Words of life or death?

All Gods commandments are given so we might find, expand and preserve life. God calling us to obey Him is an invitation to advance, grow, and multiply life i.e. God - through His commandments - is calling us to flourish not: 

Decline — gradually becoming weaker or less successful 

Wither — shriveling, fading, or losing vitality (often used for plants, success, or energy) 

Fail — not succeeding or collapsing 

¹Struggle  — having great difficulty or barely managing 

Languish — losing strength, growing weak, or remaining neglected 

Deteriorate — becoming progressively worse 

Stagnate — showing no growth or development; staying stuck 

Wane — decreasing in strength, power, or prosperity 

Flounder — struggling clumsily or failing to make progress 

Perish — dying, decaying, or coming to an end 

When we trust and obey God, it often looks and feels like death when in reality it is the path to life. 

"For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong." - 2 Cor 12:10 

When I am weak in my natural strength I am strong in the strength God gives me.

Christ told us if we wish to find our life, we must lose it. If we are to live as He designed us to, we must die...i.e. die to seeking life on our own terms; outside of or apart from God. 

The fact that we bristle so much at God's commandments reveals and exposes how much we distrust him and are in rebellion to Him. When we trust and love God, we gladly embrace His direction (commandments) not avoid them. 

"For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome." - 1 John 5:3

It is our rebellion Christ came and bore the consequences of, with all it's harm and destruction we see all around us. When we trust the work that Christ did on our behalf we are no longer in Adam, who rebelled, but in Christ who obeyed.

For a further discussion ongoing from Adam to Christ click here.

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Footnotes:

¹Struggle was the natural consequence of our rebellion and disconnection from God, the source of life, love, and all things.

After we turned away from the Creator (Source), nothing worked properly as designed and intended. 

Can there be peace on earth?

Due to humanity's spiritual bankruptcy (i.e., brokenness) and the resulting inclination to first take care of "number one" (self), there will never be a complete utopia in this life - the goal of ¹all economic or political systems.

To have a true utopia, the individual parts must be sound. A system, no matter how perfect, cannot work properly if the individual parts are not whole and working properly. If you build a wooden structure with boards eaten out by termites, the overall structure is unsound and must be reinforced or artificially propped up, or it will collapse under any sustained weight or pressure.

This does not mean we should abandon living a ²productive life and seek to love God and our neighbor as He has called and designed us to. However, the only way we can is when we are fully plugged in and engaged with the Source of life, love, and all things. If we are not in union with the Source of life, we are empty vessels at best, trying to fill the void. This results in us being takers - in need of being made whole - not givers. The emptiness must be filled in the way it was designed to be if we are to be givers. 

The solution isn't implementing (or imposing on us or others) a particular economic or political system ¹externally but being fully connected and plugged into God himself, which is an internal solution that restores wholeness, resulting in things working outwardly as designed. 

If all the individual parts of a system - i.e., you and I - are not sound, the system will not work, no matter how perfect the outward design of that system may be. Any system composed of flawed individuals (parts) can only be flawed and result in flawed outcomes. 

For this reason, a perfect system will never work; only perfect values and people willing and able to pursue them. Ultimately, this can only occur through people who recognize the greatness, worth, beauty, and glory of the Creator, and their dependence on Him and accountability to Him.

The solution ultimately is spiritual, not political or economic. It is in first knowing God and then making him known (the first and second greatest commandments), not just in word but in deed. To make Him known, we must first know Him in all His infinite love to and for us.

The real question isn't if there can be peace on earth, but when will it occur. For more on this, click here.  

For a discussion on giving as you have received, click here.  

For a discussion on obedience as the fruit of abiding, click here.

For a discussion on being fruitful, i.e., sewing and reaping, click here.

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Footnotes:

¹I am referring to economic systems - such as socialism or communism - externally imposed on us by the state and not internally and organically developed. We are social-relational creatures, and as God's image-bearers, we are designed to receive and give love, not forced to.  

However, we are also bankrupt and broken - i.e., unplugged bearers of God's image made to be in union with their Creator.

For more on our brokenness, click here.  

²We are clearly instructed in many places within the bible to be "fruitful." Most of these verses address spiritual fruit. However, spiritual fruit is usually manifested by actions that often produce material fruit. In fact, any action that produces material fruit should be driven spiritually i.e. by the Spirit. If it is, it is valid. It is spiritual in motivation (i.e. for God's glory) with a material outcome.  

For several posts addressing operating in the Spirit, click here. 

³There is nothing wrong with personal consumption. If we do not consume vital resources -- water, food, shelter etc. -- we die. Consumption is not just necessary but vital. 

A pursuit that is solely driven by personal and excessive consumption as a substitute for God (i.e. an idol) is our challenge, not consumption itself. 

