ONE HOLY GOD

“The counsel of the LORD stands forever, the purposes of His heart to all generations. Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people He has chosen as His inheritance!”  (Psalm 33:11-12 NIV)

The first article of Christian faith is that man has one and only one true object of worship.  There is one Holy God, creator of heaven and earth.  He is Lord of all life.  To Him we are beholden for our life in all its meaning and its hope. Monotheism for the Christian means that anything else which is put in the place of our loyalty to God is an idol.  The worship of national power, or racial prestige, or financial success, or cultural tradition, is a violation of the one truth about life, that all created things come from God.  To commit life to the one true God is to refuse to have any other gods at all.  Values there are in abundance -- interests, plans, programs, loyalties to family and nation.  But these are not gods; they do not save us; they are not holy in themselves. 

-- Daniel Day Williams (1910-1973) in “Interpreting Theology, 1918-1952”

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GOD’S REMARKABLE PENCHANT

“The Lord your God is indeed God in heaven above and on earth below.”  (Joshua 2:11)

The Bible seems never to gloss over the failings of its characters, nor to explain them. It gives us the unadorned facts, and it leaves the rest to us. And I marvel still more that God so often takes the rather messy stuff of our lives and manages to bring good of it. This doesn’t excuse our messiness (read that ‘sin’), but it does remind us that God is not undone by our weakness, our stupidity, or our wickedness. Rather, God has a remarkable penchant for mixing grace with our basest ingredients until the will of heaven comes to pass. 

-- J. Ellsworth Kalas in “Life from the Up Side: Seeing God at Work in the World”


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LORD AND KING

“In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.’ This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: ‘A voice of one calling in the wilderness, “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him.”’”  (Matthew 3:1-3)

We are used to democracy and everyone receiving a voice; but that is not Christianity and it is certainly not God. Due process and the majority vote can and do err especially in regards to religion. God is wholly other, but has chosen to reveal Himself in history and become one of us in the person of Jesus Christ. He has also left us His Church… We have not elected God President and God's creation is not made up of registered voters. There are no referendums on God's will and there is no chance of recalling Him... Consequently, certain images of God, such as Lord and King will always seem foreign in a democratic, individualistic society. But, once again, we must remember that God is a different type of King: all-powerful, but also all-loving, all-merciful and in a loving relationship with His creatures… We must submit to Jesus as our Lord and King, but it is a submission that paradoxically brings with it liberation, freedom from sin. 

-- Jonathan Bennett 


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TAKE THE TIME

“Through thick and thin, keep your hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ, your Master. Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy… Christ suffered because of others’ sins, the Righteous One for the unrighteous ones. He went through it all -- was put to death and then made alive -- to bring us to God.”  (Excerpts from 1 Peter 3:15-18 The Message)

We can choke God’s Word with a yawn; we can hinder the time spent with God by remembering we have other things to do. “I haven’t time!” Of course you have time! Take time, strangle some other interests and make time to realize that the center of power in your life is the Lord Jesus Christ and His atonement. 

-- Oswald Chambers


#4424

SITTING AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD

“God who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all -- how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died -- more than that, who was raised to life -- is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.”  (Romans 8:32-24 NIV)

To Jesus the ascension came as the culminating divine assurance that the work He had come to do had been completed to the entire satisfaction of the Father, to whose right hand He had now been exalted. “The right hand of God” is metaphorical language for divine omnipotence. “Sitting” does not imply that He is resting, but reigning as King and exercising divine omnipotence. The doctrine of the ascension is therefore the divine affirmation of the absolute sovereignty of Christ over the whole universe…

For the believer, our Lord’s ascension has blessed implications for us. Though physically remote, He is always spiritually near. Now free from earthly limitations, His life above is both a promise and the guarantee of ours. “Because I live, you shall live also,” He assured His disciples (John 14:19). His ascension anticipates our glorification and leaves us the assurance that He has gone to prepare a place for us (John 14:2).

-- J. Oswald Chambers in “My Utmost for His Highest”

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