Misrepresentation

"He's still doing all He can to save people."

WHEN DID MEN lose knowledge of their Creator? When did the pot begin to say, “Nothing has made me,” and then, generations later, there is no sight of God in them at all? Too much of the fall has been laid on the devil. Too many jokes made at Eve’s expense. Too much is placed on God for asking them to listen and giving the consequences when they did not. Too much human behavior is given to the God in heaven. Though He made our thinking and gave us our ability to make choices, He thinks much higher and purer than we do. Manmade gods are fallible. They make poor choices and huge mistakes. They are emotional and irrational. Our God in heaven is none of these things. For me, personally, it is the greatest frustration to see Them misrepresented. I have chosen to seldom, if ever, lump them together. Although They are “God,” to me it is essential They are Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. He isn’t a ghost. I use that term because it is familiar, not because it is correct. God is a spirit, the Word says, and we must worship Them in spirit and in truth.

Why does it say, “in truth?” Because too many worship inaccurately. They worship the God of religion and not the one of relationship. I have been open about my personal health struggle recently. I have seldom mentioned the cost; it isn’t necessary I recall the former things. In the same breath, I have often mentioned the change in my thinking and behavior because of it. Because faced with the certainty of life and death, I found out who God is, and He is of great and abounding mercy. You really have no idea. The church has no idea. He healed me of things I didn’t even know I had, and there lies the truth about Him.

We’ve made faith a commodity when it’s as simple as breathing. I’ve found great help in translations that remove the word “faith” entirely. This may seem sacrilegious, but faith is an English word for one originally written in Greek, and the Greek word simply means to believe in one who is faithful. It is about WHO we are believing in. And if you “have no faith” for WHAT you are believing for, then not knowing Him very well is the reason. This may seem pointed, but it is truth. Knowing God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – eliminates any fear of how things will end, gets rid of your impatience, and fills you with hope and peace. He fills you with joy and laughter. At one of my lowest moments, the Holy Spirit made me laugh doing something so silly, and I remember thinking it wasn’t like the God who I’d heard preached to me – that God is austere and slightly judgmental with a faith scale in one hand and chastisement in the other.

Even writing this, I can see people shaking their heads, saying they know God isn’t like that, but then they turn around and treat Him exactly that way. He isn’t far away and distant, nor reluctant to speak. I discovered this as well. We have whole conversations sometimes. But it took considerable change in my thinking for me to hear Him, and there is why I cannot go back. The knowledge you have gained cannot simply be washed away. Just as I can’t unknow my spouse and be unfamiliar with his habits and reactions, I can’t unknow the merciful, miraculous, incredibly kind God who saved me, and I can tell you, because I know Him, there isn’t a single person on this planet He won’t rescue. No one. There isn’t a single person He won’t heal. There isn’t anyone He won’t go to the furthest extent to save, even over and above His own death and Resurrection. That was big-huge-big, but He’s still doing all He can to save people. We see Him as reluctant. He isn’t. We make for ourselves too many hurdles to jump to receive. There are none. We call Him sovereign when things don’t work out as we think. BUT IT IS OUR THINKING THAT GETS IN THE WAY. We make Him human, saying He should defend Himself, insist on our salvation.

Adam and Eve made a choice which God warned them about. He did not give them a choice. He warned them not to choose. Eve was deceived. She believed they would be made wise, but wisdom came through obedience. Knowledge brought death, and mankind began a long decay through their thinking so that by Noah’s day, all men were violent, and no one but he and his family even knew God. Life is not a cartoon where we can paint a scene we’d like to live and simply walk into it. There is only one living God, and He made all things. He is holy and righteous and incredibly faithful. When we have Jesus living inside, we are given the opportunity to know Him. That’s all it means by our hearing giving us faith. We have to listen in order to know Them, and in listening we learn their likes and dislikes. We spend time together. Time, day-in and day-out. We choose to be together. We promise to be faithful.

Our relationship with our Father, with our Savior, and with our Teacher and Friend, the Holy Spirit, is like family. When we fall in love with Them and choose Them over other things, when we apply ourselves to Their love for us, then we will never second guess what They will do for us again. God has proven Himself, making His nature abundantly known to us. Jesus came to reveal the mystery, long held, to show us the Father, so that we would completely trust Him and never be fearful or confused again (Hebrews 2:15). That’s what God wanted from Adam and Eve. It’s what He’s returned mankind to, and He longs for us, the body of Christ, to know it.

“Now to God, who is able to perfectly heal your mind and heart by the good news revealed in Jesus Christ —this good news is the revelation of God’s character that was obscured by Satan’s lies long ago, but now has been clearly revealed and made known through Christ’s life and the prophetic writings by God’s direction, so that the entire world might reject Satan’s lies about God, see the truth as revealed in Jesus and again trust God fully and follow his treatment plan— to the only wise God be glory forever through the truth revealed by Jesus Christ! Amen.” (Romans 16:25-27, Remedy)

“And since we have this great ministering priest who ministers the truth to all, let the truth permeate us, cleansing, transforming and changing us as we draw near to God in heart, mind, purpose, method, principle and character, so that we may have ultimate confidence and trust in him who has revealed himself to be completely trustworthy.” (Hebrews 10:21-23, Remedy)

Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com