*Private ownership of property and the opportunity to acquire property through diligence is assumed throughout the bible. The founding fathers who penned America's Constitution and the Declaration of Independence acknowledged this when they declared we had a "right" to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What most don't know is that the pursuit of happiness is the right to the fruits of our labor, i.e., property.  

Christ instructs us to pray for his rule and reign to come on earth as it is in heaven. 

"Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven..." - Matt 6:10 

Is this a prayer to usher in the Kingdom now or in the future? Both. 

For a discussion on what the kingdom of God is, click here. 

Disconnected from the Source

We suffer because we, along with all of humanity, are ¹disconnected from our Creator; the Source of life, love, and all things. As a result we don't function as we were designed to. In a word we are ¹broken.

We also suffer because the rest of the created order is in bondage as a result of our choosing to turn away from God.

Our rebellious distrust of God is the core reason for ²pain, suffering, corruption, and death.

God did not (and does not) cause evil or suffering. It is the organic result of our choosing to reject and walk away from Him; to live independent of Him and attempt to make life work without Him - the Source of life, love, and all things. If you turn off the light switch (or unscrew the lightbulb), the light goes out. The one who made the device - e.g. light switch - isn't the problem; the one who doesn't use the device as designed is.  

However, God uses the resulting pain of our disconnection to reveal to us that He is the ultimate Source of love, life, and all things.

Pain does not have the last word regarding evil; God does.

How does God use evil for good?

 

Suffering can reveal to us how life does not work (as intended) without Him, so we might be drawn back into a loving relationship with him i.e. flip the light switch on or screw in the light bulb.

He does not (and did not) cause evil itself but he does use it. It becomes a tool to turn us back to Himself and shape us, making us a more perfect bearer of His image i.e. He uses it to make us more like His Son.

God is greater than evil. Evil doesn't win, God does even in and through evil. 

¹For a further discussion on being broken click here.

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Footnotes:

¹We are not disconnected objectively. In Him we live, move, and have our being. Without Him we or anything else would be.

But we are disconnected subjectively, consciously, willfully, and personally.

²Pain is the ³loss (or absence) of the good things God has created that we use to ease or mask our pain. Pain is a reminder to turn to God, our ultimate good, and no longer to the good things we use to self comfort. Nothing is wrong with creation in itself. It is the misuse of it that is our problem. Creation is not the Source, but only the means by which God seeks to convey his love and goodness.  

The reason these things don't work long term is our need is permanent not temporary - we are designed for infinite love (God's love) not temporary comfort. Created things are temporary. They do not have life in themselves but are sustained by Christ. "... And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together"

³For an extended discussion of this last point, click here. 

Which comes 1st, grace or humility?

Which occurs first? Our seeing God as the Source of life, love, and all created things more clearly or our being weaned from an ¹inordinate delight in created things? 

Several places in scripture teach that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. This indicates humility comes ²before grace (i.e., the gift of ³God revealing Himself more fully to us) or at least humility is the means of experiencing ongoing and increasing grace. 

We must recognize attempts at being our own God - our arrogant independence - do not work long-term, i.e., we must humble ourselves. We must die to live. Death to our attempts to save ourself comes before life. 

God is our greatest happiness. Anything that increases our union with Him is good, even (and maybe especially) pain.

For a discussion on the necessity of humility click here

 

How do we discover God's love in our pain? click here

For a further discussion on the primary role of pain click here

For a further discussion of how God uses evil for our good click here...and here.

The greater the evil the greater the opportunity for healing/

grace click here.

For a discussion on the key lesson from the book of Job, click here.

For a discussion on the value of paradox, click here.

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Footnotes:

¹Why do we hold on to and pursue created things so tenaciously? It allows us to temporarily cling to our independence from God. We want the delights of creation without the humility of admitting they are all gifts from our Creator or the necessity of our submission to and dependence on Him. 

²The old saying is you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. 

However, you can also salt its oats. 

The choice to not drink is up to the horse. Salting its oats is up to someone else. 

While the choice to humble ourselves precedes our experience of grace, pain is often a means by which we are humbled. We often have no control over painful circumstances, even though we have control over how we respond to them i.e. we can either humble ourselves in response to pain or become defient and rage at God for it.

³it is not because God is hiding that we can't see Him, but because our pride - our tenacious clinging to our independence - blinds us to seeing Him clearly. It takes humility to see and appreciate humility i.e. to see Christ as the humble servant He is. We can't see or grasp what Christ is truly like without humility because He is humble. 

Without humility we project on to God arrogance when He says we should honor and praise Him i.e. we don't see Him correctly. We suppress the truth in our unrighteousness i.e. our unbelief and valuing (worshiping) created things over our Creator (Rom 1:18-23).

Yes Christ is the Lion of Judah but he is also the Lamb of God who willingly humbled and submitted himself to the Father to be slain... and that for our sake and the Father's glory i.e. he did this for the sake of others. 

