RESPONDING TO GOD’S GIFT

“Righteous Father, though the world does not know You, I know You, and they know that You have sent Me. I have made You known to them, and will continue to make You known in order that the love You have for Me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”  (John 17:25-26 NIV)

"Responding to God" is a concept that many, if not most, find difficult to grasp.  Human nature and institutions have presented almost insurmountable obstacles to this process.  The free will that God has given mankind permits a focus on immediate and physical needs, often at the expense of long-term and spiritual needs.  Many do not even consider the possibility of an ultimate or eternal need. 

Every single human being causes harm or disappointment to others at various times.  The injury is often in the failure to take an appropriate action.  Mankind has always been plagued with thoughtless and destructive behaviors.  Governments, social organizations, and religions have evolved focusing on these behaviors and attempting to ameliorate them.  Rules, laws, moral codes, and commandments have proliferated with elaborate systems of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards and punishments.  Who could satisfy every demand?  The criminal and immoral usually don't care.  Those who try to do good still face the guilt associated with failing to meet every expectation.  The good and the bad, to various degrees, are all subject to guilt and the anxieties associated with it.  Mankind was given free will and a deep-seated need for God, but not perfection.  We, in fact, seem to be prisoners of our imperfection.

Christians believe that God provided the solution to this condition over 2,000 years ago.  To demonstrate His love for humanity, He sent His Son, in essence Himself, into the world.  Jesus came to destroy the barriers separating men and women from God.  He brought a simple message of forgiveness and reconciliation.  Through Jesus, every human being was given a clear and direct way to God.  He prayed, "Righteous Father, I have made You known to them… in order that the love You have for Me may be in them." The appropriate "response" to God is simply to accept this gift.

-- Larkin Spivey in “God in the Trenches” 

#5914

RECOGNIZING OUR NEED FOR GOD

"We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”  (Isaiah 53:6 NIV)

Complete sincerity is an unattainable ideal. But what is attainable is the periodic moment of sincerity, the moment, in fact, when we confess that we are not as we have sought to appear; and it is at those moments that we find contact with God once more. The progress of our spiritual life is made up of these successive discoveries, in which we perceive that we have turned away from God instead of going towards Him. That is what makes a great saint like St. Francis of Assisi declare himself chief among sinners.

We cannot, indeed, be content with the fluctuating condition, any more than we can resign our self to always rediscovering discordances between our personage and our person. We hear Christ’s command: “Be therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). We find this intuitive aspiration towards perfection in unbelievers as well as in believers. It implies especially a complete concordance between personage and person.

Now it is precisely because we feel the impossibility of following this call that we recognize our need of God and His grace, of Jesus Christ and His atonement. If we thought we did not need God, should we still have a spiritual life? 

-- Paul Tournier in “Reflections”

#5365

THE PURPOSE OF GOD'S LOVE

In God there is no hunger that needs to be filled, only plenteousness that desires to give…. God who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them.

-- C. S. Lewis in The Four Loves

#3667

PERFECTED THROUGH CHRIST

"All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have all turned to our own way,
and the Lord has laid on Him
the iniquity of us all." (Isaiah 53:6)

We must erase the belief that we have to be perfect before we come to Christ, because we can only be perfected through Christ.

-- Charlotte Smith in Sports Spectrum


#3502

PERFECTION

Jesus was the perfect embodiment of God's holy temple on earth. We like to affirm that Christ is perfect, and imparts growing perfection to those who dwell in Him. But despite our theological assertions, the word perfect is a stumbling block for most of us. Perhaps this is because our images of perfection are far from perfect!

We tend to imagine perfection as a fleeting or unattainable phenomenon disconnected from the daily smear and blear of life. We are drawn to ideals of perfection in physical beauty or strength that cannot be sustained. We associate perfection with infallible moral purity that is irreparably shattered by a single moral lapse. We are inclined to suspect that anything appearing perfect is either artificial or sure to evaporate under the sultry sun of reality. Perfection is the ethereal phantom we are never allowed truly to possess.

But the biblical notion of perfection is not fragile, phony, or fleeting. It has to do with the end for which we are created: to glorify and enjoy God. Perfection signifies a fulfilling of purpose, a completion of one's own true nature, a deep authenticity and realism that grows in us over time. To be perfect is to be wholly suited to our ultimate end.

-- Marjorie Thompson in Leading From the Center, Spring 2000


#2307