Character studies

I would like to change my style and reflect briefly on some Bible characters. These stories from the past give us insights for today and for tomorrow.

Genesis 2:15-17

Adam was given a job to do – in the garden to work it and keep it.

   Adam was given a choice to make – to eat or not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil

      Adam had a friendship to enjoy – Verse 9 – in the cool of the day, God called to the man “where are you?”

Adam made the wrong choice and we today live with the unpleasant consequences.

Genesis 6:12-14

Noah lived in a wicked, corrupt, violent, immoral society  -  ruined with no repentance

    Noah was given a command – ‘Make yourself an ark’ and he did.

        Noah received a promise. 9:12-13 A rainbow that promised the judgement was past and future clouds would bring showers of blessing.

Noah obeyed, and by God the judge , he was blessed forever

Genesis 15:1,5,6

Abraham was rich with gold and camels but had no children.

   Abraham was given a promise. Ch 15:15 ‘so shall your offspring be’ – impossible!

     Abraham believed God. – and God kept the promise and Isaac was born

Abraham thus became the friend of God, with whom God shared His secrets.

Genesis 25:26

Jacob was a cheat, a deceiver by nature

   Jacob was afraid of God Ch 28:16  Yet he was given a promise of blessing and  Jacob makes a vow of surrender

      Jacob is given a new name Ch 35:9 ‘Israel’ – a prince prevailing with God

From a bad start, with a wily nature and an unhelpful family, faith takes him through many difficulties to end his days , worshipping as he leant on his staff.

Ruth 1:4

Ruth was a Moabite – not a good history, no claims to God’s promises

   Ruth clung ,V14-17 , to Naomi, to Naomi people, to Naomi’s God

     Ruth was redeemed by Boaz Ch3.13 Wedded to Boaz Ch4,13 and  thus she became the great, great..................... great grandmother of Jesus.

One of the sweetest stories of God’s grace, in the Bible.

1 Samuel 16.11

David was despised as insignificant – keeping sheep

   David risked his life, Ch 17:34-37, for the name of God, and for others.

      David sang – prayers of anguish, songs of praise, psalms of adoration, songs of enduring intimacy with God  - Psalm 23

David chose God’s way, obeyed God’s command, Believed God’s promises, Trusted Gods loving-kindness, clung to the God of all grace!

What is your choice?

Will you obey?

  Will you believe God

    Will you surrender to God?

      Will you cling to God and His grace?

Can you truly sing “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” 

Who made God

A question from a thoughtful student last week

“Who made God ?”

Two answers are possible

1             ‘I don’t know’

2            ‘No one’

The first answer is an acknowledgement of our finite limitations.

The second is to accept the compass of the Bible.

The Bible speaks of God being eternal:

    “From everlasting to everlasting thou art God”    Psalm 90:2

In other words and in other places –‘ He always was, never being created, and always will be, never ending.  He is uncreated.’

Many thought for many years that the universe was eternal and infinite, but the introduction of the ‘big bang’ theory has shown that the Bible is right – the universe had a beginning and will have an end.

So we might well ask what is beyond the universe???  What was before the ‘big bang’????   Rather we should ask who was there, when the sun first shone?

The only Biblical, logical answer is God.

I recommend a book by Edgar Andrews  ‘Who made God’ from Koorong or Amazon

How big is God ?  Big enough to make the stars!

How smart is God?  Smart enough to write the DNA code

How knowledgeable is God?  He knows your thoughts!

How caring is God? He knows and cares about sparrows

How..

How.....

Let us ponder his greatness often, but let us often consider His character.........Holy, Loving,  Just..........

Blind unbelief is sure to err, but faith that looks at facts leads to worship, thanksgiving and love.

JRM

Quote from D. Gooding's Book

Extract from "Riches of Divine wisdom"

The Holy Spirit, therefore, calls on us to be grown-up adults in intellect, and not babies (1 Cor 14:20). We are to love the Lord our God with all our mind as well as with our heart, soul and strength (Matt 22:37). We must be ready to use to the full the intellect God has given us to understand his word. But above all let us pray that Christ will do for us what he did for his disciples after his resurrection:

Then he opened their mind that they might understand the Scriptures. (Luke 24:45)

Without that, our unaided intellect would think in vain.

Proff. David Gooding

Science and the Bible

Science and the Bible

       For in-depth answers, read the many books written on this subject. For the many that like short, pithy responses, I will try to contribute a little.

       I love science, for true science is forever discovering the marvels of the world we live in. For example I have just read how the human eye works. It is a mind boggling set of chemical reactions, operating to precise mathematical and mechanical order. So complex, yet it works so well. As one scientist put it – ‘how could it work without all the intricacies in place’

     

       One of the greatest discoveries of science is the finding and decoding of DNA. The single human cell has about 3 billion bits of information to make the human body function. Try reading ‘The language of God’ – a book about the decoding of the human gene.

