Happy Christian New Year's Day (Life)!

"... All the days of my struggle I will wait until my change comes"  (Job 14:14, NASB).
"... All the days of my service I would wait, till my renewal should come" (Job 14:14, ESV).


The whole pagan world is united in this: celebrate (get drunk and party) the New Year.  They make such a production out of it that it eclipses everything else--even Christians fall prey to temptations.  But what is New Year's Day for the believer?  God doesn't command us to celebrate it and Christians don't believe in partying and getting drunk.  Most people think of it as a time of renewal and commitment.  But Christians can repent anytime and start over with a new life--they don't have to wait till the new year to start over in life.  Jesus is in the business of changing lives permanently!

Ever new beginnings are what the Chrisitan life is all about.  God changes lives over and over and doesn't ever stop changing us till we are in Christ's image--chipping away anything that doesn't resemble Christ.  Whenever the Christian confesses and repents God offers a clean slate--He forgets our past mistakes and sins and we don't have to either.  It's just like Job proclaimed:  I will wait till my renewal comes (cf. Job 14:14).  We can come to terms with God at any time!  In fact, this is the whole point of Christianity and unique to our faith--we don't have to make vows or resolutions but just confess our fault to God and trust Him.  It's not a matter of trying but trusting!  It would be disingenuous to confess to God not accepting a new beginning or intending to let God remold us and fulfill His promises.  Every day is New Year's Day for believers!  Don't wait till the end of the year to take spiritual inventory or make a checkup on your life--this is an ongoing project.

Remember that God is never finished with us and will not give up on us till glory when the work is perfected.  With the believer, it may be said happy new life for God is in the business of changing lives--this is the point!  If you want to live all year and wait to make the changes you want rather than what God wants you aren't living by the Book. We don't have to wait!

This all comes with the package and we signed up for it upon salvation--commitment towards ultimate perfection (what God wants not us--e.g., not dieting but making healthy choices!).  Just like Christians ought always to be in the Christmas spirit, they also ought to have the right attitude towards new beginnings for the Christian. There are really no holidays for the believer; he isn't even obliged to observe the Sabbath!  But we mustn't just our brother on what is holy to him and what his faith is.  For example, Christmas isn't mandatory but believers over the centuries have given in to public pressure and God has worked it out to be a Christian tradition. And so, why wait? because we can celebrate New Year's Day all the time!  In sum, it's always New Year's Eve for the believer--a time of contemplation and decision making and realizing that God does all the work.     Soli Deo Gloria!

To Fathom God

THAT'S A TRICK TITLE BECAUSE NO ONE BUT GOD CAN FATHOM OR COMPREHEND GOD FULLY OR EVER WILL.

Suffering Job was asked:  Canst thou by searching find out God (Job 11:7).  Is your God too small?  It is impossible to figure God out or to peg Him or confine Him to your specs.  People tend to label Him with human descriptions just like Luther told Erasmus:  Your thoughts of God are too human.  God is no Republican, not a member of the Evangelical Right, not a Baptist, not a politician, in fact, we can never label God or fit Him into our group.  God is no respecter of persons and doesn't take sides in our sports games.

Our goal in life is to know Him and to make Him known, which is the essence of our faith.  The person who can really boast is the one who knows the Lord, not the rich, wise, nor mighty one (God is no bully!).  People think of God the way they are and that is why Voltaire said that man created God in his image!  Thales, the first of the Greek philosophers was challenged to describe God.  After three days he admitted he couldn't.  What the skeptic will tell you is that if you can describe God to him maybe he'll believe.  We must come to God in faith and be willing to go where the evidence leads and God convicts us with no conditions.  The point the skeptic will not understand nor accept is that if you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus because He's the very icon and express image of God.

It takes a leap of faith (into the light, not the darkness) but this is the only way to know God and the person must realize it will cost him everything he's got (the ownership of his life and surrender to God's will); however, not believing will cost more (suffering the wrath of God forever).  People who want to know God say they are searching for God but they are searching for the benefits and not the Benefactor.  The only real way to know God is by accepting Him on His terms and by experiencing Him in a daily walk.  We actually begin our search to know God at salvation; it doesn't end there.

People like to put God in a box, like thinking of Him merely Santa, as the man upstairs, the Spirit in the sky, Father Time, the Celestial Policeman or Killjoy,  and even when we see Him as our Heavenly Father we are still putting Him in a box if this is the limit of our knowledge and we only see Him in that capacity, not as our Judge, Ruler, Advocate, or Provider.  Actually, Father is the covenant name for God for Christians and unbelievers have no prerogative to call Him that.  We all long for something and are on a quest for something to satisfy the inner emptiness and vacuum in our soul but just knowing God exists doesn't satisfy, we must have an existential encounter with Him and knowing Him in a relationship--that's why He's called a personal God because He gets personal and is a person we can relate to.

