Every. Single. Word.
Who is like our God who speaks with perfect clarity? Who speaks with such wisdom and truth and faithfulness. Who can thunder with a voice like His in total authority? Only our God has words like this. And every single word of God is true.
As I was listening to the radio the other day about current events, I found myself asking, “I wonder how much of this is true?” It’s an unfortunate fact that you can’t believe everything someone tells you. Not only are there obvious biases in every conversation and purposeful misdirections, but also sometimes people just have their facts wrong. Even the most careful and well spoken individuals sometimes fall into innocent miscommunications and unintentional misrepresentations. What blew me away as I was thinking about this report on the radio was that I never have to ask that question when I read God’s word. Really let this sink in: Every word of God is true.
When God speaks, it is absolutely perfect. Perfect in its delivery, perfect in its content, perfect in its timing. He always speaks with proper soberness and weightiness. He’s never too harsh or too soft. His words are not only true, they are truth (Psalm 119:116). Which means that when I hear from God on any subject, I can take it to the bank. There is not one chance that He has said the wrong thing. Sure, I can misunderstand, but it’s not because the content is faulty. “Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him” (Prov 30:5). Every. Single. Word. Amazing.
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Does God Owe Us Something Better?
The loss of our jobs opens our eyes again to the fact that God is that something, that someone better. Or at least we have the chance to believe that’s true, or refuse to believe that’s true and become bitter. If our default is to see God’s role as merely to give us something better than we have lost, then we have miss the point of God! Here’s the test. What if, in losing our jobs, God has pushed us back onto relying on him more? What if, instead of getting what we think we want we have our wants exposed and changed?
Something Better?
I was lamenting on the phone with a friend yesterday about the loss of both of our jobs this year.
The frustration was real, especially for him as he’s subsequently missed out on a couple of roles that would have suited him well. And here we are coming up to Christmas and he still has no job after four or five months. I’ve got a lot more social capital than he, so things seem to be slotting together well for me. Not so for him
So we chatted for a while, processing the last few months. And we kinda made this comment as we chatted, talking through the pressure and uncertainty that losing your job puts you through.
“Well if God has taken that away then he has something better for us, that’s what we have to believe.”
And on the surface, or for an instant, we affirmed that for each other. But then something kicked in – for both of us. And I like to think it was the gospel that kicked in! For we realised, pretty much at the same time as we said it, that that is not strictly true. Or at least it may not be strictly true.
The truth could be far more complex than that. Both of us liked our jobs and believed we were good at them, and they satisfied a certain number of criteria in our lives. But that does not mean that God has some better job for us in the future than those jobs were for us in the past. It doesn’t mean that’s there a more rewarding role with more financial and experiential rewards than what we just left behind.
That simply isn’t the case. It could be that for both of us we’ve peaked – at least in terms of work. I hope not, but it could be. Those roles could be the best ones we have ever had and will ever have going forward. That’s just the case. To say that God has something better for us – workwise at least – is not something we can say with any deep assertion.
And that’s why our conversation then took a different turn. A different, deeper and richer turn. I said to my friend in response to our initial assertion:
“Actually that’s not quite right. What we need to take from this is this: not that God HAS something better for us, but that God IS that something better.”
And as I said it, I think we both got it. I think we kinda knew it, but hadn’t articulated it.
You see, that’s the central point of what it means to be a Christian. And that’s the central point of the Christmas season. Not that God gives us stuff. Not that God gives us the job we want. Not that God gives us a better job than the one we had before. But that God gives us God! God is the something better. And if we just allow him to show us that, even in the tough times, it will make all of the difference.
Let’s define it even more sharply. God is not something better, he is SOMEONE better. God doesn’t desire to simply give us created stuff, he desires to share himself – the Creator – with us.
Perhaps the loss of our jobs is an opportunity for God to show us that he is that something better that we are craving. And to lose sight of that in a time such as this is to lose a great opportunity to grow into what God wants us to be. In fact the loss of anything is such an opportunity, hard though that may be to hear.
And that’s a whole different ball game. I came away from our conversation in a better frame of mind. Our chat steered us away from the roles we had lost, and the imagined roles we wish we could have, or possibly might have if everything lands perfectly,.
The conversation was steered onto what it might be that God is doing in our lives as we go through this season, ahd how he is showing us, in what seems a painful way, how he himself is the better thing that we seek.
Our Idolatrous Hearts
And here’s the guts of that: God is shaping and refining us away from a constant, almost magnetic, pull towards the good gifts that he gives us and towards the constant, majestic pull of God towards himself. For anything less will ultimately end up as idolatry.
