Have you ever noticed that a lot of people seem to know a lot about the bible, but when you really dig into it, not many of those people have actually ever opened it.  I had a conversation with someone who told me that Hell wasn’t actually in the bible, it was a fabrication of the Catholic church, after Dante’s Inferno was written, because it got bodies in seat.  Now over the last six months or so I’ve been pretty good about reading the bible daily and I have to tell you, Hell is absolutely in there.  Along with a lot of other scary stuff.

So what scary stuff am I talking about?  There are lot’s of places in the Bible that talk about being chosen by God, or being God’s chosen people and that you can only come to know God if he allows you to.

“He chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.”  Ephesian 1:4

“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.”  John 15:16

“…no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father”  John 6:65

Today I was reading Romans 9.  This chapter talks a lot about the idea of “Divine Election”.  Basically God will chose who he wants to be merciful to and who he doesn’t and all of your good works aren’t enough.   I’ll be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about that and I know that my bible reading said that this is an idea that a lot of Christians struggle with.  I mean don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of being chosen.  That word makes you feel special, cared for, included.  But that also means if you read Paul’s words that there are going to be people that we might care about who aren’t chosen, people whom God might chose to harden like “Pharoh” in the story of Moses.

And then if God is picking some people and not others does that make him unjust?

This is what my bible reading had to say…

“Thus, while God may sovereignly bestow His grace on some, He must also sovereignly punish others. He will not “leave the guilty unpunished” (34:7). When Moses asked for grace to be granted to every Israelite, he was asking for that which would have been unrighteous. God’s justice requires that He punish sinners. His grace enables Him to sovereignly forgive some. It is not failing to save all which would be an injustice, but failing to judge many. God’s sovereign election of some to salvation is completely just.”

https://bible.org/seriespage/22-divine-election-questioned-romans-914-23

I’m trying to link this back to my idea that God gave Pharoh and others he punished in the Old Testament so many chances.  But ultimately, while he always gives us free will, he also always knows what our choices will be.  He knew Pharoh’s heart and the kind of person he was.  So I thought maybe what I need to understand is that God will never chose someone who is not already at least slightly on the path toward him.  I mean would you call a friend if you knew that they were never going to pick up the phone?

But then I read this…

“As Paul drives home (Rom. 3:10-12), “There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one.” Scripture also piles up metaphors such as being spiritually dead (Eph. 2:1), blind (2 Cor. 4:4), deaf (Matt. 13:14-15), lame (Luke 14:21), hardened (Eph. 4:17-19), and enslaved (John 8:34-36; Rom. 6:6), to show that as sinners, we had no inclination or ability to choose Christ or believe in Him.”

https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-3-he-chose-us-ephesians-14

I think partially what scares me about it is that the concept could harden someone’s heart against God – a reason why people argue against preaching Divine Election. I mean we live and teach our children the idea that we are all created equal.  But what this passage is saying is that we are not all equal in God’s eyes.  I also understand that I am trying to constrain the God who created the heavens and the earth with my human understanding.  The last reading I quoted from ended up saying that we should stop fighting and just let God be God.  I do know that there are things in the bible that even the most educated scholars can’t make sense of.

I don’t know, I feel like I need to keep praying about this idea and for wisdom and understanding.  At the same time, I think that as part of God’s chosen or elect, we have a responsibility to reach out to and pray for those we love.  I heard once that if we have come to know God and Jesus and his love and sacrifice then it’s probably because someone prayed for us.  So let’s take some time today in our prayers to pray for God to soften someone’s heart, someone we know and love, so that they too can have the privilege of being called a child of God.

If you have any more insight into this concept and passage I’d love to hear it.

God bless,

Meredith

So do you ever have those moments when you are absolutely certain that you are in the right?  Those time that you feel absolutely justified to yell at your spouse, child, co-worker, friend?  I had one of those this weekend and God used it to teach me a lesson about forgiveness.