What is spiritual blindness?

Spiritual blindness. What is it and why does it occur? 

There are two parts.

The 1st part has to do with our being creatures (finite) and not the Creator (who is infinite). Even though we are like God in many significant ways we are not God. This is not a blindness per se but more a limitation as created beings. 

The 2nd deals with our rebellion to our creaturehood i.e. to our limits.

How do these affect our moral choices?

 

1. We are finite (limited) - which includes our understanding - and do not know everything there is to know, and must know, in order to make the right and best choices - though we often think and act as if we do. 

Only God is all-knowing, all-wise, all-powerful, and everywhere present. These characteristics enable Him to know the right and best course at all times, in all things, with the unlimited ability to carry it out. We, on the other hand, are not all-knowing and do not know the best course of action or have the ability to live it out perfectly without His wisdom, enabling (power), and direction. 

2. We must recognize we are in rebellion against God, the Source of all knowledge and understanding. We have turned away and cut ourselves off from Him whenever we seek the right course on our own - i.e., when we seek to "be like God" knowing good and evil; right from wrong - without His input and direction.

Adam and Eve choosing to eat from the forbidden tree clearly demonstrated they did not know right from wrong, or have infinite knowledge, otherwise they would not have eaten from it i.e. it was forbidden for a good reason. A reason they clearly did not understand or feel the need to agree with. 

We often choose the wrong course, believing (trusting) we are right. We seek to take the role of God - i.e., to be like God in knowing right from wrong - when we clearly are not God - demonstrated by all the pain and suffering of humanity as the result of making the choice He warned them not to make (which was clearly the wrong choice).

Only God has full knowledge of good and evil i.e., He knows all things. In other words, only he knows perfectly the best course of action to take in any and all situations. We do not. 

Because He does, we must seek and follow him - His directions - to know what is truly good and evil, and not seek to ¹determine this on our own. This is what Adam tried to do in the Garden of Eden when they chose to eat from the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 

For us to receive understanding and direction from God, we must do the opposite of what Adam sought to do. We must humble ourselves i.e., accept our limitations and admit we are not God who knows all things. ¹We do not know right from wrong without God revealing it to us. Whatever understanding we have of right from wrong only occurs because God has told or shown us. 

As Proverbs 3:5-6 says, we are to...Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, (that He alone knows all things) and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.

¹We do not see how arrogant and flagrant a violation of reality this truly is - unless God reveals it to us. In fact we sympathize with Adams choice. We are rebels and in rebellion to God who alone knows right from wrong. 

If Adam and Eve had made the right choice and rejected the serpent's proposal (a promise to be like God in a way they aren't designed to be), they would have stepped onto the right road of knowing (understanding) good and evil the right way, i.e., in faith-filled obedience to God vs rebellious distrust of Him. The issue wasn't that God didn't want them to know good and evil, but to know it the right way, i.e., under His care and guidance, not on their own with our limitations. .

For a discussion on how God created us with choice before we rebelled against Him, click here.

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Footnotes:

¹Though over time, through trial-and-error, we learn there is design in the physical universe and act accordingly e.g. we learn that going without air or water will eventually result in our death or putting our hand in the fire will result in getting burned. This article is addressing our moral and spiritual understanding i.e. what is right and wrong and that right and wrong is a real thing - it actually exists objectly.

Advancing in pain

The age-old question is if God is good, why is there so much pain. 

But maybe the answer is not what we usually think. Maybe God allows pain to remain to humble us and help us see our need for Him, with the long-term goal of our spiritual advancement. 

While pain is ultimately the fruit of our rebellious distrust of God, He uses it. If God could not bring good out of evil, evil would not exist. Christ's death would be the ultimate example of this profound paradox. 

Acts 2:23 "this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men."

Therefore, we must not allow it to discourage or shame us, or ¹cause us to fall into self-pity e.g. "You're a loser! Why keep trying? Just quit!..." etc. 

But we must embrace pain and embrace God and His love for us in our pain and failures for our advancement to occur (God is for us, not against us. Nothing separates us from God's love...Rom 8:31-39). 

"...Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 

and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us..." - Romans 5:2-5 ESV 

As long as we look at failure and mistakes as losing and not stepping stones to winning, we will not embrace them with thanks, learn from them, and let them advance our maturity and walk with God. When we recognize or failures and mistakes are a key to our spiritual advancement, we embrace them with gratitude and experience more of God's grace, mercy, and love. 

Having our identity/value rooted in God as the bedrock of our existence - and the very Source of love itself - frees us from seeing failure as losing. The whole mindset of the Bible is that ²failure is a necessary stepping stone to progress and maturity. 

