Category: Thoughts and Meditations

“Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.” – Romans 11:22

It’s very common today to reduce God to just a single of His many attributes. For example, we may say, “God is love.” That’s certainly true, but it’s also radically incomplete. Having reduced God to that one attribute, we can proceed to rationalize away every standard and moral expectation He has for us, as many have. This whole process is dishonest, because God is more than just one of His attributes! He’s also righteous. He’s both merciful and holy. He’s both gracious and just. He’s both all-knowing and forgiving. And the list goes on…

God is all of His attributes. Even when they seem incompatible to our limited human understanding, they come together perfectly in Him. The apparent tensions between the various attributes of God are resolved at the cross of Jesus Christ. At the cross, God’s infinite love is reconciled to His perfect justice, His utter holiness is reconciled to His limitless mercy, and His kindness is reconciled to His severity. This is the testimony of Scripture.

When we reduce God to a single attribute, we no longer live as people made in His image, but instead remake God in our image. When that happens, what we call God isn’t God. Instead, what we call God is an imaginary idol Who cannot help or save. We must understand and embrace God as He is in all His perfection. Thus, as Paul writes, God is both kind and severe. He is severe to all who have sinned and fallen short of His glory (that’s everyone). He is severe toward all who reject His authority over their lives. He is severe toward those who have rejected His grace and His path of reconciliation in Jesus Christ.

However, God is also and always kind. He desires all to come to Him through faith in His beloved Son. When we do, He forgives everything and welcomes us into His eternal family. When we yield our life to Christ, the severity of God that we rightly deserve because of our rebellion is instantly and permanently transformed into kindness toward us as His beloved sons and daughters.

We must come to know God as He is, in all of His severity and His kindness. As we read, study, and pray to the true God, not the God of our imagination, our love, awe, honor, respect, and worship will rightly increase. May you continue to fall more deeply in love with the One True God!

“For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.” – Romans 10:12

In Christ, earthly divisions and inequities based on ethnicity, nationality, and race should cease to divide us, because they already did in God’s eyes. God no longer has a chosen earthly nation or ethnic group. ALL who embrace Jesus are adopted as beloved sons and daughters of God. ALL Christians enjoy enormous spiritual treasures as they are united with Christ and the Holy Spirit lives in them. ALL Christ-followers are forgiven, freed, and granted a glorious eternal inheritance in God’s presence.

Christ’s love and favor are poured out abundantly on all who call on Him, regardless of the appearance, skin color, gender, background, prior faith, or native language of the person calling. In Christ, God is creating for Himself a new and beautiful family made up of members from EVERY earthly tribe, tongue, and nation. In Christ, our race, ethnicity, and nationality don’t disappear. These things are part of how God made us and they glorify Him. As such, there can and should be no shame, dishonor, or inequality based on them. We must love and honor each other’s differences and diversity as we simultaneously celebrate our unity in Christ. To do otherwise is to fail to understand and appreciate what God is doing in Jesus Christ.

As we come together in Christ, God is assembling a beautiful mosaic of praise and worship reflecting the diverse wonder of His creation (see for example Revelation 7:9). What a beautiful picture of our new creation in Christ!

“Blessed are the people who know the festal shout,
who walk, O Lord, in the light of your face,
who exult in your name all the day
and in your righteousness are exalted.”
– Psalm 89:15-16

Indeed, what a blessing it is to find joy and delight not in the short-lived, ever-shifting, and deceitful things of this world, but in the beauty of our unchanging God! God is holy, perfect, wise, powerful, merciful, kind, gracious, good, just, loving, all-knowing, ever present, faithful, righteous, steadfast, and patient. It’s a blessing to rejoice, celebrate, and praise God and we are blessed when we do.

When we make God our joy, delight, and exultation, our satisfaction is no longer based on temporary and fleeting emotions and circumstances. Our identity is no longer built on things that can be swept away in a heartbeat. Instead, we are able to find lasting joy, delight, significance, and identity in the divine, the eternal, the ultimate. We rejoice in God and will do so forever and ever. We delight in Him and will do so for millions and billions of years to come!

“But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” – Romans 8:10

If you believe in Jesus, embracing His Lordship over your life, then you are in Him and He is in you, and that changes everything! Even when your outward physical situation is grim and deteriorating, your inward situation is gloriously renewed and alive! Though you will die, you will live forever.

The first portion of Romans 8 explores some of the most dramatic aspects of the change that sweeps over us when Christ comes to live within us:

– Because Christ is in us, His perfect righteousness is ours and the requirements of God’s law have been fulfilled (verses 3-4).

– Because Christ is in us, God no longer sees our sin and failures, He see Christ’s perfection (verse 1). There is no longer condemnation for our ugly past. God doesn’t hold that against us and we shouldn’t either.

– Because Christ is in us, our sin no longer defines us or controls us (verse 2).

– Because Christ is in us, we have new desires, hopes, and passions (verse 5). We’re able to set our minds on the things of God rather than merely focusing on the things of this world and the appetites of our bodies.

– Because Christ is in us, we experience genuine and eternal life (verse 111) and peace with God (verse 6).

“For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”
– Hosea 6:6

God’s desire isn’t for empty rituals or mindless rule following. If our hearts, minds, and souls aren’t in something, it doesn’t honor God and He doesn’t appreciate it! God desires a genuine relationship with us. He wants our hearts to be filled with love and faithfulness toward Him, both because He is worthy of that and because that’s what’s ultimately most joyously fulfilling for us. God lovingly made us in His image precisely to be in relationship with Him and neither He nor we should be satisfied with anything less!

Nonetheless, we’ve messed that up, time and again. We mess it up through sin, those acts and attitudes of rebellion against His Lordship that separate us from relationship with the perfect, holy, and divine. God overcame our sin through the sacrifice of His Son Jesus on the cross to pay the penalty for sin. Christ lived a sinless life, died a sacrificial death, and rose from the dead to reconcile us to God. Christ died and rose to restore that relationship we messed by.

However, we’ve often messed THAT up by reducing our relationship to empty rituals and legalistic rule-following that isn’t grounded in a genuine love for God, a desire to glorify Him, and a hunger to worship and know Him more fully. Offerings and observances that usually express the joy and love of relationship becomes an empty caricature in that case. God desires our hearts and minds to be engaged with Him. We’re called to love the Lord with all our hearts, minds, and souls, not just our physical strength and presence.

As you relate to God and do what you do in your spiritual life, is it done out of love, faithfulness, respect, and a desire to know God more fully? If not, seek God earnestly, desiring to know Him better and to fall more deeply in love with Him.