Some of you may have read my blog post from Saturday night, condemning an image that recently appeared in an issue of Batman.  I only knew about that image because someone sent it to me.  Someone looking to get a reaction out of me.  They succeed.  It also just so happened that we had good friends of our over that night, and the husband is also our priest.  Of course they too were horrified by the image.  In fact that image riled me up to the point that I did something I wouldn’t normally do and I posted an angry assault upon the people responsible.  This is why there is a 24 hour rule in kids sports.

When I woke up that morning, I knew that what I had done was wrong and I thought today I would talk about why.  When I woke up, the bible verse that was in my mind was John 3:17  “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.“  I knew right away that I had let God down.  I hadn’t prayed for the people responsible, I had done the very thing that Jesus would never have done.  I condemned them.

Jesus gave his disciples a mission when he sent them out – to show the world God’s love.  Over and over again he talked about loving your enemy and turning the other cheek.  When I think about my angry post, I have to ask myself what I was trying to accomplish?  Did I think that I was going to change their minds with my rant?  Did I think I was going to convince other’s to my way of thinking?  Did I think that Jesus wasn’t capable of defending himself?  That’s where it really hurt me.  I presumed to speak for God, for Jesus, in a manner and with words that our Savior would have never used.

Thankfully yesterday was Sunday and church. Let me tell you, the very first thing I did when I walked through those doors was get down on my knees and ask God for forgiveness.  But even still, I just couldn’t let it go.  I just had the most awful feeling of having done something wrong.  I felt embarrassed and sad that I had taken something good that God had given me and used it against him.  I felt that I had listened to the enemy and I prayed over and over again that God wouldn’t let this black stain take away from what I been trying to accomplish with my life and my writing – putting out positivity and light and sharing the message that Jesus love us.

I also want to say thank you to my readers because, as the day went on, your prayers and comments began to lift me and I started to feel like it was going to be okay.  A friend sent me some songs that were meaningful to him (not even because of this) and I listened to them and felt even more restored and then last night, God put a song in my heart and I felt so wrapped up in his forgiveness and love that I couldn’t stop crying.  God is good and I have been redeemed.

So if you are wondering why I took down the blog post, now you have the answer.

This morning Jesus continued to remind me of what he wants from me as his servant.

“Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom… But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy….Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.”  James 3:13, 17, James 4:8

“…but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.”  Romans 8:6

I know that I will fall down and fail God again.  I’m human, it’s in my nature.  But I also know that I am so deeply loved that God will always forgive me.

I hope and pray that my failing can be used to remind all of us that we are messengers of God in the world and the only message he wants us to share is one of LOVE.

God bless,

Meredith

 

If you read yesterday’s blog post, you know that I have been asking some questions, trying to make sense of my faith and what it really is I believe in.

So my next question is really about reconciling the wrathful God of the OT to the loving God preached by Jesus.  I have had many discussions with my priest and other people about the discrepancies.  My priest had the following insight as transcribed by me (because I write our church newsletter):

“The story of the Garden of Eden is a story about when man and God were one – in harmony – and as such there was no need for any rules, except one; ‘Don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’.  I think we all know, human nature, being what it is, rebelled.  As a result of that rebellion – Adams and Eve’s choice to eat from that tree – we were cast into chaos; ‘Paradise Lost’ if you will.  We saw the beginning of a society in which each of us were living by our own set of rules, doing what was best for ourselves (sound familiar?).  Out of this chaos came Moses and the 10 Commandments.  Again, God sought to bring us back into communion with him and his divine intention.

But rules are hard, and these rules specifically were difficult for people to understand.  Over time, the 10 rules given by God were broken into 613 subsections.  God’s rules for living in a manner that was close to him evolved into what became a legalistic and very convoluted means of pleasing God.  Instead of bringing man closer to God – the expansion of the 10 commandments took mankind farther away.  We could almost call it a misinterpretation of God’s intention.  But God was patient.  He gave us time and the prophets…but that time only took us further from his intention.