"When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives my brothers, don’t resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends! Realise that they come to test your faith and to produce in you the quality of endurance. But let the process go on until that endurance is fully developed, and you will find you have become men of mature character with the right sort of independence..." - Jas 1: 2-8. J B Phillips translation. 

This is foundational to understanding and embracing pain instead of a avoiding it. 

The importance of humility

Another vital key to the value of failure is humility. To understand we will never reach the maximum potential we were created for without God (which failure helps us to see) causes us to look to Him in greater dependence. Greater dependence on God as the Source of life, love, and all things is the essence of humility. Only through humility can we reach the potential God intends for us and designed us for.

How do we discover God's love in our pain? click here

For a further discussion on the primary role of pain click here

For a further discussion of how God uses evil for our good click here...and here.

The greater the evil the greater the opportunity for healing/

grace click here.

For a discussion on the key lesson from the book of Job, click here.

For a discussion on the value of paradox, click here.

For a discussion on the necessity of humility click here

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Footnotes:

¹nor let pain embitter us. At the root of anger is the belief that we know better than God what is best for us and/or the world. Yet we are finite, not all-knowing or all-powerful. Only God is infinite in all things. 

And not only so, but he is also all-loving. He not only knows what's best (all-knowing) and does what's best (all-powerful) but wants it for us also (all-loving).

But many object and say, "how can God be all-loving and continue to allow all the pain in the world?" What's our proof that He is all-loving? He became a man just like us and fully embraced our pain so that we might ultimately be free of it forever.

²This is contingent on our seeing failure as a means by which God can advance us. If we do not, it will embitter us.

3 realities most ignore

Three primary realities are absolutes. To ignore them without consequence is unavoidable and leads us away from our maximum flourishing i.e., from reaching our greatest potential ¹for the glory of God. If we remain on this path of denial, it ultimately leads us down a path of destruction. 

1. Everyone - atheists included - operates by faith. 

Because we all are finite and do not have infinite knowledge, no one can know with absolute certainty whether our views or conduct are or aren't on the right track. To know and live correctly, we must confide in the Source of infinite knowledge, life, love, and all things - i.e. the Creator and Designer of everything. 

For related discussions, go to:

The necessity of faith in an infinite God.

The essence of relationships

The necessity of dependence

2. The object of our faith is more critical than faith itself. 

Because we are finite in our knowledge and ability, we can pursue a course of action we believe is life-giving when it is actually harmful - at least long-term if not in the short run. This results in harm, destruction, and eventual death. 

To use an analogy, we may consume food we believe is life-giving when in reality it is harmful and life taking - i.e. toxic. We actually do this all the time.. Our certainty in the direction we choose, no matter how strong, does not change the nature or harmful effects of what we are consuming.

The problem isn't our faith but what we place our faith in. 

3. Everything is designed to operate a certain way i.e., there is design.

Because of this, there are always destructive consequences if something or someone operates contrary to its design. 

This is why following God's law is vital. For example, in science, we refer to the laws of nature. Why? Because when tested and applied, these laws or principles always result in the same outcome. This is evidence of design (and a Designer). For us - and any other created thing - to go contrary to its design results in things breaking down and eventually self-destructing.

There are also laws in the metaphysical (non-material) world, since we are not only physical but also spiritual beings created in the image of God, who is Spirit not physical 

Laws are the tracks or guard rails by which something (or someone) is designed to operate. If we ignore our design and these laws, things do not work properly and to their maximum potential. As a result, we suffer loss, breakdown, and eventually self-destruction. 

Just like a train needs tracks to run on for maximum performance, so it is with all of creation; from humans, who are the most complex, to the smallest elements of the quantum world. Everything has a design and purpose, which is to operate according to God's design and intent.

Only the Designer knows perfectly what that is. We can experiment, test, and discover how things are designed to function only because design exists and is observable. 

But to know our design and purpose, we must confide in the Designer, heed what He says and observe what he's done, as well as observe how things function. 

How? 

God actually took on human form and lived among us, living out God's design and giving us direction through His words and example. These things have also been put in writing and left for us to study and understand.

¹For a discussion on how we are created for joy in God and His glory, click here.

For a discussion on how God's greatest glory and our greatest good are tied together and not at odds, click here.

Free will or free choice?

While our choices are ¹free and 100% ours (i.e. we freely choose to do what we want), our ³wills are not. Our wills are tied to our desires. 

To say it another way, our "chooser" is not broken but our "wanter" is.

²And our wants (desires) dictate what we ¹choose to pursue. 

If we desire (want) the wrong things we choose to pursue the wrong things. 

And our desires are tied to what we value. The more we value something, the more we desire it and the harder we pursue it. 

And we value only what we ⁴see as valuable. 

If ⁴we are blind to seeing God's true value, worth, beauty, wisdom, glory, majesty, and power as our infinite loving Creator - the Source of life, love, and all things - we will never pursue Him as the infinitely valuable and significant being that He is. We will desire and pursue created things and beings instead. 