        John McDonald of Georgia University has written “ The result of the last twenty years of research on the genetic basis of adaption has led us to a great Darwinian paradox. Those genes that are obviously variable within natural populations do not seem to be the basis of major adaptive changes, while those genes that seemingly constitute the foundation of many, if not most adaptive changes are not variable within natural populations”

       You may need to read that thrice to get the significance. It all tallies with the Bible order of God creating distinctive species and allowing change within the species, (eg different sizes of horses), yet an inbuilt mechanism to prevent changes across the species.

       The wonder of science is ‘trying to imagine how all this minute complexity and celestial grandeur came into existence’.  Is it the result of a ‘mindless accident’?  Reasonable thought says that design has a designer. We call that being God -  and oh how wise he must be!  We do well to marvel at the flower- it’s colour, design, fragrance, reproductive mechanics etc, but let us not fail to look up and worship the creator of such beauty, symmetry, scent etc.

        I fear that many have missed the genius of the God of all wisdom by emphasizing ‘ God just said it, and it happened’.  Hebrews 1.2 has a beautiful phrase “by whom He created the world” or translated differently “By whom he designed the ages”. He was the architect, the engineer, the draftsman, the builder, the inspector  of it all – grand and small!  Upon inspection it was originally “very good”.

It would be profitable to pursue the ongoing discoveries of science to show the marvels of God’s handiwork (not ‘mother nature’ please) , but the Bible compass points us to a purpose. As mentioned in the last article (Logos), the universe has been give order, functionality and purpose. A  bird expresses the glory of the creator by being a bird – its colours, its flight ability, its song, etc. Humankind has been endowed with something more than animalistic genius. The human brain is perhaps the last frontier of scientific discovery, and I was interested to notice ( on the internet!) a suggestion by scientists that when the body dies, the self consciousness goes to another universe!! I am watching closely such developments, because the Bible has been saying that for years ( i.e. heaven).

    So what is the purpose of mankind?  My first answer may seem unusual  -  ‘ to connect the natural with the spiritual’.

          Angels (good or bad) are spiritual. Animals are natural. ( not spiritual). According to the Bible introduction, God as a spirit communicated with man, who was natural. This is the higher purpose for humans – to connect with the maker, designer, sustainer of it all. It seems that all tribes of the earth have tried in one way or another to connect with  a being greater than themselves. It is interesting to watch the present humanity going in different ways – some go lower than animals and live for lust. Others apply rigorous disciplines to connect with the spirits portrayed as idols. Western society is obsessed with the idol of ‘self’  self-love, self-pleasing, selfish, self-gratification. The question of God is still so relevant  -----  “Where are you?”

         When Jesus Christ appeared, the question that confronted the people was this  -- was this man really connected with the unseen God????   Was he really what man was meant to be  - the connection between the spirit world and the natural?   The Bible answer is YES. But more, His purpose was to restore the connection, the very purpose for which we were made, for us to connect with God.

       Could I lift the horizon of your thinking above the dazzle of created things, to honour God for who he is, what he has made, for himself revealed in Jesus Christ the Lord...--   to love HIM  ,  to trust HIM  ,  to serve HIM   forever

How blessed to know HIM   !!!!!!!!!         comments welcome  johnmckee@internode.on.net  

LOGOS

A short meditation for those who choose to think.

       ‘In Geek philosophy the LOGOS remains an impersonal force, a lifeless abstract philosophical concept that is necessary to understand the cause of order and purpose of the universe. In Hebrew thought the LOGOS is personal. He indeed has the power of unity, coherence  and purpose, but the distinctive point is that the Biblical LOGOS is a he, not an it.’    (R.C. Sproul)

       Remember Genesis 1 – the creation was given order, purpose, coherence by God’s word – ‘God said’  - not just the miracle of it happening, but the wonder of God communicating order into matter, purpose into beings,, unity into diversity.

     The very laws of nature had to be set in place.   The fine tuning of the planet earth for life to prosper, was enacted by the LOGOS.

To say that the detail of nature “just happened” , defies scientific logic and good reason.

       Now read John chapter 1, and discover that the LOGOS (the Word) by whom all things were set in order, became  flesh (a true man) and lived among us!  His name was Jesus!

He who set the worlds in order, came to set in order a new creation, which will finally be revealed when the man who was and is "the Lamb", rules over all things and all people  -  He will be the eternal Light, the eternal LOGOS (Revelation 21,22)

If you understand what has just been written, you will quietly worship.

