verses above and replace the word “love” with “God”.

God is patient and kind.  “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count lowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).  When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, He had every right to destroy the Earth.  But He didn’t.  At least not yet.  God seems to reserve that particular action for when the sin of this world becomes so great that there is no other choice.  With Noah, the Lord waited until there was one righteous family left.

God does not envy or boast; He is not arrogant or rude. Who does God have to boast to?  He is God.  Not one of many, but the One and Only.  He is gracious to us, for we are truly precious in His sight.

God does not insist on His own way.  It’s called free will.  And, sorry Calvinists, we all have it.  It doesn’t mean God’s will won’t be fulfilled (it will be).  But, love can only be reciprocated freely.  Love cannot be forced upon anyone.

God is not irritable or resentful.  When God speaks forcibly, it isn’t because He is grumpy.  When God speaks or acts, it is ultimately for our good.  He shows us great favor, but sometimes that takes the form of correction.  He is our Heavenly Father.  When my son takes off running in a parking lot, or decides jumping off furniture with a cape on trying to be a superhero, or attempts any one of an endless varieties of daredevil stunts that seven year old boys tend to enjoy trying, Dad’s response is generally pretty stern and unpleasant.  I love my child.  I do not want him to get hurt.  And , sometimes, I have to get the message across in strong terms.  It isn’t that I’m grouchy.  It’s the fact that I love my kid so much that I will do whatever I can to protect him, and teach him to make wise decisions.

He does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  This one seems fairly obvious, seeing that God is Truth and the One Who defined morality.  Read Exodus or Leviticus sometime.  There are laws God put down that make me think, “Are you kidding?  Someone had to tell them not to do that?”

God bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  “Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the LORD your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you” (Deuteronomy 31:6, ESV).  God created you. He knew you before you were born: “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13, ESV).  You cannot sin so great that God will not forgive you.  You cannot run so far that God will not find you.  His love for you – for all of us – is unconditional and pure and entirely without selfish motivation.

God never ends. He always has been, always will be.  He is the Great I AM, Existence Himself.  And He loves each of us with astounding grace, mercy and patience.  He is our Father.  He is love.  And if we want to know what love looks like in the flesh, we need look no further than His Son, Jesus Christ.

And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.  – Exodus 3:13-14 (KJV)

If we are going to seek God first in all things, it is a good idea to seek Who He is.  I mean Who He really is.  Because I believe we do not give the Lord the true reverence He deserves.  He is our friend in the sense that, when we follow Him, we are no longer His enemy.  He is not our buddy.  He is no one’s sugar daddy, existing merely to fulfill our every spoiled whim.  And – sorry ladies – regardless of what an awful lot of Christian pop songs may claim, Jesus is not your boyfriend.

Moses met God – as close to face-to-face as humanly possible:

Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. – Exodus 3:1-6 (ESV)

I really wish I had used the King James for the above passage because, as everyone knows, when God speaks, He uses King James English.  (That was a humor folks.)

Notice: we are to approach God with awe and respect.  Try to imagine how Moses must have felt, in the burning presence of the Lord.  He didn’t even know how to describe God to the Israelites.  And, it is here (Exodus 3:14) that God reveals exactly Who He is: I AM THAT I AM.

In capital letters.

God does not exist.  He is existence.  We did not create God (although, Lord knows, we’ve tried).  He created us.  God is not an abstraction.  He is real.  Very real.  Very in control.

Now, think about it.  God is immeasurably far and above each of us.  He could have chosen to stay distant, to (as deists believe) create the world, set it spinning on it’s axis, and float away, off to the next project.  And, considering the episode with Adam and Eve and the serpent and the introduction of sin… I mean, honestly, God gave them one command (“Do not eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil”) and they couldn’t even do that!  God had every right at that very moment to wipe them all out and start again.

But He didn’t.  Because God – this incomprehensibly massive being (and I struggle to even find words that are sufficient, and obviously fell short) – loves us.  And He chose to make a way for us to be able to have the relationship with Him that Adam and Eve enjoyed in the garden.

So, through His Word, God reveals Himself to us.  The Old Testament is replete with names for God that tell us of His wondrous attributes. Here are a few, from The Blue Letter Bible website:

• El Shaddai (Lord God Almighty)
• El Elyon (The Most High God)
• Adonai (Lord, Master)
• Yahweh (Lord, Jehovah)
• Jehovah Nissi (The Lord My Banner)
• Jehovah-Raah (The Lord My Shepherd)
• Jehovah Rapha (The Lord That Heals)
• Jehovah Shammah (The Lord Is There)
• Jehovah Tsidkenu (The Lord Our Righteousness)
• Jehovah Mekoddishkem (The Lord Who Sanctifies You)
• El Olam (The Everlasting God)
• Elohim (God)
• Qanna (Jealous)
• Jehovah Jireh (The Lord Will Provide)
• Jehovah Shalom (The Lord Is Peace)
• Jehovah Sabaoth (The Lord of Hosts)

I once taught a class on the names of God in the Old Testament and, wow… the way God reveals Himself is amazing.  Notice that all of these names show how God relates to us. 

But it is in the New Testament that it all comes together. Jesus was truly the fulfillment of the Old Testament, the Messiah, God incarnate Who came not to offer sacrifice on our behalf, but to be our only acceptable, perfect, substitutionary sacrifice for us.

And, again, none of this is abstraction.  Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection on the third day following is historical fact, not allegory. That puts pay to all the Old Testament promises of a coming Messiah.

And, to put a more personal point on this, we must recognize that God – the Burning Bush that never went out, the Great I AM, Existence Himself, the cause of and reason for everything – is also “Abba, Father”.  Abba is a very personal Aramaic term Jesus used to describe the Father.  It means “papa”.  It is a term of personal affection.

And He is not just Jesus’ Father.  He is our Father, too.

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. – Romans 8:14-19 (ESV)

The terms used are Roman legal terms.  We are literally adopted by God as His children.  Put it all together and we see that God is approachable.  We can go to Him – indeed we are expected to do just that – about anything.  But we need to understand the might and awe of our Father and maintain a healthy fear (respect) for Him.  We need to seek God with an understanding of our place and His.  We are on the receiving end of much undeserved love, grace and mercy.

There is one more aspect of God to discuss (only one???), but I have gone on long enough.  Please come back tomorrow, will you?

Study Resources :: The Names of God in the Old Testament. Retrieved from http://www.blueletterbible.org/study/misc/name_god.cfm