Why? ⁵We are like God and created to enjoy Him who is most valuable, beautiful, intelligent, glorious, majestic, and loving. Absent a personal relationship with Him - who is the Source of life, love, and all things - we go after His creation (the next best thing) to fill the void of His absence. Particularly other image bearers (you and I) who, by design, are most like God and have the greatest capacity to love and reflect him most when we are in union with Him through Christ.

Scripture tells us God is all valuable (glorious) but what about our value and our feeling significant, important? Does it matter? If so, why?

Because God is significant, important, and valuable, we are and must be like Him in order to be able to appreciate and enjoy these qualities in Him. 

We are told in Jas 4: 

[5] "...Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”"?  

What kind of spirit has God put within us? A spirit that longs (is passionate) for infinite love, worth, and glory. Love that can only be satisfied fully by the Source of love - our Creator; not by creation.  

He will not share in (is jealous over) our pursuit or loyalty to any other "lover" because He knows our capacity to value and enjoy Him is unparalleled to all the rest of creation and there is no other true lover who can fill this need and desire in us for love that He designed to be filled only by Him. This is "the spirit He has made to dwell in us."

Not because He needs our love but because we need His. Our being in His image wasn't happenstance. He designed us this way. He is the Creator, we are created...but unlike the rest of creation we are created in His image. Therefore He loves us and desires we experience Him to the maximum of His true worth and our capacity as bearers of His image. 

Everything in creation we seek for life outside of God is temporary. Creation is good and has value but it is limited. Therefore it comes up short of filling our need for and sense of value-worth (glory). 

GOD alone is the Source of infinite love. To experience His love to the maximum of our capacity, we must give Him all our loyalty and faithfulness (i.e. have no other "gods" before Him). Otherwise we will never experience His love as it truly is and as we were designed to, but instead we will pursue created things for love, meaning, and purpose outside of and instead of Him.  

Where does this need/desire for significance (glory) come from? Click here. 

For a discussion on the necessity of choice click here.

For a further discussion on how our "wanter" is broken and not our "chooser" click here. 

For a discussion on ability vs responsibility click here

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¹And our choices are ours alone. No one else's, including God. Therefore we are fully accountable for what we value and chose to pursue. 

²Note the progression of the "ands" above. Each deals with a significant shift, but also a vital connection to the previous and following "and" statement. To get to the 2nd "and" you must acknowledge the 1st. And to get to the 3rd we must see the 2nd. 

*our wants-desires dictate what we ¹choose to pursue. 

*our desires-wants are tied to what we value

*we value only what we ⁴see as valuable. 

³Is God free to do whatever he wants? 100%!  But because God is holy He only wants (desires-wills) what is good and best and freely choses righteousness i.e. His character or nature dictates His will/desires, as does ours.

 For a fuller discussion click here.

⁴To see truly, the Spirit of God must reside in us. And that only occurs after we've been "born again" i.e. after we are spiritually regenerated. 

"Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again (1st) he cannot see the kingdom of God.” " John 3:30

Before we are born again we are blind to spiritual things - i.e. things pertaining to God's kingdom. The Bible says we are dead to God. Last I checked dead people don't see very well 😉! 

⁵Why does our feeling and desire for significance, importance, and value matter? 

We are like God who is significant, important, or valuable. We must be like Him so we can appreciate and enjoy these qualities in Him. That which is most like God is most able to appreciate and enjoy Him as He is.

God's  significance, importance, and value (glory) are the foundation for ours. Our recognizing this about God is essential to experiencing our own value. The more we see his glory the more we experience our glory in and through Him. 

Trials, tests, temptations

What is the difference between trials (or tests) and temptation? 

All our internal turmoil, anger, anxieties, fears, etc., come from the threat of losing something we believe we must have to experience a sense of significance, importance, meaning, value, and love, etc. 

The more we see and experience God as the source of our worth - i.e., our glory - the less internal turmoil we have. Instead, we have peace that is beyond understanding - i.e., peace that makes no sense in light of our circumstances or struggles. 

"I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world, you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” - Jesus - John 16:33 

Every test/trial becomes a temptation. Any change in your circumstances - whether good or bad - is a test/trial. If you fall into poverty or receive great riches, adversity or prosperity, success or failure, it tests your faith. i.e., whether you will be drawn away from God by the successes or struggles, or to God in greater trust and dependence.

Anything we pursue - be it praise, money, fame, recreation, physical intimacy, entertainment, etc. - which becomes the basis for our worth, significance, importance, value, approval, acceptance, etc., more than God - is our god, i.e., an idol. 

Tests will push you to become a better or worse person based on how you handle them, i.e., with humility or pride; in gratitude and greater dependence on God, or as an opportunity to become more independent from God.

