January 14, 2025

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“They lift it [the idol which they had fashioned] to their shoulder and carry it along. They set it in its place and there it stands. It will not budge from that spot [unless they move it themselves again.] They cry out to it, but it does not answer. It saves no one from their troubles.” (Isaiah 46.7)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

There is a saying about having to tell another lie to help make the first lie sound like truth. The pattern persists until the truth no longer matters because the first lie has become the priority thought. With that in mind, let’s remember the first lie that was told. It was by Satan, the cast out Lucifer, who said that God was afraid people would become like Him if they ate of the fruit of The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God knew full well that people could never become like Him anymore than angels could. However, the truth was and is that people can become like Satan. What Satan didn’t want Adam and Eve to know is that truth, so he had to tell them a lie. Humanity has been fraught with the burden ever since that they could be “God.” There was and is a difference between “being God” and being like God. Jesus taught in His Sermon on the Mount that we should strive to be perfect as God Himself is perfect. (Matthew 5.48) Of course, Jesus spoke about such a pursuit in the context of teaching about forgiveness and being forgiven. God’s perfection is evidenced not by the glories of heaven and earth and the awe and wonder of creation. God’s perfection is evidenced in His desire to love us into the fullness of life. His desire to redeem us from our sins, debts and trespasses exhibits a perfection of the heart, mind and soul of God’s will. His will is that none should die an eternal death. For this reason, God sent His Son into the world that we might know the fullest extension of His desire to show us His perfect and perfecting love. There can be only one way to discover that perfection. Jesus said it comes when we remember to “Love one another.“

The problem exists then when we foster the desire to be independent from God. What if God were to cease to exist to our consciousness? What if we no longer “experienced” God in our lives and in our world? That lie has been around for some time and cultivated in the 1960s by the “God is Dead” movement. The lie of that movement was that evil exists because God was absent; if not absent, ineffective and ultimately capricious. In the hope of doing away with evil, negative consequences and disastrous events or results, power and dominion and authority had to be taken into one’s own hands. But without God, the knowledge of God, the template of God’s perfection what would we know about overcoming evil? Of course, there is the overcoming evil with good. Paul said this to the believers in Rome (Romans 12.21) “Do not be overcome with evil; rather overcome evil with good.” Paul’s admonition to “do good,” comes with a caveat. We tend to think of “doing good” as all the philanthropic efforts of the social gospel and charity. Yes, we should help to meet the needs of those who are struggling to survive in this world physically, fiscally, emotionally and psychologically. Paul knew, however, that the true “good,” the perfection of it, came when room was made for God’s sovereignty to be made known. In other words, “doing good” had to include the spiritual element of redemption. For the believer that is to be the hope of every thought and action. We ought, as Paul presented to the believers in Corinth (2 Corinthians 10.5) “Take every thought captive.” What Paul was suggesting was that every thought and action of the believer was to be aligned with, in team with, the Word and Will of God. It is in Jesus Christ that we see that “teamwork.” What is the contemporary saying suggested by many…”teamwork makes the dream work.” We ought to be living the “dream” and not the “nightmare.”

What is the nightmare? For Isaiah, and as it had been since the days which followed Adam and Eve making their way in the world following their being “cast out” of Eden, the nightmare was people believing they were God or worse that they could control god. The prohibition of idols and images in the Ten Commandments existed for a reason. It was the stipulating that such things did not speak of righteous living. Righteous living does not happen when “we” are in control. Rather, when we surrender our will to that of God, then we pursue all righteousness and right living. Sure, we still stumble and fall short. We have not reached such perfection that forgiveness even of ourselves is a comfortable concept. We tend to be harder on ourselves than we are of others. In this regard, we can extend the concept to understand why the Church is harder on itself than others because it does not pursue healing the outside world by healing the inside reality. Trust me, “saying one is well does not make it so.” But the practice of trying to “control God” to accomplish our will, to meet our needs and to satisfy our desires through idolatry is promoting the lie. No amount of lying will ever make it the truth. It is only through God that we can “do” all things. And “all things” doesn’t mean anything and everything. The promise of “doing all things through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4.23) speaks to completing the will of God which was demonstrated through the life and ministry of Jesus as the Christ. There is the danger, and the nightmare, of making our attitude and perfection of Jesus into a form of idol worship. We all know of Christians, and sometimes it would include ourselves, into wanting Jesus “to do for us.”

That desire of “to do for us” violates the covenant of both the Old and the New Testaments. The commandments of love are framed in how we love others not in how we love ourselves. We should love ourselves so much that we would put others before self. The truth is that we should keep God first and foremost in all things. Whether it is the Shema or the Decalogue, the first word is about the priority relationship of God first. Now you can understand the fallacy of the “God is Dead or at least non-existent or apathetic” movement. If there is no “real” God to align our thoughts and actions to, only ourselves, then we are living the nightmare and not the dream. We have given ourselves to something that cannot give back to us. We have fostered a community of “me” and not “we.” The loose confederation of individuals who merely bump up against each other in passing while expecting them to serve us is no community at all. Christ is our focal point as mighty ones of God. He is the head of all our thoughts and actions. Our surrender of our lives to Him becomes our “common unity,” our community. That is why our only hope is in Him alone and not in things of wood and stone, even the cross and the tomb. We dare not forget, they served a purpose which God ordained for our salvation and now they are empty. They serve nothing more than reminders of the truth: God loves us and we are nothing without God’s love.

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, before we were conceived in the womb, You had already formed us in Your love and by Your Spirit brought us into being. Each one of us is blessed with the opportunity of doing right, being good and producing the fruit of the Spirit in order that others be fed the truth of that same love so that the two will become one. It is our soul’s sincere desire to embrace the oneness You have in mind so we would know we are Your people and You are our God. Lead us in that discovery of the truth and the manifestation of that love for us all. In Jesus’ name, we pray. AMEN.