May the Lord be praised because He has heard the sound of my pleading. The Lord is my strength and my shield. My heart trusts in Him and I am helped. Therefore my heart rejoices and I praise Him with my song. The Lord is the strength of His people. He is a stronghold of salvation for His anointed. Save Your people! Bless Your possession! Shepherd them and carry them forever. (vs. 6--9)
The Old Testament sometimes is hard to read because of all the death and wars that make God look like a killer of men and destroyer of the innocent. I have heard people all my life railing against the God of the Bible. Richard Dawkins says this of our God:
"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."
I would argue that God can be however He wants to be since He is God. If He were all these things, it would be His perogative. Man would have no right to judge Him for it, as He is God. Be angry at Him all you want, Richard, but if that is who He fundamentally is, you are just clay shouting hopelessly at the Potter. How would each of us be described were others to isolate incidences in our lives to become the sum of our character? Might not look good. That is what many who don't believe have done with God. Isolate Biblical passages to prove their point. Please don't judge my life that way. The pejoratives would be much worse than Dawkins's description of God.
But that is not what I see. Would there be any justice without God? I think sometimes we humans think we can divide truth better than God can. But without Him is there such thing as truth? Or goodness? Or evil? We are accidental beings living as best we can on an accidental planet in an accidental universe. So what, then? One life. Live it however you want. No matter. But don't judge another as unjust, unforgiving, evil, cruel. I would put out there that Dawkins has no right to see God in any paradigm where He is judged, as there is no real right or wrong that is universal - merely what society's mores give us as a guideline. Suppose to be racist, pestilential, megalomaniacal, and bloodthirsty is good. Dawkins cannot know this.
On to my God. My Father. I believe He created me before the foundations of the world with destiny and purpose. I believe that He is perfectly just. He hears me when I pray and answers me because He knows and loves me. Though He is just, His mercy trumps His righteous anger because He has already provided my justification for sin. No earth is going to swallow me up, though I would deserve it. All His wrath could be poured out on me because I have been wrong and crossed His will many times. With His heavenly armies He could have destroyed this world for all the people killed unrighteously, for the dead babies lying daily in trash cans all over the world - an offering to the god of self. For our greed and lust. We are a filthy people calling out the sins of God in a world that deserves to implode!
So what does our God do? He dies for it. Shouldn't that say enough about Him? While we are fornicating, lying, stealing, abusing, abandoning, murdering, hating, gossiping, reviling, medicating, cheating, hating, and worse, He is paying the price. Taking our sentence. Forgiving because we need it. Our place? To know this and turn. To Him. Not because He is a megalomaniac who demands our attention, but because He is a loving God Who took our place in the death chamber. Quite a different paradigm.
May the Lord be praised because He is the God Who formed my body and soul, hears my prayers, gives me purpose, shields me from harm, adopts me into His family, helps me when I am weak, strengthens me for life, and brings me undeserved salvation. He shepherds me. Me, His possession. He possesses me because He loves me. Not because He needs to be in control so badly that He wants robotic submission to His heavy-handed authority. The picture is of the Shepherd who watches carefully over His flock for the very opposite reason.
He protects His flock like a shepherd. He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them in the folds of His garment. He gently leads those who are nursing. Isaiah 40:11
I will gladly stay in the folds of His garment and let those who claim the good news of Christ to be a fiction reckon with their own lives in this difficult world. Would that they would stop for a moment the posturing arrogance of proclaiming to be a god to themselves and look more closely at the heart of our Father in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. From beginning to end, He is a God Who wants relationship with people. To hold us close and lead our way. To carry us forever.
The Old Testament sometimes is hard to read because of all the death and wars that make God look like a killer of men and destroyer of the innocent. I have heard people all my life railing against the God of the Bible. Richard Dawkins says this of our God:
"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."
I would argue that God can be however He wants to be since He is God. If He were all these things, it would be His perogative. Man would have no right to judge Him for it, as He is God. Be angry at Him all you want, Richard, but if that is who He fundamentally is, you are just clay shouting hopelessly at the Potter. How would each of us be described were others to isolate incidences in our lives to become the sum of our character? Might not look good. That is what many who don't believe have done with God. Isolate Biblical passages to prove their point. Please don't judge my life that way. The pejoratives would be much worse than Dawkins's description of God.
But that is not what I see. Would there be any justice without God? I think sometimes we humans think we can divide truth better than God can. But without Him is there such thing as truth? Or goodness? Or evil? We are accidental beings living as best we can on an accidental planet in an accidental universe. So what, then? One life. Live it however you want. No matter. But don't judge another as unjust, unforgiving, evil, cruel. I would put out there that Dawkins has no right to see God in any paradigm where He is judged, as there is no real right or wrong that is universal - merely what society's mores give us as a guideline. Suppose to be racist, pestilential, megalomaniacal, and bloodthirsty is good. Dawkins cannot know this.
On to my God. My Father. I believe He created me before the foundations of the world with destiny and purpose. I believe that He is perfectly just. He hears me when I pray and answers me because He knows and loves me. Though He is just, His mercy trumps His righteous anger because He has already provided my justification for sin. No earth is going to swallow me up, though I would deserve it. All His wrath could be poured out on me because I have been wrong and crossed His will many times. With His heavenly armies He could have destroyed this world for all the people killed unrighteously, for the dead babies lying daily in trash cans all over the world - an offering to the god of self. For our greed and lust. We are a filthy people calling out the sins of God in a world that deserves to implode!
So what does our God do? He dies for it. Shouldn't that say enough about Him? While we are fornicating, lying, stealing, abusing, abandoning, murdering, hating, gossiping, reviling, medicating, cheating, hating, and worse, He is paying the price. Taking our sentence. Forgiving because we need it. Our place? To know this and turn. To Him. Not because He is a megalomaniac who demands our attention, but because He is a loving God Who took our place in the death chamber. Quite a different paradigm.
May the Lord be praised because He is the God Who formed my body and soul, hears my prayers, gives me purpose, shields me from harm, adopts me into His family, helps me when I am weak, strengthens me for life, and brings me undeserved salvation. He shepherds me. Me, His possession. He possesses me because He loves me. Not because He needs to be in control so badly that He wants robotic submission to His heavy-handed authority. The picture is of the Shepherd who watches carefully over His flock for the very opposite reason.
He protects His flock like a shepherd. He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them in the folds of His garment. He gently leads those who are nursing. Isaiah 40:11
I will gladly stay in the folds of His garment and let those who claim the good news of Christ to be a fiction reckon with their own lives in this difficult world. Would that they would stop for a moment the posturing arrogance of proclaiming to be a god to themselves and look more closely at the heart of our Father in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. From beginning to end, He is a God Who wants relationship with people. To hold us close and lead our way. To carry us forever.
No comments:
Post a Comment