In danger of being a hypocrite about long blogs

I have been stirred to look again into my understanding of God’s perfect knowledge of the future. I had a lively discussion with several close and dear friends about this subject last weekend. (No worries here we are still close friends!) We were on opposite sides of the argument. I was advocating what I see as the Biblical point of view; that God has an exhaustive and causative knowledge of all things past present and future even the choices of men. They were standing with a point of view that is referred to as an Openness theology. That God knows the past and present perfectly and He can see all possible out comes of every choice that is currently being made but that He does NOT know what choice we are going to make. I don’t have the time, the eloquence, or the education to completely back my point of view on this, but I don’t feel like I can let this moment pass unmarked. To be honest I am saddened, heartbroken, and deeply shaken at the vehemence of my friends against the historical, orthodox view of God’s Foreknowledge. I know where they are coming from. I understand WHY they want to believe this. First they were taught it by a very good teacher. I heard the man teach and he had a lot of amazing and Biblical things to say. He had some real insight into the character and nature of God and I don’t think, in most of the things that he teaches, that he is off, but on this one point he is. Second it is on the outside an appealing thing to think about, for several reasons:

1. If God does not know or cause the choices of man then it is not God’s “fault” when things go in the apparent opposite direction He said they were going to go. When tragedy happens and the pain of life is huge we can look to the Lord and know He is standing with us in it and it is NOT His fault, but He is working in the midst of these regrettable circumstances to bring about our good. Things may not be exactly as He planned but He can through infinite patience and power work His way around to His desired end. That feels good! It really does! This sucks but God didn’t do it to me so I can worship anyway! It helps to keep accusation from our God is a good God, and a good God would not create someone knowing they would choose to reject Him and go to Hell. A good God would not choose to frustrate and confuse His people with the torments of failed dreams and unfulfilled expectations and most of all a good God would not choose for the innocent to suffer for no reason at all. He cannot have known that was going to happen and not done anything to stop it!

We will sum this reason up in the phrase “A good God would not let that happen”.

2. This means that prayer and preaching and the things we do for the Lord really have deep and lasting impact! What we do really really matters! If God knows and ordains all things then He already knows what we are going to do and what we are not and He has already seen the end therefore our actions do not matter. His end will come whether we choose to help Him or not. If He does NOT know our choices then we can either help or hinder His plan. He will work with us or around us, but it is up to us, and we are really helping Him really changing things and the future when we do what He wants us to do! My friends are people like myself that are called to a lifestyle of prayer and fasting and this adds urgency to prayer it really does. We will sum this statement up in the phrase, “My decisions mean something eternally”.

3.This may be a part of the other two but I wanted to add it in. This reason says that if God already knows every choice I am going to make that I am not freely making those decisions and I have no free will. We will call this one, “God gave me free will”

I do not make light of these reasons. They are real and powerful but lets talk about them one by one.

1. “A good God wouldn’t let that happen”. This is circular reasoning and it does not work. Even if God did not see it coming He still has the power to stop it. Which is a “better” God? The God who knows and even on some level “wills” evil because He is using this for His own glory shaping and molding the final end that He has set in His eternal purpose, or the God who is surprised by the evil of man but does little or nothing to stop it from happening? That, my friends, is not a good God. Which is a more comforting and powerful interpretation of Romans 8:28? – “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” God created this situation to do me eternal good, or God didn’t realize I would be in this place but now that I am here He will work it out the best He can. I can’t live with the second. I cherish the first! Even in my darkest times I can look around and say, “God knew. God wanted me here. He has something amazing on the other side and I will thank Him for this some day.”

2. The next two we will take together – “My decisions mean something eternally” and “God gave me free will” I agree with both of these statements. I do not believe that just because He knows what decision we will make means we are not free to make the decision. I don’t understand how the fact that He knows the outcome means He is taking away our free will? “Those He foreknew He predestined.” I love that phrase. It is a deep and abiding reality in my life. That God knew before creation that I would be His and He has waited with anticipation to see my face and love me. I am so grateful for that. I am humbled, honored and awakened again to the majesty of this drama I have the glory of being a part of. The eternal dance. My prayers cause Him to move just like He knew they would. He waits on them before He does what is in His heart. Why? Because He loves my prayers! My service blesses Him. Even though He doesn’t need it He loves it. He is the one who really does it all, but He wanted me along for the ride simply because He loves the look on my face when He does it. What a demonstration of His glory. That He could use weak broken erring vessels to accomplish His eternal purpose and He never has to rethink or change His plans. He had it in the palm of His hand all along.

Oh the depths of the riches of both the wisdom and knowledge of God!

For From Him Through Him and To Him be all things!

To GOD AND GOD ALONE be the Glory forever AMEN!!!!!!

The Armful

Oh this is me!

The Armful
by: Robert Frost

For every parcel I stoop down to seize
I lose some other off my arms and knees,
And the whole pile is slipping, bottles, buns,
Extremes too hard to comprehend at. once
Yet nothing I should care to leave behind.
With all I have to hold with hand and mind
And heart, if need be, I will do my best.
To keep their building balanced at my breast.
I crouch down to prevent them as they fall;
Then sit down in the middle of them all.
I had to drop the armful in the road
And try to stack them in a better load

Almost 50% of my life I feel like this poem. The Spirit stirs my heart about so many things at once that I don’t know which way to run. I try and fit all of this into my life and it won't all fit! How much of a change does this require? Do I just wait until He gives me direction? What do I do? It is literally painful at times! Or I see things in God that are so beautiful but so HUGE I cannot get my puny brain around them. It is just all too much for me. I am so thankful for God’s grace. I need more of it.

