SEED 3 from past Issues

 

7.  GOD IS…..OMNIPRESENT

 

 

Doctor Who has always been one of my favourite tv programmes.

I can deal with the daleks…but the cybermen? No thanks!

And as for the Weeping Angels……..aarrgh!

 

Doctor Who is a Time Lord, travelling through time and space in the Tardis.

Oh to be with him on some of his travels – especially to events back in time.

 

However, the Doctor can only be in one place at one time.

 

 

In his book The God You’re Looking For, Bill Hybels writes in chapter 2 of the God who is always there when you need Him…..just like a small child calls out for their parent when they step into a dark hallway at night en route to the bathroom.

 

This is the LORD God, an “everywhere-present” God.

A God who is with people in Australia, Africa, Asia and Arkansas at the same time. He does not put us on hold, on His waiting list or in any queue at all.

 

When you need Him He is there. Fact.

 

On a Monday morning, on Tuesday, on that Wednesday evening, on Thursday, on that Friday as the week ends, on Saturdays……on every day of every week including Sundays but not just Sunday at 11am or 6.30pm….and definitely including today!

 

Psalm 139 is worth turning to now. Find a Bible…in your room or online and read these honest verses.

David had discovered the wonder of His God to be with Him wherever He was and whatever circumstance he was in.

 

How does God do it? I do not know. But He does.

The Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit is with you now.

 

 

Call to Him. Lean on Him. Trust in Him.

 

 

And believe that when you step into that dark hallway He is with you, step by step.   Matthew 28 verse 20 is His promise.

==================

Surprise!!

 

God is……..Jesus…….is God With Us.   

 

 

What does that really mean?

What does that really mean to you??

 

That’s all.

I want you to stop and have a right good think!

 

 

Reading Isaiah 7 verses 10-17 and John 1 verses 1-18 should help.

After all, Jesus came that we might know God.

 

==================

 

(If you can get your hands on Bruce Milne’s book Know The Truth or Knowing God by JI Packer I would really recommend these books to you…or why not visit a local Christian bookshop and browse their shelves?)                                                     

===========================

 

5.     GOD IS.........SPEAKING

 

The LORD God is a God who speaks.

Can you hear Him?

What is He saying to you, to me, to everyone?

 

The Bible is full of His words and messages from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22.

There were prophets and servants who were His mouthpieces years and years ago and others have written it all down.

God sent Jesus, the Word, into the world and there were those who saw and heard Him.

The Holy Spirit has given gifts to the Church of Christ Jesus that include teachers and prophets and evangelists since that Day of Pentecost in Jerusalem of Acts 2.

 

Those are the facts of our Christian faith.

 

 

The LORD God is a God who speaks.

Can you hear Him?

What is He saying to you, to me, to everyone?

 

I know that many of us know all this.

It has been our experience over many months and years and I am sure that we can point to times and places when He spoke to us.

 

Can we?

Maybe we need to sit down with Him and His Word?

Is God your God who speaks with you….daily?

 

It seems to me that there is no doubt God is a God who speaks.

However, the problem lies with us.

 

We interrupt Him. We speak before He does. We forget what He said. We don’t let Him get a word in. We move away as He is speaking. We get distracted. We think we have heard it all before..or we already know exactly what He is going to say to us and move on to something else to do. We don’t like what He said. We are impatient. We are stubborn and impudent like a child or like good old Jonah.

 

 

The LORD God is a God who speaks.

Can you hear Him?

What is He saying to you, to me, to everyone?

 

I cannot answer that last question for you.

However I hope that you know or will take time out with Him today and let Him speak with you.

 

(By the way, what was the last thing He said to you?)

 

===================

 GOD IS ……… GOOD

 

Well, isn’t that obvious you might say?

What is good however? How do we measure goodness?  What about suffering etc in our world? Why then do bad things happen to good people??

 

If God isn’t our reliable moral compass for goodness…who or what is??

If God is good…..do we want Him to be a moral dictator? Should He clean up our mess? Is all evil and suffering our fault?? Can’t He stop it before it happens?

What about situation ethics? Doesn’t the plumb-line depend on the individual situation? If Joe Bloggs does it, it must be ok. It isn’t hurting anyway really…

Who on earth can say it isn’t or is good for me?

 

And isn’t that it.

There is no-one on earth who can be the perfect measure for good and evil.

 

We need a clear and standard measure, a true and right goodness to measure everything to….and before this world, and we humans, came into being there has been One who is that – exactly perfect in goodness.

 

The history of those who first discovered that has been recorded for us.

God Himself has issued a handbook to help us.