Enter Jesus.  Jesus was, in essence, the new Adam…the new Moses.  His role in coming to earth was to cut through the legalese, rewrite the rules, and simplify our understanding of what was required to be closer to God; to get back into communion with our Lord.

As an Anglican, it should be very familiar to hear those two rules as they are presented to us in The Book of Common Prayer.  “Our Lord Jesus Christ say: Hear O Israel, The Lord our God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.  This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.  On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

What a contrast.  Two simple, easy to understand rules, presented by the son of God, that cut through all of the legalism and, for the first time since the fall of Eden, gives back to us the concept of grace.  God’s grace.

The Old Testament is book about Man attempting to deal with Man.  It is an attempt to reconcile the chaos that resulted from our very first break with God in the garden of Eden.  In the New Testament, Jesus offers himself to light the way – to lead us back into paradise.

So, when we are asking about the change we see in the God of the OT verses the God of the NT, what we are seeing is a transition of our own human understanding.  A transition of a legalistic God to a God of grace.  Have no doubt that this transition is absolutely of God’s own doing.  He uses Christ as his son, as a demonstration of his love, to show us a way to come back into the garden.  The vengeful God of the OT can only be a misinterpretation by mankind of who and what God truly is.

But, to understand this is to understand a fundamental truth about humanity:  We can’t live without rules.  To take that a step further, if you don’t follow God’s rules, you aren’t in, and have no access to the garden.  God has given us a set of rules to live by – breadcrumbs, if you will, that will lead us back into the garden, if only we have the strength and will to follow them. ”

I felt like this was a good partial answer, but didn’t completely deal with the question that my heart was asking.  For me it always becomes most clear when it comes back to being a parent.  When my boys don’t do something I’ve asked them to do, like cut the grass or clean their room, I give them a warning…several in fact.  If they still don’t listen, then I take away something or “punish them” for their transgression or failings.  Now I think about what I would do if someone hurt my child.  You’ve heard the term “mama bear”  or “hell hath no fury like an angry mother”.  The biggest argument I’ve heard for a vengeful God is the killing of Egypt’s first born and then their army in the story of Moses.  But let’s really look at that story.  How many times did Pharaoh need to be warned?  I mean, there were literally 10 plagues; water turned into blood, frogs, lice or gnats, flies, livestock, boils, hail, locust, darkness and then finally the death of the firstborn. I think that God did everything he could to convince Pharaoh to release his people.   Think about that concept in your own life.  How many times has God tried to warn us against an action, and we still persist in the belief that we know what is best.

There are so many instances in the OT where God is faithful and loving and kind.  Look at the Psalms.  David was overwhelmed with the love of his God.  Isn’t this exactly what Jesus preaches in the NT?  My explorations have really brought me to a deeper understanding of the idea that God is eternal and never changing.  The only thing that has changed. the only thing that can change is us and our willingness to allow him into our lives.

God bless,

Meredith

It has taken me some time to write my blog today I guess because I have spent today in contemplation of a variety of Christian truths. Why does God let bad things happen to innocents?  How do I reconcile the God of the Old Testament with the loving God portrayed in the New Testament? What is sin? How do I defend my faith against the naysayers?

It’s been a bit of a heavy day.  But at the same point I also feel like I found some answers so I’m going to share my perspectives with you to take or leave as you see fit.

Why does God let bad things happen to innocents/to children.  I had this conversation with another comic book professional recently.  His stance was that he used to believe in God, and that there was no scripture I could quote that he couldn’t refute.  He had decided that God didn’t exist because bad things happened to children.  My answer to that statement…”free will”.  I wish with all of my heart that there wasn’t evil in this world.  But I also absolutely believe that that God didn’t create that evil.  He created us, out of a more pure version of the same love that causes us to have a child.  God just had an abundance of love to share.  Unfortunately part of loving us, was giving us the ability to make our own decisions.  We get to chose whether or not we believe in a divine creator.  We get to chose, every single day, in the thousands of choices we make if we will do good or chose selfishness and evil.  God didn’t bring evil into this world, we did.  Can anyone really believe that God wants a child to suffer from physical or emotional abuse?  I love the lyrics of the Matthew West song “Do Something” for this very reason.

