Tag: gospel

  • What Do You See? Opening our spiritual eyes.

    stylized Adam and Eve hiding in the garden

    We aren’t very far into the Bible when things go terribly wrong. You know the story.

    Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.  For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Genesis 3:1-8 esv

    Now, prior to this, both Adam and Eve walked in the garden in a close personal relationship. They knew the Lord as intimately and personally as it is possible for a person to know Him. They understood His love, compassion and mercy.

    What changed? The obvious answer is they sinned. Yet, what moved them from joy to fear?

    With sin-filled eyes, we cannot see God as He truly is. They now saw God through distorted lenses and created a harsh God of their own imaginings. It’s what we do.

    Some see God as a Monty Python-like foot ready to stomp on us for any sin. Others see Him as a cosmic genie there to grant our every wish and desire. For some people, he’s a doddering old man who either cannot see our sins or, if he does, is unable or unwilling to do anything about them.

    There are those who pretend that He doesn’t exist. The great civilizations of the past imagined Him as a pantheon of very flawed human-like capricious gods.

    The truth is that the God revealed to us in the Bible is none of those things. He is benevolent, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. He loves us so much that Jesus came and died so that we could be restored into a right relationship with Him and be adopted into His family.

    He is too beautiful and wonderful for us to understand with our sin-filled minds. Even as believers whose sins have been atoned for do not yet see him clearly, but the day will come when we will. He will open our spiritual eyes to see the truth.

    For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 1 Corinthians 13:32

    I can hardly wait. What about you?

    Be blessed

    Kevin

    Gleanings From The Word – Experience an extraordinary God in ordinary life. 

    On a similar theme

    Do you see things through the eyes of faith?

  • Thorns – God’s grace is sufficient

    Hialayan blackberry closeup

    On a recent walk, I got grabbed by the thorns of a Himalayan Blackberry  bush as I passed by. They are mostly dormant now, but the thorns still grab the unwary.

    These blackberry bushes produce delicious, prolific berries, but are highly invasive. They are the bane of many landowners and park operators.

    Kathy and I joke that the blackberries are going to take over the world. They pop up in random spots and thrive. They crawl up and over anything in their path, including trees, cars, and fences. Their long branches hang down to snag on anything that passes by, and wherever those tendrils hit the ground, they root, and a new plant is started.

    Getting grabbed (again) got me thinking about a familiar passage in the Bible. After receiving revelations from God, Paul writes:

    So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations,a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:6-10

    There is a lot of speculation about what form that “thorn” from Satan’s messenger actually took. Was it a form of illness, chronic pain, a besetting sin? I don’t know, and scholars much more learned and wiser than I have debated it. If God had thought it crucial that we know, He would have been clearer.

    What is clear is God’s response to Paul’s complaining, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

    God’s grace is sufficient. No matter what thorns or problems we face, God’s grace is sufficient to carry the believer.

    Everyone faces times of suffering and trial. It has been said that Christians face more than non-believers because our faith sets us up as targets. We’re not immune. Being a Christian doesn’t give us a get out of jail free card that allows us to bypass pain and suffering.

    Quite the opposite, in fact. God’s grace allows thorns to strengthen us and make us more like Jesus. Paul writes:  

    “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Romans 5:3-5

    We can go to God for relief from everything, but if it doesn’t happen how or when we want, we can still rejoice. His grace is enough.

    Enough? For what? His grace is sufficient for whatever we face. His grace will outlast any suffering, trials, or thorns we will encounter.

    Rejoice for God’s abundant, merciful, and perfect grace.

    Kevin

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