That’s the heart of idolatry after all, as Romans 1 tells us – craving and worshipping the things that the Giver gives us rather than the Giver himself.
The loss of our jobs opens our eyes again to the fact that God is that something, that someone better. Or at least we have the chance to believe that’s true, or refuse to believe that’s true and become bitter. If our default is to see God’s role as merely to give us something better than we have lost, then we have miss the point of God!
Here’s the test. What if, in losing our jobs, God has pushed us back onto relying on him more? What if, instead of getting what we think we want we have our wants exposed and changed? What if, instead of the temptation to seek our identity in a work role, God removes that from us in order to deepen our identity in him? Is God allowed to do that?
And what if this situation opened our eyes to the fact that we may have been cruising a little bit, relying on the things of this age – good and proper though they are – and not leaning more steadfastly on him? Is God allowed to do that?
What if, ironically, our ministry roles were taken away from us to ensure that we found our worth in the God we declare, not the job that declares his worth?
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Returning To Your First Love
Do not let sin reign in your body. You do not have to continue this sin, though all Christians fail out of inbred weakness. When you sin, repent immediately of your disobedience and continue in your affection for God. Don’t let sin have one hour of your time. Destroy it by the weapons of repentance and faith.
But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.” Revelation 2:4-5 ESV
Are you and those who are with you dangerously close to experiencing this judgment? Is the Light of God’s presence dim, almost imperceptible? Do you have form without power and activity without fruit? If so, Christ says you must . . .
Remember
Using a few key words and phrases, indicate what it was like in the time of your purest and most sincere affection for Christ. Think about habits, feelings, attitudes, liberties and effectiveness.
Repent
Write out the habitual sins of your life and those acts against others that have not been dealt with in humility and honesty. Carefully consider the sins listed below and ask the Holy Spirit to open your eyes to all areas of disobedience. Pray for the grace to sincerely and deeply change both heart and actions. Do not stop short in your evaluation. And do not be deceived. Anyone can name his sins, but those God uses most determine to stop their sinful activity, right every wrong, and walk in obedience. This God-given determination and true hatred of each sin is biblical repentance.
Read over the list below carefully. Mark items which need further reflection as you are writing out your sins. (If in a group, a leader may read this section out loud slowly while the group contemplates and makes a list.)
Are there sins of pride, preoccupation with appearance or status, always having your own way, drawing of attention to yourself in conversation, self-pity, forgetfulness and inconsideration of others due to self-absorption? Do you act as if you know everything? Is there rebellion, willfulness, stubbornness, haughtiness, pouting, and over-sensitivity, or a despising of the authorities God has placed in your life? Has bitterness, anger, rudeness, or a sharpness of speech toward others entered in? Is there lack of love? Have you left relationships unmended? Have you been unforgiving?
Are there sins of speech, such as coarse jesting, filthy language, crudeness, slang unbecoming a child of God, undue pessimism in light of God’s goodness, judging of others? Are you materialistic, always concerned with your money and possessions, lusting for more and more, insistent upon having the latest and the best, discontent with what God has given, ungrateful? Are you dishonest, telling half-truths in order to appear better than you are?
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Where Did Satan Come From?
The Bible seems to tell us that Satan was a created being, that Satan was among the first of the creatures. He was one of the angels that was created and then fell from that position. He chose to rebel against God, and as a result, the Scriptures seem to say that He was thrown down, he was cast out of heaven. And we’re told that he led many with him. So it wasn’t just Satan by himself, but there were many, if you will, fallen angels that followed him in that rebellion against God. The question comes as a result of that: if it is true that Satan was an angel, created good to serve the Lord and yet rejected that place of goodness, if you will—rejected that service of the Lord and chose instead to rebel against God with many other of His fellow angels—if that is true, how in the world did Satan choose that? Sin and evil must have been in the world already for Satan to be able to choose evil or to choose sin, rather than choosing to serve God.
The Origin of Evil
And so the question then comes as a result: if that is true, if the Bible’s comments about Satan and the fall of Satan, the casting out of Satan, is true, then where did evil come from? How was evil even there for Satan to choose in the first place? And I think what I’d want to say to that question is that evil is not a substance. Evil is not something that needed to be created in order to exist. Everything else that is had to be created. And we’re told that God created everything that is by the Word of His power, and sustains it still today. But evil, I want to suggest, is not a thing. It’s not a substance. Rather, it’s the privation or absence, denial of a thing.
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