On Easter morning, I was startled as this man walked through the door of the church. "Boy I would hate to meet that guy in a dark alley at night," were my thoughts. "I wonder if he is carrying a side arm?" Sure enough he was, a four pound study Bible.
It just goes to show you at times how limited is our perception of the Body of Christ.
Keith Green was one of those types of individuals, when looking at him you would never guess to be a Christian. His most famous song, I suppose is, "There is a Redeemer." But recently I was struck with the depth of the content of the words to "Grace By Which I Stand."
Lord, the feelings are not the same,
I guess I'm older, I guess I've changed.
And how I wish it had been explained, that as you're growing you must remember,
That nothing lasts, except the grace of God, by which I stand, in Jesus.
I know that I would surely fall away, except for grace, by which I'm saved.Lord, I remember that special way,
I vowed to serve you, when it was brand new.
But like Peter, I can't even watch and pray, one hour with you,
And I bet, I could deny you too.
But nothing lasts, except the grace of God, by which I stand, in Jesus.
I'm sure that my whole life would waste away, except for grace, by which I'm saved.
But nothing lasts, except the grace of God, by which I stand, in Jesus.
I know that I would surely fall away, except for grace, by which I'm saved.
As we mature in Christ, the more we understand that it is just the grace of God that saves anyone, not anything inherit good in ourselves. That was the context I tried to convey in One - Resurrection last week. We need tension between our intellectual thoughts and the warms fuzzy feelings that give humanity its gracious emotional side, but in Christianity alone, apart from all other religions, true grace finds its source only in God.
Only in God rests the foundations of all creation. But for the most part we always try to interpret them through our understandings, or emotions present at a particular time in our life. But this week let us think about the bigger picture.
My Bible Dictionary lists the following attributes of God: spirituality, infinity, eternity, immutability, self-sufficiency, perfection, freedom, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, justice, truth, love, mercy, and grace.
Now ministers, pastors, and theologians over the years have done a respectable job of dissecting these attributes into specific categories, sermons, writings, and a whole host of other helps for our understanding of the greatness of God. But for this week I would just like for us to try to take our minds beyond the compartments we so easily create. We need to focus on the totality, or essence of God, contrasted with our limited being.
There are times when certain words in the Bible stand out like we have seen them for the first time. This Resurrection Sunday, the words "some doubted" where that way for me. Matthew 28:17 says: And when they saw Him (the resurrected Jesus), they worshipped Him: but some doubted. While the other three gospels do not actually use this term in connection with the resurrection of Christ, they all portray a similar concept of unbelief in the resurrection.
So on Monday April 1st, 2002, April Fools Day, many more people believe that Jesus Christ was bodily raised from the dead, as the guarantee that Jesus Christ's sacrifice on the cross had restored man's relationship with God, but some, perhaps more than before, doubted this miracle.
While many of us are refreshed in that knowledge of Christ's resurrection, we still in many ways doubt our faith, and this is what Keith's song is getting to. God's grace and mercy would not be infinite if they were limited only to our perception of them.
For sake of argument, let us say that all of our readers have the resurrection thing down pat. They will never doubt Christ's resurrection again. But what about the attributes of God?
Monday evening one of your good friends ask you to come over to watch the NCAA men's championship basketball game on his big screen High Definition, Surround Sound entertainment center. And true to April Fools Day, after Maryland defeats Indiana your friend boldly states: "See that Christian coach for Indiana didn't pull off any miracle tonight with his Cinderella team. And while we are at it scientists tell us the universe is fifteen billion light years in diameter, so I doubt this whole God thing."
Now your response should be something similar to: "Actually, I believe that miracles happen every day, they now are just not a normative experience as they were in the days of the Apostles. But you will have to admit it is still pretty amazing that a team with over ten defeats ends up playing in the national championship game. There must be something in his coaching style that motivates his players.
"I'm glad you brought up the point on the universe as well. I believe your scientific god is way too small, my God is infinite, so I believe that the universe is really infinitely large. While we are at it, I think that the speed of light that science now measures is really just following a decay curve that began when God created the universe thousands of years ago, not billions. Depending on how you do the math, you come up with an age of the universe of around 10,000 years if God created light at infinite speed. Now, since light is just a part of the electromagnetic spectrum, we can get into a whole lot of really neat things if you would like. But let's just settle for plugging some numbers into Einstein's theory of relativity, you see that God's creation was not all that big a deal for Him. And that general theory, for which Einstein searched for the rest of his life is really nothing much more complex than ascribing the attributes of God to all creation. But before we get too far into these really cool things, let me tell you about God's greatest miracle from my perspective, His plan to redeem fallen, sinful man.