People living in poverty
Children sold into slavery
The thought disgusted me
So, I shook my fist at Heaven
Said, “God, why don’t You do something?”
He said, “I did, yeah, I created you”

We have been given the gift of free will.  God gives us the choice to make things better.  People doing evil isn’t God’s fault.  If someone has done something terrible to you, don’t lay the blame for that at God’s doorstep.  Don’t compound the evil that Satan has perpetrated in your life by blaming God for the acts of man.  When you feel as if something isn’t right, that something in your soul crying out for justice…that is a part of you that is recognizing God and how far we have fallen from his desire for us to live in union with him.

I read a story today about a woman who was abused as a child and she blamed God for not saving her even though she prayed to him.  My heart broke, because of what she experienced.  But I absolutely believe that God walked through every part of her abuse with her. God gave us free will, and so often we use that as a weapon to prove he doesn’t exist.  Because he doesn’t stop evil people from doing evil things.  But God loves us so much he can’t/he won’t usurp that gift from us.  Just as a parent would never take choices away from a child.  And I do believe, I know that God has the power to make good come from evil.  He can’t always take the pain away, but he can certainly walk through it with us if we’ll let him.

There are times when I absolutely struggle with my faith and I think that, over time, this blog will be a testament to that.  But when God reminds me that he is with me…when I stop trying to make him prove himself to me and start trying to prove myself to him…the reward, the joy I feel is so amazing.

In tomorrow’s blog I’ll try to share the answers I feel I found to the rest of my questions.

God bless,

Meredith

I have to give it to God.  When he’s trying to tell you something, he really makes sure you get the point.

So I’ve talked about being brave for your faith a few times, but I realized yesterday that the people around you can sometimes have comfort zones for your faith.

Sometimes I wonder if this is what Paul was talking about when he said that Christians would be persecuted for their faith.  Persecution doesn’t have to come from angry mobs, sometimes it comes in more subtle ways from people that you love and you don’t even realize it’s happening.  And then you start to question yourself and your beliefs…Am I going to far for my faith? Am I losing myself?  My grasp on reality?

This was something I wrestled with a lot yesterday and it made me sad.  The day before I had reached what I would call a new level in my faith journey, or experienced a very special moment with God and the very next day when I tried to share that moment I was dragged down.  I honestly didn’t know how to feel, but I know that I lost some of that “freedom” my faith gives me.  And soon I wasn’t just worrying about my faith, I was just worrying in general, about everything.

If you want to know if I turned this problem over to God yesterday…you bet I did and today, as our always, faithful Lord answered as he promised he would, I asked…and I received my answer.

My bible reading today started with Romans 3.  This is a chapter all about, you guessed it…faith.  It talks about Abraham being justified by faith and that he received his promise from God because of his righteousness, a righteousness that comes by faith.  It says that righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.  And in the study notes I read “faith does not refuse to face reality but looks beyond all difficulties to God and his promises”.   So first God reminded me to have faith.

My second reading was Luke 12 in which Jesus tells his disciples not to worry.  This contains that famous line “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies?  Yet not one of them is forgotten by God.  Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered.  Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” Luke 12:6-7  So first God reminded me to have faith and then he told me not to be afraid.  There is a whole section of this chapter specifically devoted to Jesus telling his disciples not to worry.  In fact in my bible, this section is titled “DO NOT WORRY”.  Point taken.

The final nail in the coffin so to speak was when I picked up my son’s comic book version of the bible and the line that literally jumped out at me (it was right after Jesus calmed the storm)  “Your faith is too small.  Don’t be afraid, just believe”.

So you see, I asked a question and God responded.  He was faithful and I need to be too.  Today I’m not going to worry if my faith makes people around me uncomfortable.  I’m going to take my own journey, confident that God will provide me with everything I need to grow closer to him.

God Bless,

Meredith