'The wonder of it it all......................................

      ...................just to think that God loved me'

John McKee 

Jesus lives!

Small incidentals in the Bible often have important significance. The example that I would like to write about is found in 1 Corinthians 15.8

Paul writes of himself “ last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also” Paul is referring to the story of Acts 9, when two years after the death of the Lord Jesus, he was converted by the intervention of God.

We have many reasons to believe that Jesus is alive again, risen from the dead. The angels said it was so. The Lord Jesus foretold his resurrection before it happened.  Peter and the other disciples were prepared to die for their witness to having seen the risen Jesus Christ.

The witness of Paul is sometimes overlooked. A couple of years after the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, the dust of excitement had settled, and the heel of persecution by Jewish leadership had tried to stamp out the rumour of Jesus being risen from the dead. Saul ( as Paul was once called) was breathing out threatening against the Christians and was authorized to cast them into prison. No doubt Saul had many arguments against the resurrection story. However God had other plans. As Saul journeyed to Damascus, about midday he was struck down by a blinding light from heaven. A voice then said “Saul , Saul, why are you persecuting me?”  Saul responds “who are you Lord?”   The answer is simple yet  sublime  -  “I am Jesus...”

Let us pause to ponder the implications of this answer.

1                  The voice is from heaven

2                  The voice is from a LIVING Jesus

3                  This voice is from an all powerful person

4                                   Saul is not challenged by some philosophical persuasion, but a living person.

Such  is the power of this intervention, Saul himself becomes a witness to the reality that Jesus once crucified, is now alive.  He  is changed from ‘hating’ (Titus3) to love, from persecuting Jesus to preaching Jesus as the Son of God. His bright career as an educated leader of the Jewish people had been  shattered and his life work is to involve  much suffering and rejection.

I trust some of you reading this, have picked up on the significance of this story  ie that after this space of time, this voice from heaven with it’s corresponding power to change, is a brilliant witness that Jesus lives.

Many signs and wonders were also done in the done in the Name of the Lord Jesus, verifying that Jesus was alive and ascended. John the apostle, many years later , also gave a written account of having seen the Lord Jesus in person. Revelation chapter 1 is not a description of the man of Galilee. It is a description of Jesus the Christ, in glory, who is able to say of Himself “I was dead, behold I am alive forever more”  (Revelation 1.17,18).

Many others have testified to the interruption of the Lord in their lives, all pointing to the truth that Jesus lives.

Saul/Paul wrote  in his last letter  ‘ at my first defence no one came to stand by me but all deserted me...but the Lord stood by me and strengthened me..”  (2 Timothy 4.16) He knew the continuing nearness of the risen Lord.

I trust that the Lord Jesus is real in your life, so that beyond all the historical evidence, you can say ‘ He lives within my heart’

John McKee    johnmckee@internode.on.net

Serving the Lord

“Always abounding in the work of the Lord”  1 Corinthians 15.58

What is the work of the Lord?

       Many of us spend the greater part of our lives struggling to survive.  We apply the best of our day at work, to make an income. Some time is spent with family and a little consideration may be given to Christian focused things. Maybe on Sunday, a little more time is found for others and Christian service. We do well to occasionally stop the treadmill of life and check what our priorities are, and reassess the chief purpose of life.

    The secret is not, more time for God, but rather making the all the duties of life as the ‘work of the Lord’.  In the first century, many of the believers were slaves, with no real spare time. So Paul encourages them and us, ‘whatsoever you do’, at work , at home , in the community – do all as unto the Lord.   ( Colossians 3.17)

In this letter to the Corinthians, it is interesting that Paul does not refer to the work of elders, deacons, pastors, evangelists. He does outline gifts that were being used or abused in the church. He also writes of himself and Apollos as servants who brought the word of God to the Corinthians. Perhaps one of the best clues about ‘the work of the Lord’ is found in chapter 16.15  - of some he said they ‘devoted themselves to the service of the saints’. These workers and labourers were to be given moral respect and honour, not for some position held but work done.

       How then did they do ‘ the work of the Lord’. – by serving the saints. No detail is given, and that is  likely wise.  That service will vary from washing dirty feet to teaching heavenly truth. It could be done in Christian gatherings, or it might be done at the workplace. Sometimes it might be appreciated, other times resented. If done for the Lord first, under the direction of the Lord, He will enable the work to proceed. Some think that all service must be organized to be effective. From Bible observations, and from fifty years observing Christians serving the Lord, I choose to disagree. The greater part of effective service for the Lord is carried through by individuals quietly committed to the task given them by the Lord.

        May the Lord of the harvest, the heavenly account keeper, encourage your hearts to be “ steadfast, immoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord”

John McKee