Either way, you will not stay the same. Trials are opportunities for growth or distraction, making you better or worse, grateful or bitter.

Jas 1:2-4 Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed (i.e. humbly dependent on God), not deficient in any way. - The Message translation

The only legitimate reason for any pursuit is to honor and glorify God, not advance our personal agenda. It is also in pursuit of God's glory that we find our true and greatest worth and joy. 

Why some are disillusioned with God

When does God not hear our prayers?

Whether God answers our request to be healed or delivered from difficult circumstances depends on why we are asking. If we wish to be healed (delivered) so we can better serve him, he will say yes. If we wish to be healed so we can ¹"spend it on ourselves," he will not. 

Our challenge is knowing the difference. If we think we are asking for the right reason and are not, we assume He does not care or love us if we don't get the answer we want. Then we become disillusioned with God. But this is our shortcoming, not God's. 

We incorrectly think God is a celestial Santa Claus or our heavenly servant or butler instead of the all-wise, loving, infinitely beautiful, and powerful Creator wbo sustains all creation and ²life. Someone to be adored and honored, not someone we can control and use for our own ends. 

"You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions." Jas 4:3 

Are love and life connected? How? Click here for a further discussion.

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Footnotes: 

¹ James 4:1-10  

[1] What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? [2] You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. 

You do not have, because you do not ask. [3] You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 

[4] You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? 

world = the systematic worldwide pursuit of humanity to find ²life in or through created things - such as wealth, fame, power, praise from others, sensual pleasures, etc. - instead of from, through, and in the Creator (Rom 1:21-23) 

Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 

Passionate pursuit of created things for ²life instead of the Creator is like a husband pursuing a woman other than his wife to fulfill his physical passions. In doing so, he is unfaithful to his wife and has made himself her antagonist. 

[5] Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? 

What kind of spirit has God put within us?  A spirit that longs (is passionate) for infinite love. Love that can only be satisfied by the Source of love - our Creator.  He will not share in our pursuit or loyalty to any other "lover" because He knows there are no other true lovers. Everything we seek for life outside of God Himself is temporary and comes up short. GOD alone is the Source of infinite love and we're designed for infinite, eternal love. To experience His love we must give Him all our loyalty and faithfulness, or we will pursue love outside of Him. 

[6] But he gives more grace. Therefore, it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” [7] Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 

Pride causes us to seek love independent of God for love or life. This is an invitation for the evil one to get a foothold in our lives. Humility shuts the door on his foot and opens the door to grace. When we open the door to grace, we invite God in.  

[8] Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. [9] Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. [10] Humble yourselves before the Lord, and HE will exalt you." 

Want to see God move on your behalf? Humbly recognize He alone is infinite ²life and the only true satisfier of our hearts longing for love. He knows best what we need most; we don't. 

²Are love and life connected? How? Click here for a further discussion.

Is there Order and design?

Even though things are broken, there is still order in the world. The universe is not random chaos. Most things remain predictable; clear patterns and design persist. If that weren’t true, the scientific method itself would be impossible—it would be a meaningless, useless myth that we should abandon. Yet we use it consistently, knowing it works.

Moreover, to call something “broken,” we must have a standard of what “whole” looks like. The very idea of brokenness depends on comparing it to an original order or design. Something can only be broken if it was first ordered (or designed) to function a certain way. 

If we see a watch lying on the ground with its glass cracked and hands frozen, we instantly recognize it as “broken” only because we already know what a properly working watch is supposed to look like and do: keep time accurately, with all gears turning together in precise harmony. 

If there were no such thing as an intended, designed order for a watch—if watches were just random lumps of metal that sometimes ticked and sometimes didn’t—no one would ever say “this watch is broken.” They’d just say, “This is a watch.” 

The concept of “broken” only makes sense against the backdrop of an original “right” or “ordered” state. 

The same applies to the world: we can call parts of it broken only because, under the cracks, we still see an underlying pattern and design that things are meant to follow.

For a discussion on violating design, click here

For a discussion on our world being full of design and beauty, click here

For a discussion about how Christ is our Designer, click here

For a discussion on celebrating our design and our Designer, click here

For a discussion on how everything is broken, click here.

For a discussion on how we are created for glory, click here.

Suffering... has God abandon us?

"Thus says the Lord: 

“Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. ("...who by their ⁴unrighteousness suppresses the truth..." - Rom 1:18) 

He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. 

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. 

He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.” 

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? - Jer 17:5-9 ESV 

Why do pain and suffering remain? 

Pain and suffering are the natural (organic) results of our ongoing disconnect from God. 

Our disconnect is due to our ongoing distrust of Him. 

God does not curse us. Our disconnect is our curse.

Pain reveals and exposes the depth of our rebellious distrust of God. It is the fruit of our distrust. 