We must learn to think big and outside the box, if we are to know God.  It's not how big our faith is but how big our God--that's why we must strive to know Him for who He is and not have any presuppositions.  Knowing God boggles the mind and blows us away as well as challenges and enlarges the intellect.  God-talk or theological discussion and conversation was the hobby of every seventeenth-century gentleman.  We find out soon enough that God is no vapor, essence, principle, force, nor influence but a person like us and that is why we are in the image of God and of all creatures alone have the capacity to relate to and communicate with God.  God became a man in order that we may have something to relate to and see God with skin on and Jesus is merely perfect God and perfect man in one person.  Even the believer realizes he can never define nor confine God but understands the basic principle:  the finite cannot contain (grasp) the infinite.

The Christian is not excused from knowing about God though this is a prerequisite for knowing Him, he learns to turn knowledge about God into the knowledge of God.  Even the gospels don't attempt to describe Jesus but to make Him known.  The Christian realizes in His walk that it's the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy, the purest ethics, the highest science, the most fulfilling and abundant life.  The believer realizes that he's not presenting a creed but a person and that is the point when one knows Him; it's not a to-do list nor a rulebook, but a gateway to the Way (the Higher life in Christ whereas one has found ultimate fulfillment and a richer life than ever dreamed or imagined).  His goal, according to Richard of Chichester, is to know Christ more clearly, to love Him more dearly and this is done by following Him more nearly (for the essence of the Christian ethic is to follow Christ, i.e., become a disciple)!  Everything we need to know of God is revealed in Jesus as God's icon!   We must realize the wisdom of Plato:  If I want to know how to live in reality, I must know what God is really like.  I say amen to Plato on this!

The keynote of God is love which defines Him.  "God is love."   Those who love and know love know God for God is love.  But if we say we know God and do not obey Him we lie.  The test of our faith and knowledge of God is our obedience (we obey the law of love), not our portfolio or real estate!   We cannot know God by our wisdom and we cannot find nor know Him apart from grace.  The world by wisdom cannot know God!  He must be revealed to us and we must be illuminated and have our spiritual eyes, as well as the eyes of our hearts, opened.  The closer we grow to God the more He infects our minds and fills our thoughts--we find our destiny, purpose, and meaning in Him. But what keeps us humble is that we didn't find God--He found us first and we would never have searched for Him had He not first found us!  He hides and will only be found by diligent searching with one's whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, but he will indeed authenticate Himself to anyone who does search earnestly.

I am not writing from some inside track as if I had a vision or special revelation, I've practiced what I've learned and the more we do that the more we learn and experience with God is the best teacher.  We don't want Him to be nearly a theory or idea!  We acquaint ourselves with God to have inner peace and prosperity.  Spiritual riches are the most fulfilling, not materialistic ones or the love of the things of the world and what it offers.  We will find that the more we get to know God and put it into practice that we will grow in our love for God.  But we must realize that we can even get A's in theology class and not know our God!   It's not a matter of information, for the Bible wasn't written to increase our knowledge but to change lives!  The ultimate result and proof of our relationship and salvation and the whole point is conversion or change.  We never qualify, earn, nor deserve to know Him and can never be good enough, only bad enough to need Him--the qualification is to realize one is unqualified.

We all want an infectious, contagious faith.  Some people try to do things backward--they reform their lives or turn over a new leaf, but the change must come from the inside out for Christ didn't' come to make bad men good (goody-goodies) but to make dead men alive in Christ.  Christians are the ones most alive and living not existing because Christ lives in them. Remember this one thing though, we will never fully understand God's nature (i.e.,  His deity, trinity, sovereignty, glory, and majesty) but will always be humbled throughout all eternity by our increasing knowledge of the Divinity.  God's personhood is a mystery in Jesus for no one will ever figure out the kenosis (emptying of Himself in His incarnation ) nor the dual nature in one personhood of Christ.

Every system of thought or philosophy that doesn't start with Christ is bogus!  He is our beginning and ending! That's why the Bible begins:  "In the beginning God...."   This statement is not just an introduction or opening line, but the essential doctrine to all doctrine and worldview--i.e., we start with God and explain the universe, we don't start with the universe and explain away God!   In sum, God is the perfect Being that is above and beyond anything imaginable and needs no improvement and cannot become anything less--if you knew all about Him you would beg to have a relationship with Him.   Soli Deo Gloria!