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Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.
Ephesians 3:20

At times we feel as if we could impress God with all we are trying to do for Him and His church. Yet God has yet to be impressed with even the most grandiose human aspirations (Ps. 8:3-4). You will never set a goal so big or attempt a task so significant that God does not have something far greater that He could do in and through your life. Saul of Tarsus worked harder than anyone else to impress God with his efforts, only to discover that his greatest achievements were but rubbish compared to God’s will for his life (Phil. 3:7-8).

Our problem is that we become too easily enamored with our own plans. If we are attempting to do noble or difficult things, we assume that we must be experiencing the maximum potential for our lives and that God must, therefore, be pleased with us. Until we have heard from God, we cannot even imagine all that our lives could become or all that God could accomplish through us.

We need to remind ourselves that the Father sees the "big picture," that His power far exceeds our limited imagination. We must set aside our own agenda, however lofty. We must never become satisfied with our own dreams, for they are finite at best. When we follow God’s direction we will witness things happening in our lives that can only be explained by His powerful presence. How could we be satisfied with anything less?

Henry and Richard Blackaby
Experiencing God Day-by-Day

Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint;But happy is he who keeps the law.
Proverbs 29:18

The world operates on vision. God’s people live by revelation. The world seeks grand and noble purposes and goals to achieve. People dream up the greatest and most satisfying things in which they can invest their lives. Institutions establish goals and objectives and then organize themselves to achieve them. God’s people function in a radically different way. Christians arrange their lives based on the revelation of God, regardless of whether it makes sense to them. God does not ask for our opinion about what is best for our future, our family, our church, or our country. He already knows! What God wants is to get the attention of His people and reveal to us what is on His heart and what is His will, for God’s ways are not our ways! (Isa. 55:8-9).

Whenever people do not base their lives on God’s revelation, they "cast off restraint." That is, they do what is right in their own eyes. They set their goals, arrange their agendas, and then pray for God’s blessings. Some Christians are living far outside the will of God, yet they have the audacity to pray and ask God to bless their efforts!

The only way for you to know God’s will is for Him to reveal it to you. You will never discover it on your own. When you hear from the Father, you have an immediate agenda for your life: obedience. As the writer of Proverbs observed: "Happy is he who keeps the law."

Henry and Richard Blackaby
Experiencing God Day-by-Day

The situation:  Amos is sent to announce God’s judgement against the the northern kingdom of Israel. Israel was performing half-hearted worship, merely going through rituals, while still flirting with pagan shrines at Bethel and other places of worship.  See links for Introduction and commentaries at bottom of post for more details.

Amos 9:1-4
1 I saw the Lord standing by the altar, and he said:
       "Strike the tops of the pillars
       so that the thresholds shake.
       Bring them down on the heads of all the people;
       those who are left I will kill with the sword.
       Not one will get away,
       none will escape.

2 Though they dig down to the depths of the grave,
       from there my hand will take them.
       Though they climb up to the heavens,
       from there I will bring them down.

3 Though they hide themselves on the top of Carmel,
       there I will hunt them down and seize them.
       Though they hide from me at the bottom of the sea,
       there I will command the serpent to bite them.

4 Though they are driven into exile by their enemies,
       there I will command the sword to slay them.
       I will fix my eyes upon them
       for evil and not for good."

Some pretty hard language coming from God huh?  Perhaps a little unsettling, compared to the loving version of God that’s so much easier to talk about.  Regardless of what notions you the reader or myself may have about God, this too is a nature of God that one can only avoid in their minds.  On God’s Word, we can be assured that though we might get away with living outside of His commands (sinning) for a while, there is no escaping judgement.  God, through His prophet Amos is telling Israel exactly so in Amos 9.

We have free will to go through life avoiding, "hiding" from, or even outright denying that God exists.  We can doubt His Word. We can even make our own interpretations of His Word to better fit our manufactured image of how we desire God to be.  A few problems with this thought process though are that when we do, we lie about God by bringing Him down to our level.  We also lie to ourselves by worshiping this reduced "version" of God.  It’s then not God that we’re striving for a relationship with, rather an idol (Exodus 20:3 "You shall have no other gods before  me.." ) that we’ve erected. There is however good news, a way to avoid the "nastiness" of all this doom and gloom.

1st Corinthians 15:1-4
1 Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,

Grace and peace be with you.

Amos: Introduction, Amos 9 commentaries

I had quite a few thoughts going on in my jumbled mind last week as I attempted to bring things to order in the post: Christ’s divinity (Apologetics).  That post actually started out not as any type of attempt at apologetics but rather from another observation made while reading Genesis.  As I made mention earlier in Christ’s divinity (Apologetics):

For the Bible believing Orthodox Christian John 1:1-2 is probably the most popular verse that we reach for in explaining or defending the Trinitarian doctrine and beliefs.

That post which is more or less directed against the Jehovah’s Witnesses doctrine (which denies the divinity of Jesus), included verse 3 of John 1 as Biblical evidence for the divine nature of Christ Jesus.  Other verses that speak of Christ’s nature as divine include:

John 1:1-3
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

John 10:31-33
31 Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, 32 but Jesus said to them, "I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?"

