I am so blessed. I know the importance of worship. It’s like Scott said this morning. When we truly worship Him, He has to come. To do otherwise would deny who He is. I love corporate worship. When we all come together seeking His presence and He shows up it is just so sweet. My soul truly sings when He is near. Didn’t the Bible say that if we didn’t praise Him the rocks and hills would cry out for His glory. Moses asked God to show him His glory and God showed Moses His goodness. So His glory is represented here in earth by His goodness. It’s His goodness that people don’t believe. Our view of God determines our actions as believers. At our camp Scott asked a question. The question was this: “Do you believe that god gives us diseases to make us better people?” Almost 80 percent of the kids answered yes. 80 percent! And we are a church that talks and preaches the goodness of God. We still have a lot of work to do!
Last Wednesday when I talked with the kids at the day camp on healing I spent the first ten minutes talking about the goodness of God. I told them that God is good, all the time. I told them that He is in a good mood and wants to love us, no matter what. I told them that all good things come from God, and all bad things come from the devil. I boiled down theology to basically this: God – Good; Devil – Bad. Now you might think to yourself that that’s OK. These are young kids who can’t understand all the nuances of theology. They can’t understand how God “allows” things to happen to change us. Well. I’m writing to myself but I know other adults are reading, so I want to speak to us now. We who are more sophisticated and can understand. Here is my theology in a nutshell: God – Good; Devil – Bad. It’s all the same no matter how old you are. When we get old, we just allow more arguments to get in our head. We begin to try to rationalize events and make our theology line up with our experience. We have been doing it for years. The early church in it’s later years began to lose some of the fervor and power of the Holy Spirit. The gifts began to fade. Instead of crying out for a renewal and reformation of their thinking to call back the Holy Spirit they began to develop a theology that excused their lack of power. They said that the gifts had been taken away, that they were not for today. They began to interpret scripture out of context to justify their condition.
God is Good and He is in a Good mood. Look at Jesus; He is perfect theology. Hebrews 1:3 states that Jesus is the perfect representations of the Father. So really examine the life and works of Jesus. That is the perfect representation of Father God. His goodness is everlasting; His grace endures forever and ever. We have to really begin to get a true picture of who God is. Did Jesus ever condemn sinners? What about the woman caught in adultery? We need more love. If the church would rise up and release the love of Jesus everywhere, then sinners would repent, cities would be transformed, abortions would cease. It’s about releasing His love, not about judging and condemning. Jesus loves me this I know, is more than a children’s song. It should be the battle cry of the church.
I know that many if not most of us have been taught that “God may not have caused it, but He allowed it to happen”. Why would He allow it to happen? Would you allow your daughter to get cancer to make her a “better person”. Of course not! Then why do we put that on God. I challenge you to go back to Genesis and read Genesis through again, especially Gen 1:26 – 31. You see, God gave the earth to man. He relinquished control of earth to Adam and Eve. Nowhere else in the bible does it say that He has ever taken control of the earth again. No, He goes so far as to send Jesus to earth as the “Son of Man” so that He can redeem the earth from Satan after Satan stole control of the earth in the Garden of Eden. Jesus came as the 2nd Adam to be a “Kinsman Redeemer” to buy back the land for it’s original owners. But God didn’t take back control. Jesus left the church in charge. We as believers are God’s agents here on earth. It is our job to change things.
We still live in a fallen world. Bad things happen. We are in a war. We will win, that as been decided, but we have to bring the Kingdom of God down to earth by force. So to get personal, Julia god pneumonia and died. Did God cause it? NO! Did God allow it? NO! He is not in control. He has authority, but not the control. We have to get our authority from Him, and we have to begin to take control. The earth has been given to us to subdue, it is up to us, the church at large to begin to recognize who we are and take our proper place. That is happening, it just didn’t happen fast enough for Julia. So I am going after Divine Justice. How? I am filling myself with the love of God and all His goodness. I want to carry His presence wherever I go, and release His love and his power to bring His Kingdom wherever I am. That is how I will have justice.
So my soul sings of His love and His goodness. I want everyone to know the God I know so that they too can worship Him and help usher in His Kingdom. That’s it for tonight. I’ve got four straight 3AM wake ups this week, so I had better get to bed. I don’t think I have exhausted this subject, so I’m sure I will return to it many times in the next few months. If you don’t agree, begin to read Genesis, and then tell me anywhere else in the Bible where God took control of earth back from man.
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