Hope

A quick post for encouragment today!

Pray. God is so near and waiting for our pleas. Speak to God with humility and expectancy. Ask for the deepest longings of your heart. Not just today, but until he answers. He waits for us to believe he is near and loves us, and wants to do wonderfull things. Lets pray and lets keep praying until he answers.

God is Spirit: Nature and Attributes Part 3

I am explaining the Historical Christian view of the nature and attributes of God. I am currently doing a bible study at my church on the subject, and thought it would be interesting to put some of it on the blog, so here we go:

God is spirit. What we mean by the term spirit, is that God is immaterial or non-physical. God created the heavens and the earth, but he is not the heavens and the earth. God is not part of the heavens and earth, but transcends it or is beyond it. Throughout the five books of Moses, we are reminded that no one is to make any image or likeness of anything in the heavens, the earth, under the earth, or in the sea, and worship it and call it God. In the book of Deuteronomy 4:12-15. Moses reminds Israel that when they heard God's voice, they saw no form. In Deuteronomy 5 Moses lays down the law about making physical images and referring to them as God. In the Colossians 1:15 Paul say's Christ is the image of the invisible God.

When the New Testament referrs to Christ as the image of the invisible God in Colossians, Paul is not saying that God is a 5 foot 10, dark skin jew. He is referring to the words and deeds of Christ. In other words, all that Christ did and said reflected the exact nature of God because he was God. Hebrews chapter one describes Christ as the exact representation of the nature of God, and the effulgence (fullness) of his glory. In John 4:24(more on this verse in my next post) Jesus says to the samaritan woman, "Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” In Luke 24:36-39 Jesus say's to his disciples after his resurrection, "While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”

I have shown how from Moses to Jesus, God is referred to as without form, and without a divine body. I will pursue this topic a little further in my next post. I don't want to try and say to much in one posting and bore you.

More questions that need answering

Question:

My friend and I read your comments to my question. We agreed with a lot of them, but they did provoke more questions. Yes, we believe that God allows evil and if He did intervene then our free will is taken away. And we believe that God will judge them and bring justice when they eventually face Him. But...our question is why does God seem to pick and choose to intervene in some acts of evil and not others? For example, why did my friend survive meningitis as a freshman in college when the doctors told her she should have died only to be raped as a junior in college? There are times, I think, where she wished she would have died. Why does it seem that God intervened in the one situation and not the other? How is that allowing free will? Answer:

I Like your questions. You get right to the matter. Since God is his own person, there are reasons for his decisions and acts that are known only to him. It is my belief also, that if God did attempt to explain certain things to us, we may still not undertsand. Jesus told his disciples in John 3:12:

"I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? ".

I have a 2 year old son. There are things I will need to tell him. Beautiful and horrible things about the world, but it would either confuse him, scare him, or mean nothing at this stage. He is only two and unable to grasp certain realities. He knows this, I love him.

I don't know why those horrible things happen to you and your friend, but I know this, God deeply loves you. I realize this is an easy thing to say, so let me back it up historically. There is no religion under heaven where it can be proven in history that God loves his creation but Chritsianity. John 3:16:

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whosever believes in him, would not perish, but have eternal life".

God came in Jesus to identify with our suffering and and forgive our sins. He wants us to love him and experience and know his love.

In the book of Jerimiah 29:11-14 God say's:

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD , "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you," declares the LORD , ".

God is always calling, always pleading us to come. We are told in the Bible, that we will have suffering in this world, but that the sorrow of this present world is not to be compared with the joy that is ahead of us. There is rest at the end of this road, and it is a rest that can never be broken again. Jesus said "He whom I set free, is free indeed".