The Treasures of Suffering

My family and I are in the midst of a frustrating, angering, confusing time right now. I won't go into details because quite honestly there isn't room, but please pray for us. I have run the gamut of responses to all that has been happening. Faith, Strength, Anger, Accusation, Hope, Confusion, Numbness, Joy, Peace, Fear, and so much more have flowed through me as the circumstances have unfolded. Through it all the deepest pain in me is that I just don't understand what God is doing or why. If I knew what I was buying with this suffering It would be easier to endure.

Then I remember - the words of Paul, "I consider that this present suffering is not worth comparing to the Glory that will be revealed in me"
- the words of Peter, "In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."
- the words of Jesus, "blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted", "he who would save his life must lose it"
and so many more.
The truth IS, that for the endless ages to come in Heaven my heart will be filled with gratitude for the Hell I experience on earth. All of the gold I buy today will be the treasure I offer before His throne as a testimony of His grace.

Some day I will say, "Your ways are just and true!"
I believe it

Living out of Joy

Living out of Joy

The meaning of life IS worship. The meaning of life IS relationship. The meaning of life IS love. The meaning of life IS joy. Oh God give me to living out of this fountain whose head is the highest, purest and deepest reservoir there is in the universe, the very life of the life breather. You are my portion is what David proclaimed; my help! My source! How do I stray from this only breathe of oxygen available to me? How do I lose my way from the one breathing hole there is in this ice cap of sin over the frigid arctic ocean of my soul.

I was not made to deny the raging of my hearts’ desire to be passionate! I was not made to live as a sleeping man. Shut down and shut out of the world in which I live. I was MADE to burn! I was MADE to LIVE; to live the adventure of walking with God. I was created, you were created, to enjoy God. You are an enjoying machine. You were created as you are because no other being can enjoy all the aspects and realities of God to the level of the human “enjoyment machine” accept for God Himself. All the longings for love, joy, excitement, pleasure, etc that live in the human heart are longings for God. They get perverted and twisted by the sin nature and the influence of life and the enemy, but they start in the heart as desires for God. We as Christians are the only ones who have access to the one thing that all the world desires. Should we not be the MOST joyful, the MOST satisfied and happy people on the planet? Yes we SHOULD BE!!! If you spend much time with Christians you will find that they aren’t, for the most part, any happier that most of the rest of the world. Why? I will tell you why! You knew I would!

Simply, we Christians have lost the taste of God in our mouths. We have forgotten that HE is our great reward. Our highest joy. We have bought the lie that doing things for God; fulfilling religious duty or form or function is our purpose. We have decided that our checklists and attendance records are what make us right before God. We have fallen for the deception that religion and all of its trappings are the things of God. So we dive into them deeper and deeper looking for life we will never find. We end up bitter, cold, angry, empty and powerless against our sin. We are caught. The one thing that would satisfy us we no longer have, but the things the world runs after to quench that thirst are kept from us as well. We have been convinced that this is the Christian life! Falling and getting up again over and over, no power over sin, no joy and no REAL LIFE! Uh!

This is the life that I have lived! This is the life I live, most of the time. Then there are those days. Those days when the breath of God is mine again. Where I awaken to the truth that I was made for joy. The joy of knowing and loving God. That intimate experience and eternal pleasure is found in God and it is for me forever no holding back. This is why Jesus came. To give me back to that which I was made for. Himself. I am His and He is mine. This is life, this is love, this is joy…what a deal.

God is on the Move

Truly the Spirit of God is stirring up prayer among the emerging generation. On Sunday mornings I teach a senior high Sunday school class or Youth Bible Fellowship as we refer to them. We have been working our way, very slowly, through the Song of Solomon, and God has been breathing on our times together in unusual ways. This last Sunday was one of those times. We were finishing up chapter 1 and I was about half way through the lesson when the presence of God became almost tangible in the room. I came to that realization almost with surprise because it was kind of out of nowhere that He came so close. I stopped then to wait and see what God wanted to do. I saw the faces of some of the young people change. I wasn’t the only one feeling this. Some started quietly weeping some just bowed their heads. I did the only thing I knew to do. I prayed. The sense of the Holy Spirit increased and I had trouble staying in my chair. We waited in the midst of Him and simply lingered there. I don’t know how long it lasted but He was so sweetly present none of us wanted to move. I found out later that it was right at that time when the Spirit broke in that the Lord had moved upon my friend and “personal intercessor” Eric Noga to pray. He would usually be in class but for one reason or another was unable to attend that day. Several of the students remarked to me after class how deeply God had moved on them. Then that evening we have our Senior High Guys small group otherwise known as Enclave (here is the Enclave blog. Only just started but we hope to have the guys writing things out there on a regular basis.) We have a great time just hanging out together and being guys. We always take a short time and dive into scripture and then pray together. We did so on Sunday. I shared very briefly on Matthew 25 and the parable of the ten virgins and then we bowed our heads to pray. Once again the presence of the Lord moved in powerfully. Before I knew it the room was somewhat thunderous with prayer. The Spirit of prayer had fallen on us all and we were pleading for God to move in our midst. God gave me this amazing understanding of what He could do through a group of young men like this that really believed He would do what He said he would do. I am so astonished at what God is doing. I really truly believe that God is beginning something along the lines of which we have never seen before. I cannot wait! Believe it my friends GOD IS MOVING!!!