God is a Father; Satan is a kidnapper and abuser

"God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.  God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth." (Gen 1: 27-28)

This morning I was thinking about the nature of how God interacts with us versus how Satan interacts with us.  God created us and loves us as a parent does a child.  He loves us deeply and has high hopes for us.  He sets rules on our behavior because he has wisdom that we do not, and until we develop that kind of wisdom through experience, he gives us commandments to keep us safe and healthy (individually and as a society) (Ex 20).  He encourages us ("You are fearfully and wonderfully made" Ps 139:14; "For I know the plans I have for you, plans for welfare and not calamity to give you a future and a hope" Jer 29:11), and wants to see us succeed.  He wants to have a relationship with us and sent his son to give us a path to forgiveness and salvation (John 3:16-17).  Ultimately it leads to relationship and familial closeness.

Satan on the other hand comes to us in the guise of freedom and novelty masquerading as an angel of light (2 Cor 11:14-15).  He twists our thought processes to turn parental rules into seemingly binding regulations (Gen 3:1-5).  For his own personal ambition and power mongering he seeks to lead souls outside of God's protection and to worship of himself (Rev 13).  He encourages us to sin as he sinned in his own fall from grace (Ez 28:11-19), and he wants to turn us into ugly replicas of himself instead of the images of God that we are.

The contrast between God and Satan and their motivations have become clearer to me as I have kids of my own.  It's a strange thing to move from being focused on your own life alone, to giving of yourself to your children and their needs because they are so hopeless when they are born.  Children are a blank slate.  They move instinctually, but they have no real awareness of who and what they are.  They need to even discover their arms and legs and the motor skills to even roll over.

As a result, as they grow, parents strive to teach the child to understand their surroundings, giving them limited freedom and set rules commensurate with their ages to keep them safe.  When they misbehave, we discipline them out of love, not out of hate because we know that they need to have a sense of right and wrong in order to be successful people.

I would contrast human parentage with kidnappers who abduct children.  Most of these children are abused and them murdered.  Others are used as slaves for personal gain or sold into prostitution.  None of these kidnappers are committing their crime for the sake of the child.  There is no sacrifice or love in their motivations.  They are simply seeking their own gratification and power mongering attitude.

When I became a Christian and moved from the parentage of Satan to the parentage of God, I entered a household and became an adopted son (Romans 11:13-24).  I went from being lost and striving toward nothingness and despair to having a structure and having a loving parent.  I used to suffer bouts of deep loneliness and pits of emptiness in my soul, but since I received Christ and the Holy Spirit came to indwell within me, I have not had that feeling once.  Someone has always been there with me.

I honestly shudder to think of where my life was headed and where I was going, but now I stand on firm ground and have a surety and confidence within me that I didn't have before.

I need to remember this lesson because my parents were definitely well meaning and well intended, but they were absentee parents.  They were contented to ship me off to the television and have me play quietly in the corner while they weren't bothered.  I needed God badly because I needed His Fatherhood in my life.

Now, as a parent of two children, they'll need me to be like God the Father and not follow the template of my own parents.  Actually, I want them badly to have both - To know God first and foremost, but to also be directed to God by a loving parentage.

We often have preconceived notions about God based on our experiences with our own parents.  I used to think of him as somewhat distant and very angry about sin.  Sort of how I relate to my dad who ran our household more through intimidation than anything.  Although I do still think that God becomes angry about sin, I now realize that there is a tremendous overwhelming love as a parent first and foremost.  His anger is not at us, but at the sin itself.  His love for us drives Him to coax us out of a meaningless and deadly lifestyle into adoption into His family.

Lord Jesus, thank You for coming for me even when I was in the depth of my despair.  You heard my soul calling out for meaning and desiring something more from life, and You came to show me Your love and healed my soul.  I pray for Your help in being a father and a husband, that I may take Your ways and live them out daily in my interactions with my family.  In Jesus' name, AMEN.

Remembering the Lord In Times of Wellness

"But remember me when it is well with you, and please show kindness to me; make mention of me to Pharaoh, and get me out of this house." (Gen 40:14)

"Yet the chief butler did not remember Joseph, but forgot him." (Gen 40:23)

During this set of passages, Joseph has given comfort to the butler of Pharaoh during a short jail stint by interpreting a dream from the Lord in his favor. The butler was supposed to repay this kindness by giving a good word to the Pharaoh to get Joseph out of the prison (he was falsely accused of trying to rape Potiphar's wife.) Instead of remembering Joseph when his interpretation came true, he forgot Joseph's imprisonment as soon as he was freed.

Human nature is like that, isn't it? If we are in trouble or distress, we are overcome with humility and cry out to God to save us. Once, we are placed back in a comfortable position where our worry and terror have abated, we are much less humble and revert back to the way we lived our lives before. I think part of our fallen state after the garden has left us with woefully short term memories, especially when it comes to remembering our worship of the Lord.

My family is still in the washing machine of this recession and it has been a journey of faith. While we certainly did not lead ostentatious lives before, we have learned to live a little leaner as we could to cut back. My wife has become quite a good cook and we certainly eat pretty well, as my stomach can attest.

Our faith too has been renewed. Stepping off the rat race of business for a short time, my soul finally had time to breathe. Genuinely a terrible burden and weight was lifted off and my soul's thirst for the Lord was satiated. The Lord and I have had time to rebuild our relationship. And one of the first things that He did was to rebuild my marriage, which had been showing strain that my wife and I did not notice in the midst of our busy lives. We are so grateful for the Lord in doing that for us. He placed more importance over our marriage than over our material wealth.