Why does suffering remain? So we might fully see the destructiveness of our distrust and the need to have it purged from our hearts and lives. 

Why? So we might turn back to God and find true life in Him and more fully partake of His love as He designed us to. 

We come into this world in a state of rebellious distrust, and absent our original connection/union with ¹God we were designed for. God seeks to restore this connection so we might be in union and a relationship with Him again.

God is love and therefore life itself - and we are in His image, i.e., created to receive and give love. His absence - due to our rebellious distrust - creates an emptiness we desperately seek to fill. Because of our rebellious distrust of God we seek to fill it with anything other than Him who alone can fill us. We look to anything we have access to or can "get our hands on" to fill the void of God's absence. In short, we trust in ourselves to fill the void instead of God  - "...we make flesh our strength..." 

Pain is such a common part of life that we rarely consider it exists because of ²God's absence, much less because of our rebellious distrust of Him. So we trudge along, clinging to our current rebellion in painful emptiness, desperately trying to make the best of things without God. 

We rarely consider how deeply we distrust God and how this impacts everything we do. ³We refuse to see that we - and everything else - depends on the Creator for its very breath and existence. 

Suggesting this is our true condition is mocked and ridiculed. Accepting this is fiercely resisted and denied individually and collectively. The world system is build on distrust in God and living independently from Him i.e. making life work without Him; proving God is not necessary for true life.

Occasionally, our pain and suffering become so acute and our ability to handle it so inadequate that we see and finally acknowledge our true condition and turn back to Him in total trust. 

Life is an ongoing journey through the wilderness of this broken world to test whether we will continue to choose rebellious independence from God - as Adam and Eve did - or unconditional trust in God - as Christ displayed while on earth. 

Does suffering mean that God has abandoned us? Quite the opposite.

Suffering exists so that we might recognize we are not created to be our own God and return to Him -- who is Love itself and the Source of life, and all things -- in trust and humility. Our struggles are the means by which we learn to grow deep roots into Him. 

Every time we experience the loss of something we look to for life - whether that be wealth, fame, natural gifts or talents, our health, a loved one, through substance abuse, etc. - it's an opportunity for us to turn to Him who alone IS life. 

Christ asked what do we profit if we gain the whole world and loose our very souls. But the opposite is also true. If losing the world results in gaining our souls we profit infinitely as well as eternally. 

He sent Christ as proof of His love and His desire to pour it out on you. He did for you what you can not do - trust God without conditions - and offers to credit you with His righteousness. Do you trust Him?

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FOOTNOTES: 

¹in whose image we were created 

²if we acknowledge God at all, it is to blame Him for our pain instead of acknowledging our rebellious distrust, which results in His absence. 

³I'm referring to our objective dependence, not a conscious (subjective) dependence. Everything that exists is because God sustains it as well as brought it into existence. This is the objective reality of our world and our existence. Our subjective denial of this is our problem. 

⁴God does not curse us. Our rebellious distrust of Him does. 

What is unrighteousness: ἀδικίᾳ (adikia)? - sometimes translated as wickedness. Where does it come from? It is the outward fruit of our inward rebellious distrust of God that results in... 

wickedness 

Strong's 93: 

Injustice, unrighteousness, hurt. 

From adikos; injustice; morally, wrongfulness.

There are two elements to unrighteousness. The outward manifestation - our conduct - of an inward disposition of distrust. The former is the fruit of the latter. 

All "sinful" conduct - no matter what outward *form it takes - springs forth  from distrust in God. Distrust is the energy, passion, and drive behind bad (unrighteous) actions. At the heart of sinful behavior is distrust - unbelief i.e. distrust of God - unbelief - is the essence of all sinful behavior. 

*they are "...works of the flesh..."

Galatians 5:19-21 ESV

19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: 

sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. 

I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 

⁵

Being takers and God's solution.

What is the solution to being a ¹taker vs a giver - and all the consequences and fallout from this approach to life? Someone else bearing the consequences of a life of taking while also being the perfect (complete) giver, and giving us credit for it - if and when we choose to receive this. 

This results in the just consequences of our taking being borne by another, while at the same time having their life of giving totally credited to us as if we did it, i.e., as if we were the giver. 

Unless we are in union with God, we are all naturally inclined to be takers. To be a total giver is supernatural. It is Godlike. 

We are created to be in union with the Source of life, love, and all things. He is the ultimate giver. Yet being separated from Him makes us all takers because we are not plugged into God who is love and life.  

Why? Because of the void in us as a result of our rejecting the Source of all good things as our ultimate Provider and Sustainer. 

This results in us not being able to give as we were originally created to. Being absent a connection and relationship with the Source of life, love, and all things, is like being a well-decorated Christmas tree sitting in a dark room unplugged. 

