The Wonderful World of God.

Well I’m sitting here listening to streaming jazz music off of iTunes. That’s right there’s some good stuff out there internet radio wise over iTunes if you go to the radio tab. Unless your connection is really slow don’t listen to anything less than 56 kbps because the quality is bad any lower than that. This week has been really crazy as is evidenced by the extremely late post I’m now putting up. We had a three day conference this last weekend, and have been plugging through Theology I class studying the person of the Father within the concept of the Trinity. If any of you out there liken the study of Theology to dry dusty religious head knowledge, and you are a Christian, then that is a misconception that is so detrimental to your pursuit of God. If you enter into Theology with the right perspective and openness and it is taught correctly it should make you want to dive even deeper into knowing this great God that we know and serve and love. For instance this week in the discussion of learning about the Father we covered a lot of incredibly practical aspects of fatherhood. Not how to be good fathers or anything like that, but more so how so often we have an off balance view of at least one of the persons of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) and many times in this broken world and age it is the Father. So many of us understand and want the love of the Son, Jesus Christ, and sadly there’s a fewer number of believers that want anything significant to do with the Holy Spirit. But often the Father gets a really bad rap. We take our misconceptions about fathers, and often the wounds that we have received, or that we’ve perceived that we have received, and place that terrible template on God the Father. Sadly often we believe that He is a distant, angry, vindictive, hateful, and loving only cause He’s forced to be person. How wrong that idea is. How terrible and horrible to think that our Heavenly Perfect Father would be anywhere close to the human examples that are often seen here on earth. In that thought process we tread closely to the same logic used by the Greeks, Romans, and every other religion in the world that ascribes human attributes to a god or gods. That is weak and frightening, to believe in a ‘god’ infinitely more powerful yet exactly like us in temperament. I’ll stick with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob because He’s the only God who has, instead of us giving Him His emotions, talked about His own emotions and they are all perfect and without sin or human weakness. So thankfully God in His exceeding mercy, power, and grace, came and gently shattered and lovingly burned my mighty misconception of Him. In this I have come to know, in as much fullness as I can in this still early point in my walk with Him, the completeness of the Trinity and the Father’s overwhelmingly abundant love for me. The often quoted and cliched verse from John 3:16 describes it perfectly, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever should believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life”. I know so often we hear this and let it go straight through our brains without a thought, but I’d ask that you really meditate on it break it down and make it personal. Find and believe the truth in it. For instance it can be written this way, “For God so loved His creation and this universe that He gave His only Son”, or “For God (The Father) so loved YOU, that He gave His only begotten Son”. That’s right. You. You know you, you know your imperfections, you know your weakness, you know your evilness (for believers) or you think you’re good (if you don’t believe in Jesus). And you have got to understand that God the Father loves you so very deeply, wants to know you intimately, He’s better than any earthly Father, He’s perfect, He won’t let you down, He won’t hurt you, oh, that the depth of belief would reside in you all that the Father’s love is so incredibly existent and extended fully to you. In the story of the prodigal son, the Father welcomes back the wayward son (us) with much joy and affection. The Father sees the son first and while the son takes one step towards the Father, the Father runs to the son. Know that our Heavenly Father runs to us to love us, but it isn’t just that. The son thought to himself that he could be just a slave in his father’s house, but the Father doesn’t think that. He orders the best robe, the ring, sandals, and the fattened calf be slaughtered all for the son. The Father doesn’t say, “Well welcome back, glad to see you, get out in the field and work.” and then kick the son. No, may it never be, the Father throws a celebration and welcomes His son as His son, who once was dead, but has now come back to life. Praise God. I challenge you all to enter into a dialogue with God, ask Him how your view of Him is skewed, and I would encourage this with all three persons of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) for your view of the Father may be well and one of the others off, but know that the Lord will show you where you believe wrongly. Repent of it, and press into the Lord your God. If you do not know God as your Saviour from sin, I encourage you that the Biblical book of John is an excellent place to begin your searching of Him. If you want to know God, and don’t know how. Simply surrender your life to Him. Subject all that you are Body, Soul, and Spirit to His lordship and control, turn from your sins, and aske Jesus Christ to save you from sin and the effects thereof. He is so faithful and full of grace. Turn to Him and you’ll find a great overwhelming love. Peace all.

Warren Sterling