 

The Bible does not shrink from using the word ‘good’ and unsurprisingly much of it refers to God Himself, what he has done and how He expects His people to live, reflecting His goodness to others.

 

Pick up a Bible and look for yourself…

Genesis 1 v 31

Psalm 34 v 8 and 37 v 3

Psalm 100 v5….145 v 9….147 v 1

Mark 10 v 18

John 10 v 11

Romans 12 v 2

Galatians 6 v 10

Philippians 1 v 6

 

This is the God of all goodness, true and upright and perfect who has spoken Good News in Jesus and transforms all those who believe in Him by faith through the Holy Spirit, who comes to live within each believer to produce fruit, lasting fruit that includes goodness.

 

I wish that there was no suffering in our world, that things didn’t go wrong, people don’t get hurt, terrible accidents and wars don’t happen. I really do.

 

However, because I did wrong it wasn’t necessarily my parents fault.

If my sons make a wrong decision or something bad happens to them then it would be foolish to blame me.

 

God is good and He longs for us all to know His goodness, He really does.

Psalm 34 verse 8, in the New International Version, invites us to ‘Taste and see that the LORD is good’  because that is who He is. He is the LORD who is good in His very being and works all things according to His goodness, righteousness and justice.

 

We cannot understand everything.

We will not agree with everything that happens in our world. So often we are fussing about this and that around us that we miss the Big Picture.

 

Surely if we start with Him as our plumb-line for all things good, we can’t go wrong and only then will we have His vision for good and evil and realise that He does know what he is doing in our lives and in our world.

 

The Bible says that God is good.

I invite you to seek Him out, travel a bit with Him, trust Him and discover for yourself how good He really is!

 

 

GOD IS ………… HOLY

 

It is not a word we use a lot really nowadays in our daily conversations.

It is a word that overall conjures up images of mystical smoke and fear for most of us? And when we say that God is Holy we often imagine Him so far remote from us, a fearsome Judge and not that loving….yes? no?

 

My dictionary says that Holy =

‘highest spiritual purity’

‘saintly’  and  ‘devout’

‘of divine nature or origin’

And  ‘worthy of veneration because associated with something divine’.

So we have holy places, holy objects and saintly people.

 

It is clear, however, that the God of the Bible is both truly Holy and perfectly Loving. The Old Testament is full of teaching and revelation that God, the LORD, is indeed separate (remote) from all other beings – in heaven and on earth. He alone is God and is to be worshipped for having the highest spiritual purity. There is no-one at all like Him. He is totally Other, by His very nature perfect in goodness, truth, justice, righteousness and….Love. The New Testament is, therefore, this Love in action through Christ Jesus…while not neglecting the holy requirements of this God, the living and true God. By the end of Revelation, at the end of the Bible, God alone is worthy of our worship and praise for who He is and all that He has done in heaven and on earth.

 

All this may seem to separate God from us humans even more. He is Holy. We are not. He is good. We are sinful by nature. This Holy God does remove Himself from everything that resists and opposes Him so how can He possibly expect us to be holy, just like Him??

 

And yet…the New Testament follows on from the tentative steps in the Old Testament beforehand. This God is approachable and even more we can be like Him!!      

Bible handy?  Have a look at Galatians 3 verses 26ff….Ephesians 1 verses 13ff and chapter 4 verses 20-24….Hebrews 4 verses 14ff and through 1 Peter chapters 1 and 2……..got the picture?

In and through Christ Jesus, His death, resurrection and ascension and our faith in Him, by God’s amazing grace, we are accepted into the family of this great and holy God and are being changed by the indwelling Holy Spirit to be made more and more like Jesus. Oh yes we are!

 

When you read Isaiah 6 or Psalm 51 again and then consider the verses above from the New Testament….wow!

 

 

God does not stop being Holy for one moment.

It is we who are changing!

And quite remarkably we no longer fear being in His Holy presence…..we can come to Him as our heavenly Father and enter His courts with worship and thanksgiving!

 

 

I believe that God is Holy….and deserves all my venerable worship…..do you?   

 

 

(If you can get your hands on Bruce Milne’s book Know The Truth or Knowing God by JI Packer I would really recommend these books to you…or why not visit a local Christian bookshop and browse their shelves?)                                                     

===========================

 

2.   GOD IS… AMAZINGLY GRACIOUS

 

In our family, we have two people who are called Grace.

I am sure that we are all familiar with the hymn Amazing Grace.

 

In his book entitled The God You’re Looking For, Bill Hybels speaks of Justice, Mercy and Grace in chapter 7 and how we encounter God at each. The Bible clearly tells us that God is Just….Merciful…..and Gracious……..but that there is something so amazingly outrageous about God’s grace.