The acknowledgement of this is the beginning of how we reunite and "plug-in" to the Source and are empowered to be the giver we were originally created to be - not as the Source but as a conduit of the Source. 

Giving to get is not giving to give. Giving to give only occurs by our being plugged into the Source of unlimited resources. Only God is that Source. 

The day we bought into the lie that we could be our own source (god) is the day we cut ourselves off from that Source and died.

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FOOTNOTES: 

¹To put another's needs before mine is to be a giver. To put my needs before yours is being a taker. This is the opposite of loving our neighbor as ourselves.

good and bad "obedience"

Doing what God tells us to do (obedience) out of love for and trust in God is legit - as well as commanded by Christ himself. John 14:21-23

Doing what He tells us to do for any other reason is not. It is performance-based, operating in the flesh, etc.

The key is knowing why we act and not just how we act or what we do. For example, praying in itself isn't necessarily a righteous act. We can pray to impress others or solely for our personal benefit and not out of a desire to honor God and advance His purposes.

So why do we act... when are our actions legit? Always and only when done out of love for and trust in God so we would honor Him i.e. give him glory.

1. Sometimes we obey God out of loving affections for God

2. Sometimes out of faith alone.  

As long as we do so for his honor and glory and not to secure our own honor, we are to pursue him in faithful and loving obedience. 

We can never wait for feelings/affections or use lack of them as an excuse to not pursue him in faithful obedience. 

If we are to grow and experience more and more of the beauty, majesty, love and glory of God, obedience is not optional. It is the means by which our faith is exercised and we draw near to God.

NOTE, I did not say obedience is the means by which God draws near to us. We are exhorted to draw near to God, not the other way around. God being near to us is already set because of Christ's work on our behalf. God is 100% with us and committed to us if we are in Christ. Nothing we can do or not do will change this one iota. "It is finished" to use Christ's words. His loving us is never determined by our work...ever!

The beauty however, is God, in his grace and kindness, will often stir affections toward Him once we step out in faith for the right reason.

We obey so we can better honor and glorify God and be the most effective for Him in doing so.

Obedience, submission, and trust aren't about winning God's love for us, they're evidence of our love for Him.

________________

What about "waiting on the Lord?"

We only wait when it is not clear what Gods will is in a given circumstance. But when it is clear (e.g. his commandments), we act and don't look back.

Power within?

Do we have the power within us to be all that we can be? 

Yes and no. 

As bearers of God's image, we can be infinitely more than we currently are. So this is something within us, a capacity we possess, given to us by our Creator. It is who we are. 

However, it is only a capacity, not an ability in itself in the strict sense. Like a kite that can rise high on the wind or remain on the ground without it, wind (and someone to fly the kite) must be present for the kite to function to the maximum potential it's designed for. 

Our capacity for great things must be filled (empowered) by someone outside of us i.e. We can not fulfill this ourselves. We can only receive it. Both the power (wind) as well as our design (like a kite) is from someone else outside us, not from us. It is something given, not something we create or earn by our efforts or good behavior.

Who created us and empowers us to be all we were designed to be? Only God, not us.

But we play a significant and essential part. We must choose to receive this empowering. How? By believing in God's perfect love for us demonstrated by, in, and through Christ. And when we do, we are enabled to be far more than we currently are.

As bearers of God's image, we ¹still have the capacity to be ²like Jesus - and eventually we will be, once we step into eternity in our glorified state and come into the fullness of His presence face to face. Then there will be nothing to hinder the flow of His transforming infinite love to us and through us. We will be like Him - full of love - because we will see Him as He is in all His infinite love toward us. Otherwise, without His love empowering us, we are like a kite lying on the ground on a windless day.   

How we experience the power to be all we were designed to be is nuanced but important i.e., understanding the difference between our capacity and ³ability. If we get it wrong on either side of this discussion, we will either miss out on all God has for us or have an over-inflated image of ourselves and think we can be our own god. One will make us think we are far greater than we are, and the other, far less. 

For a discussion on how abiding in Christ is key to our being empowered, click here 

For a more extensive discussion of the power within Click here

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Footnotes:

¹Because we have turned away from the Source of life, love, and all things, this capacity lies dormant within each of us until we are spiritually reborn, restored to and empowered by God, the source of all things.

²to be like Jesus does not necessarily mean we will walk on water or can raise the dead (though that could happen if God chose to use us in this way) but, like Jesus, by God's Spirit, we can love God with all we are and have and love our neighbors as ourselves. We can also say to our offenders, "Father forgive them for they do not know what they do..." or to God "not my will be yours be done" just like Jesus did.

³I am not saying we don't have abilities and can't accomplish many things. But compared to what we are designed to accomplish when fully empowered by God, the things we do now are a fraction of what we are capable of doing and only have temporary value if they are not done to honor God and point others to Him - who alone is the ultimate Source of love, life, and all things.