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Christianity was supposed to be about becoming like Jesus. | |
We went in the wrong direction. |
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What is God Looking For?
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| One might think of
God as a farmer that has planted a crop and is looking for a harvest.
What he planted was a crop of people who he gave free will and almost
all use that free will to plot a course away from him to pursue our own
interests. The difficulties and suffering we experience in life are
either from consequences of the poor use of free will or from the
natural limits God placed on us to limit our self-destructive
tendencies. It does not seem as if “farmer” God is interested in having his crop comfortable. He has intervened in his crop six times. The first was to make life difficult after the sin of Adam so that we would not be able to indulge every self-destructive act. The second time was to wipe out the entire “crop” of people (except for eight) with a world wide flood. The third time was to limit human collectivization by creating different languages. The fourth intervention was to create a single nation that could be used to bring the knowledge of God to the rest of the world. The fifth intervention was to send his son Jesus to be king of this nation. The failure of the nation he selected to receive their promised King resulted in the sixth intervention, the distribution of his word (the bible) through out the world. We can get a picture of how God approaches his crop by considering the three year ministry of Jesus. He did not cajole, explain, convince, or persuade. The miracles he did were not to impress, but to heal and feed and to authenticate himself. He even withheld information from some. We can get a little insight from the story of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn his brothers. The rich man is told that his brothers have Moses and the prophets and that if they have not responded to that, they will not respond even if one return from the dead. This speaks to an internal quality that is constructed as a result of each persons choices to respond to truth. As each person is born and grows he makes choices regarding truth (of which Moses and the prophets are representative). A person chooses to seek after truth or go in a different direction. The truth of God is absolute and unchangeable. Confusion comes when those who seek their own interests define truth as what makes them feel good or gets them what they want. As one grows in real truth, one begins to see the reality of God and starts down a path of humility. This can lead to gratitude. As one begins to understand what Jesus accomplished on the cross and with his resurrection (the forgiveness of sins) this become a solid foundation in which to trust. This trust (faith) allows God to regenerate in us eternal life and to spiritually be placed into Christ. In a way God planted a crop that is self-directing and mobile. This is a crop that is harvested each time someone trusts in the gospel of Jesus. There will come a time when a faithful remnant of Israel is restored as a nation and they will bring a knowledge of God to the world at their time. At the end of that age, a final harvest will be made that is called the separation of the wheat and tares (Matt 13:30). Isa 55:6 Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: |
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Information about Christianity and the Christian life. |
Pictures and views of our farm | Some of our animals | See some of the old-fashioned crafts we are trying to relearn | ||