Posts Tagged ‘alpha and the omega’

19
Apr

Did God Create…?

   Posted by: Sonny    in Belief, Bible, Creation, Eternity, Jesus Christ, Sin, Time

Yes.  He did.  And we are here, only by His gracious act of creation.  If you have been following along with the posts and especially the commentary the last couple of weeks you are aware that creation has been discussed and I hope will continue to be.  No one is denying the fact of creation, just how to interpret the narrative we have that portrays it.  This post is not about creation in a wider sense.  It is about the many questions I have read out there in cyberspace asking what God created.

There is the question asking, did God create evil?  Another asks, did God create sin?  What about, did God create time?

34-hourglassearth-245x255Some believe He created evil and sin for example, so that we can experience good and His mercy.  Some believe He had to create time because He does not experience duration or sequence because He is infinite, but because we are finite we had to have time created to experience the same.  Some of these concepts are definitely brain twisters and the most vocal of the believers in these things end most of the discussions with the argument of God being so far beyond, above, mysterious, and such that we should not attempt to even ponder them.  Logic seems to have no place for determining what God is like.

I have other questions.  If we need evil to experience good, then how in the heavens are we going to experience good in eternity?  Isn’t the promise that evil will be gone?  Is evil a noun; is it something with independent existence?  Or is it just what occurs when Gods ways are not followed? The same goes for sin.  Isn’t it really just a turning from the path God set before us, missing the mark, as it is defined?

God is good because he said so.  Good has independent existence because God exists.  But God never, ever, said He was evil.  Isn’t evil really just a measurement, as is sin, of how much we are unlike God or how far we or our actions are from Him.  Did God create large, small, sweet, sour, pretty, ugly and such, or are these just descriptives and measurements of the things He did create?  Evil and sin are not things.  They are what things that are created do.

Time is in the same ballpark.  It is a measurement of sequence and duration.  Again, do we say that God created height, or depth, or diameter?  Or aren’t these just concepts that we use to relate to creation?  To me, time fits this description.  I once thought of God as timeless and above and outside time and it gave me nothing but headaches.  Upon further study, prayer, reflection and discussion I have come to the conclusion that this is a manmade concept and is not only unbiblical, it actually goes against much of the biblical witness.

As I read the love letter to mankind that we call the bible, I see a God that desires relationships with His creations.  I see a God that experiences sequence and duration.  A God that asks things like, how long?  How much?  When?  All of these things point far away from timelessness.  In eternity, if God does not experience time, meaning duration and sequence, then how will we relate to Him then?  It will be no better than it is here.

God is everlasting to everlasting.  God simply always was and always is and always will be.  He is the Alpha and the Omega, which are actually finite terms meaning the beginning and the end.  These do not point to timelessness either.  They actually point us to the fact that we find our beginning and ending only in Him.

Did God create…?

As far as evil, sin, and time go, I say no.  It just does not fit the picture of the Father that Jesus painted for us.  Instead we find that He is good, He is perfect, and He will be there with us and for us.  Hallelujah.

Love you all

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3
Jan

Dare We Worship

   Posted by: Sonny    in Church of God, God, Grace, Humility, Love, Worship

It is a little past midnight and I am sitting in the living room praying, praising, and worshipping the Alpha and the Omega, The Lord of all creation, the God who came down to earth to live as one of us and to die so we can be reconciled back to Him.  Jesus is just so very amazing.  I love you Lord and am so thankful for your Amazing Grace.

It was the summer of 2007 and it was another first for me in my walk with Christ.  I was down, empty, feeling so very far from God.  I had been in His service for a little over five years and had been pretty much ‘up’ the whole time.  Then, sort of out of the blue, it felt like God was so very far away.  It was nothing I did or did not do and it was not because of anything bad in my life at that time.  Work, home life, church, all of these were fine and even great actually.  I could not explain it then and still can’t.

But I can honestly say that my worship was not exactly how it had been.  I may be different than most, but I have some of my best experiences in His presence while alone with Him.  Like right now after Tammy has gone to bed with our youngest grandchild and I have my headphones on and have been reading the bible and listening to music. Sometimes it is in the truck, just praying or worshiping as I drive alone down the highway.

But maybe that summer I had been just a little too busy.  Work had escalated to a level where it was almost like having three full time jobs.  I believe that maybe it was me and not God that had been too far away.  No matter what or how or who, I felt terrible for a while, at least in spirit.

Then I heard this song on the radio.  It was powerful but I could not find out who did it or its name.  But I did not forget it.

The Church of God held the annual camp meeting at Metro Church of God that year and I wanted to go but was not only too busy but actually not very motivated.  But I finally made myself go on the Friday night service.

I talked to a few people, found a seat and sat waiting, not expecting much.  I had talked to a dear friend and minister for a short time and had told him a little about what I was feeling and he had let me know that God was still good and that maybe He would be there for me that night.  I doubted it really.

Praise and worship started and I stood and I did worship God but it was not as refreshing as it had been at times.  Then the praise team started singing this song.  I am attempting to embed this video for the first time and I hope it works.  Watch it now if you want and I will finish up below.

If that did not wake you up to the awesome reality of God then I don’t honestly know what will.  It did it for me.  I don’t know whether it was me or God but the things this song woke me up to that night changed me once again.  And it was right on time because not long after that the bottom started to fall out.

Work ground to a halt in September 2007 and is still not good.  Every month I have to go into a rapidly dwindling savings to pay the bills.  The kids started getting into more and more trouble and are currently at an all time low or high maybe, which is devastating to me and especially to Tammy, my wife.  And she is also having some mysterious and hard to identify health problems, as some of you know.

Before anyone thinks I need a special song to move me, know that I don’t.  Most of this time that I have served Christ; it has only taken a thought of how He reached out and snatched me from the very gates of hell, to spur me on.  But I now believe He used this powerful song to wake me, humble me, and prepare me for these rather dark days I am in right now.  This song that night had me in tears and totally immersed in His presence in a way that I have not often felt.  It has that effect to varying degrees even now.  And I am at peace with our situation in a way that I might not have been.

As I sit here listening, crying and typing I just want to say to you all, that He is our everything, He is Holy, He is Lord, He was and is and is to come and I can’t speak for you but I ADORE HIM.  We must dare to worship the Holy Lord God Almighty in all situations.  Otherwise we just might not make it.

Love you all

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