33 "We are not stoning you for any of these," replied the Jews, "but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God."

Colossians 2:9-10
9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10 and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.

Hebrews 1:5-10
5 For to which of the angels did God ever say,
   "You are my Son;
      today I have become your Father? Or again,
   "I will be his Father,
      and he will be my Son"?
6 And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says,
   "Let all God’s angels worship him."
7 In speaking of the angels he says,
   "He makes his angels winds,
      his servants flames of fire."
8 But about the Son he says,
   "Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever,
      and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom.
9 You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;
      therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions
      by anointing you with the oil of joy."
10 He also says,
   "In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth,
      and the heavens are the work of your hands.

Getting back to the main point.  The following is an observation and thoughts from reading Genesis that I believe builds on what John 1:1-3 (as well as the other passages from Scripture) presents of Jesus’ divine nature.

In the first book of Genesis we are told that God created the heavens and the earth, His Spirit meantime hovering over the waters.  Perhaps, purposefully meant to be a "witness" (John 16:13,2nd Timothy 3:16-17) to the creation events?

The first interesting observation comes from Genesis 1:26, which throughout the Genesis account is the only instance where God is read as directly addressing "someone else" ("Let us make man in our image…") ie; inviting "someone else" to participate in either a creative process or the entire creative process.  Or is it?

Again I had always understood the Genesis account as God the Father, being full of power and glory simply speaking into existence what He desired.  The thought that I’m attempting to relate is that I had missed seeing what I’ll refer to as "corporate creation" or "cooperative creation" that goes beyond "Let us make man in our image…" within the godhead.  It’s not that I had dismissed what John 1:1-3 says,nor disbelieved,  rather I never saw the connection literally written out, in and throughout Genesis 1 so clearly as now. Hey, I never claimed to be the sharpest tool in the shed.  Hopefully the following will explain.

Notice in Genesis 1:3-5,9-13 that God makes a declaration, and it’s so; whereas in Genesis 1:6-8,14-27, God makes a declaration, and that declaration is followed by a confirming "God made or God created" statement reflecting what God had intended to create. Seeing Genesis with a different set of eyes expands, clarifies, and solidifies my beliefs in Christ’s divinity.  This clarity is a result of reading and understanding the Genesis account not only as God the Father creating, but also as God (Jesus Christ the Son) being shown in Scripture through a closer examination, to be actively involved in the creation process as well.  Taking a closer look at Scripture…

The following passages from Genesis are broken out and grouped to present where it appears that God the Father is speaking to Jesus (Genesis1:3-5,9-14), thus Christ is the one doing the creating.

Genesis1:3-5,9-14
3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

9 And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good.

11 Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so.

In this second set of Scripture from Genesis (Genesis1:6-8,16-26) this is where it appears that God the Father is the one with the "lead" in the creation process.

Genesis1:6-8,16-26
6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

 

20 And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth." 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

24 And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

Finally in verse 27 of Genesis, we have what can be read as speaking of either the godhead or perhaps God the Father only in the first sentence.  I can only assume not to include the Holy Spirit per se, as He was hovering over the waters.  When we jump to the second part of verse 27, "in the image of God he created him;", it seems to be reading as "in the image of God (Jesus Christ the Son) he (God the Father) created him (man);".

Genesis 1:27
27 So God created man in his own image,
       in the image of God he created him;
       male and female he created them.

Just some thoughts that I wanted to share.  I hope that in part or whole this might be of use to someone explaining, defending or otherwise in conversation about Christ’s divinity or the Trinity.

Grace and peace be with you.

Neither did they say, "Where is the Lord,Who brought us up out of the land of Egypt,Who led us through the wilderness?"
Jeremiah 2:6

Christianity is an intimate, growing relationship with the person of Jesus Christ. It is not a set of doctrines to believe, habits to practice, or sins to avoid. Every activity God commands is intended to enhance His love relationship with His people.

God designed worship for us to see Him in His glory and to respond appropriately; for many it has degenerated into "religion," one more meeting to attend out of habit. God established the sacrificial system so that we, His people, could express our love to Him; but we often diminish our gifts to our Lord into futile attempts to appease Him and to pacify our guilty conscience.

God gave us prayer so we could have conversation with Him, but we often distort this by "saying prayers" and hurrying off without ever listening to what is on our Father’s heart. God instituted His commandments as a protection for those He loves, but the commandments can become a pathway to legalism rather than an avenue for a relationship with our Father in which He protects us from harm.

Religious activity apart from fellowship with God is empty ritual. The people of Jeremiah’s day were satisfied to have the ritual without the manifest presence of God. They became so comfortable with their "religion" that they didn’t even notice God’s absence. Is it possible to pray, to attend a worship service, or to give an offering yet not to experience the presence of God? It certainly is possible! And that has been the sad commentary on many a Christian experience. Don’t settle for a religious life that lacks a vital relationship to Jesus Christ. When God is present, the difference will be obvious.

Henry and Richard Blackaby
Experiencing God Day-by-Day