Then, of course your friend rudely cuts you off, but that should shut him up for a time, or at least make him think seriously before he asks another stupid question. But was this something close to your response?
God's children's answers are, at there worst, better than any the world has to offer. But instead wanting to appear stupider than we really are, we become the doubter. As Forrest Gump, that great character in the movie satire on life in the sixties and seventies said, "Mama says stupid is, as stupid does." Especially when confronted by a person who believes in heaven helps those who help themselves, we generally respond: "Well, we really don't know how the universe was created, but I can tell you that it just didn't evolve over billions of years, 'cause the Bible says so, and I believe it."
This leads me to my entropy law for the return of Jesus Christ. Which is formulated by a decay curve similar to that of the speed of light, or radioactive half-lives. (See related articles.) Stated in lay terms, which will probably cost you your worldly friend, "As a young earth creationist and following the First and Second laws of Thermodynamics, Jesus Christ must return before man's intelligence is lowered by the laws of entropy to the point that man is incapable of understanding, even by faith, the gift of salvation found in Christ alone."
Sports fans, all empirical evidence points to the fact that day is not that far into the future. And this is supported by a mountain of evidence including political correctness, worldly diversity, violence, the dumbing down of our educational system, and an infinite host of other variables.
One final point to prove just how stupid we are becoming, just look at our deity called materialism, especially in the west. We of course call it the progress of civilization, but really even the most mundane among us, still understand, that worldly goods, really don't add to the quality of life, but at best detract from eternal gifts, and at the worst become religious idols. Put another way, we are now so stupid that we think stuff can be substituted for family and other eternal rewards found only in the attributes of God. Even the most "primitive societies" focus the end of life's work on more eternal goals.
A corollary statement might be. If we really are as good as we claim to be, our world would not be in the confusion, or chaos that is now manifest. You can define good, our world, and chaos however you wish, but the confusion is still clearly seen.
In closing, I am reminded of a saying of Brad, an old friend of mine: "He (she) is so stupid, it is similar to the following, if you took the brains God gave an ant, multiplied them by infinity, they would be similar to a BB rolling around inside a basketball."
Now that is really an interesting way to look at the attributes of God in comparison to our own wisdom, but for a brief moment, before we really get deeper into this One - God concept, it should give us room for thought. And perhaps a better understanding of God's grace. Come to think of it, somewhere in those attributes of God the theologians came up with, seems to me they forgot, He must also possess an infinite sense of humor. That is the only attribute I can think of that would make the whole thing work and keep One's perspective.
The last three weeks were really some of the most hectic I can remember. I got so tired one night that I remarked to someone I felt just like I did in my early college days working on the green chain in the lumber mill. Time has a way of changing memories, but at that time those shifts were only eight hours, five days a week. I guess this is just a left handed praise report.
Perhaps in the same way, since Resurrection Sunday, which also was my birthday, I feel that things have changed in some way. We have entered into a new era, with new opportunities. Just what that means I have yet to discover, please intercede for the changes that are needed to move this ministry beyond its present state to something which can be of more service to the body of Christ. In that regard see below.
Beginning with the fact that we do not have enough space or money to do even what is now within our reach, we you ask that you consider this ministry and what you may do to help, starting of course with your prayers.
One thing that has always bothered me is that the church is so dependent upon a successful worldly economy to generate funds for ministry. If for God's purposes, a drought should truly be experienced in our economic world, many ministries would cease, or have to greatly change there ability to minister. The gold mining technology I was able to we involved with some years ago is not subject to those limitations. There is a mine tailings pile about fifty klicks outside of Kamloops, B.C. that has enough capital to cover what I would consider our entire capital expenditure. But this would not touch the financial opportunity to serve the rest of the church throughout the world.
Over the last few months I have run across a number of persons, even though I have not told them, who could help establish and operate this greater endeavor. There is tremendous opportunity for ministry combined with mining operations in Russia, South America, parts of North America, Africa, and Asia. What we really lack is ministry contacts in those regions who would be willing to help manage certain aspects of these ministry-fund-raising opportunities. We need people walking in God's grace, understanding that this is just a gift from God to serve His body for a specific period of time, perhaps till Jesus returns.
| 2002 Index | Previous | Next | Chronicles Home |