Should I ever find my footing in my career again, my challenge in terms of faith will be in remembering and continuing to cultivate my relationship with the Lord when I am busy with the cares and challenges of the world. Ultimately, since the structure of my life and marriage is dependent on the Lord, it will make the difference between success and failure in my life as well.

Why do I say this? Because the Lord straightened out my life in such a way that he took a broken man who felt so alone in this world, and gave him love and wholeness. The Lord truly saved me, gradually righting my destructive path, and then He gave me a wife who also was changed fundamentally by knowing God so much so that her whole personality and life goals were transformed. It is in this changed state that we are compatible with each other. The Lord gives us the kind of blueprint in which our new personalities live in harmony and symbiotically toward a common purpose. Should we ever drift away from the Lord and revert back to our old selves, we would surely disintegrate in our marriage as well. That was part of our problem that the Lord fixed for us during this season.

There are many challenges for us economically, but deep down I believe we will get through this into better days. How we handle better days will be a true test for us in faith, and today's scripture is surely a reminder that we must remember the Lord first in everything. For the butler in Joseph's story, it wasn't a big deal to forget, but for my family, it will mean the difference between a family that grows closer to each other and a family that withers and falls apart.

Lord Jesus, thank You for Your word today. Help me to keep our bonds of communication strong and to have a heart of worship in everything that I do. In doing so, I know that all the pieces of my life will fall into its proper place. You will help me to make it as You deem good and I am so glad to trust You in everything. Thank You for what You've done for our family - we are only together because of You, and it has been the greatest blessing of our lives. To You be all the glory in everything, In Jesus' name, AMEN.

Family is Important to God; Climate...not so much

"As for you, be fruitful and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth and multiply in it." (Gen 9:7)

"While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease." (Gen 8:22)

Today as I was reading through the Genesis account of the early earth, I am reminded of what God considers important, and what is unimportant.

Looking at Gen 8:22 first, God made a promise that the earth will have a regular schedule under which we will harvest and live and till the soil. This is one of the reasons that I don't really worry about global warming, H1N1 or any other faddish media scare. God regulates our lives here on earth. Yes, it is true that we live on the point of a needle in terms of the delicate nature of our existence, where (relatively) slight changes in any number of environmental variables would make our lives unliveable. However, if we believe in the Lord for salvation, we must also believe in His promises to maintain liveable conditions here on earth. He is the Creator, and his creation has been far more durable than any foolishness we can reap upon it. We must remember this as the world goes around losing their heads over an imagined catastrophe that will never happen. After all, we've gone from the fear of the ice-age (70's) to the fear of the ozone layer (80's) to the fear of global warming (00's), now to the fear of global climate change (fear of any kind of change in the weather...???) God is calming us down and simply saying, "Chill out, because these things are not important - I am in control."

The verse that I find God's important commandment however is where God reiterates his "be fruitful and multiply" command originally given to Adam, and now given to Noah. What God is telling us is that our first duty as worshippers of Him, is to go out and have children.

In this day and age of carefully constructed family planning, it seems odd to hear the Lord calling us to multiply. I believe that as Christians, we have a specific calling to have children based on this Genesis verse. We are to reproduce and raise our children in a Godly manner, teaching them Godly principles first, above all things. In this way, we are to create a new generation of Christians, who will then beget more Christians. It will only take one generation to fail in their obligation in order to have the world forget Christ. Right now, we have witnessed our European Christians essentially lose their faith in the span of only two generations (or so), and we are in danger of seeing American and Canadian Christians meet the same fate. What will go a long way to fighting this trend will be for Christians to make a concerted effort to multiply Christians in the next generation through a deliberate and concerted effort.

Those who do not follow Christ are pulled by a different ideology - that of walking a path where only 2-3 children are acceptable by society because it will be easier to care for this number of kids. Mixed with the growing environmental sentiment that people destroy the environment, there is a lot of pressure for families today to minimize their number of children.

As Christians, we are faced with a pull in decidedly opposite directions. Which way to go? Do we follow the commandment of God, or do we instead follow the ways of the world?

Our answer and direction is found in the Bible:

"Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world - the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life - is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever." (1 John 2:15-17)

Essentially, God is saying this - where the world conflicts with His ways, if you are a Christian, you must choose His will. Essentially everything that we know as men is finite and temporary. We mostly live as if the world started the day we were born, and we flail about with our small slices of knowledge although we will never really see the big picture outside ourselves. However, the Lord knows all and He has detailed the way we should live in the Bible. So our choice ultimately as believers is to either decide to commit to following God with everything we have (believing that He knows all), or to live in accordance with the current fashion of the world (believing God doesn't know squat). And ultimately, if we choose the latter, we are really exhibiting that we believe that God knows nothing...and then, where is our faith?

Lord Jesus, thank You for Your word. That You have taken the time through the generations to give us Your wisdom and guidelines for living. The command to be fruitful is one that my family does embrace, but at the same time, we have struggled to live it out completely for fear of things like proper insurance coverage and the like. Please help me to work through these struggles of unbelief and to simply place the future of our family into Your hands knowing that each child is a gift from You. Although I hardly know what that future looks like, I know that I can trust in You because You have always kept Your promise to maintain the earth season after season. And if You can do something that large, I know that maintaining our lives is a simple task indeed.

May our family's worship of You grow deeper with each season. In the mighty name of Jesus I pray, AMEN.