 

Bill Hybels says that God’s Justice is what we totally deserve. As men and women we walk away from obeying God’s commands and do our own thing. That is Sin.

God is therefore right to find us guilty and we deserve His judgement on us.

 

His Mercy is where we are shown less than what we actually deserve. God shows us kindness.

 

However, Grace is when we are given gifts and blessings from God’s treasure chest that we do not deserve at all. God irrationally is good to us. He outrageously blesses us. And that Grace provokes in us a changed response to this God.

 

Why?

Because He is a God of Grace. Grace is part of His divine nature.

Because of Jesus, his life, death and resurrection on this earth to deal with our sin.

Because of our faith in Him. He took our place on a cross and God’s Justice is met. Deal done for those who believe and trust in Jesus Christ, God’s own Son.

Because God loves to give good gifts to those who have been adopted into His family.

 

Do you know the story Jesus told about the Prodigal Son, who squandered his father’s monies in a land far away from home, then realised he had goofed, made his way home and when he was just outside of his father’s home again was amazingly welcomed by his father and given a party and gifts! Did this son deserve such a welcome home? Nope. Did his father still love him? You bet. There was an older son who made his case for justice to be shown. There were probably others around who thought mercy might be just about right. But it was the father who had decided to act with outrageously amazing grace.

 

You can read about this story in Luke chapter 15.

 

David experienced God’s grace and wrote Psalm 103.

Paul experienced God’s grace and it changed his life. He wrote Ephesians chapters 1 and 2.

Peter experienced God’s grace and became a follower of Jesus. He wrote 1 Peter chapter 1.

 

You see, God’s grace changes lives. It really does.

 

Is this your experience? Have you met with this Jesus and let Him change you from the inside out?

Can you sing with meaning about Amazing Grace and even Outrageous Grace?  (If you don't know this song....you can find it between Seed 3 and Seed 4!)

 

I really hope so.

 

================================

 

1.    GOD IS… FATHER

 

In March of this year my dad died.

In March of this year God was still God.

In September, as I type these words, I still miss my dad so much.

 

God is still God however.

God of the Bible.

God in this world.

God beyond this world.

 

And yet, my experience and knowledge of God is just that – one of personal experience, knowing Him,

not just knowing about Him.

Some of you reading this will have known my dad, some of you will have heard of him, some of you never met him.

Some of us know God, some of us are getting to know Him, some of us reading this may not yet know Him.

Yes, He speaks to me through the Bible, His written Word, and has done so in other ways through my life, like many others down through history and across our world.

But moreso I am in relationship with Him. I know Him. Of course He knows me so well – too well at times!

When I read of His powerful ways across history, from Creation to nowadays in 2015, I am truly amazed that

He is my God.

 

What amazes me even more is that He is Father God.

I get to call Him Abba, Father – and not just after my dad died.

 

For some of us ‘father’ conjures up so many different concepts…

• Remote? Stern? Cosy and comfy?

• An example and role model – or not!

• By Adoption

• Family likeness

   

  Do you know what? Many of the traits we see in our earthly dads are supremely and perfectly found in our Heavenly Father.

  My dad was not perfect. Neither is yours.

   

  God is described as our perfect heavenly Father in the Bible.

  Find and read Matthew chapter 5 v 48 or chapter 7 v 11 for starters.

   

  The more we read, the more we discover about Him.

  He is our heavenly Father, giving real good gifts to His people.

  He is perfect in His justice, right to be angry when we do wrong.

  He is so close to us, by His Holy Spirit, however.

  He sent Jesus to be our perfect example and role model

  And in Jesus we have the 100% image of God the Father reflected to us.

   

  And…it gets better.

  He adopts into His eternal family every one who comes to Him through Christ Jesus and to every one He gives the Holy Spirit to live within so that He can help us to become more like Jesus.

  We get to call Him Abba, Father by adoption and God will not rip up the adoption papers – ever.

   

  He becomes our approachable, loving, caring, faithful Father.

  Have a read of John chapters 14-16 and Galatians 4 vs 1-7.

  He is wise, guiding, protecting and a strong Father.

  Ephesians 1 and 2 are well worth a read!

  He gives – but rightly withholds at times.

  Doesn’t every parent?

  He smiles with delight – yet is rightly angry at times.

  Ouch – no pushover then.

  He waits…and waits…and waits. (Do you know the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15?)

   

  He is God, the Father.

  I am so glad.

  He is God, my heavenly Father.

  Is He yours?

   

  Talk to Him now. He is waiting.