Where Did God Come From?

The question of the origin of God has caused many people to scratch their chins in wonderment. Whether by the curious Christian or the antagonistic atheist, this question has been asked for centuries. To quote atheist Sam Harris, “If God created the universe, who created God?” And what was God doing before creation?

 

Saint Augustine, as far as we can tell, was the first person to formulate a doctrinal position on this. His answer was that God created time itself while He was creating the universe. The phrase that opens the Bible, “in the beginning,” speaks of the beginning of time. God was not doing anything before He created, because the concept of before didn’t exist. That is a time word, and God operates outside of time.

 

Thomas Aquinas built on this supposition, writing that every effect must have a cause, and nothing in the universe came into existence on its own. A was caused by B, and B was caused by C, and C was caused by D, ad infinitum. But if we follow this all the way back to the very beginning, there had to be something that caused the fist effect. This is often referred to as an uncaused first cause. 

 

If there is no Higher Power then we have to answer that question of origin somehow. What caused the appearance of the earliest particles? They couldn’t “just so happen” to exist. They need a first cause. 

 

If you believe in a Higher Power then the answer becomes much easier. God is the uncaused first cause. He existed before there was anything, and when He decided to do so, He created the universe. Part of Aquinas’ logic was that everything in a series has a cause, but that God is in a category all by Himself. We do not need to trace anything back further than God. In God we have the origin and source of everything else.

 

Dinesh D’Souza compared God to the author of a book. If we were to read something like Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, we want to know about the character’s back stories. When we follow Pip, or when we meet Mrs. Haversham, we want to know where they came from. But no one reads the book and demands to know where Dickens came from. As the author of the book, the characters come about as a matter of Dickens’ own will, but we do not need to grapple with the author’s origins. 

 

In a similar way, God, as the author of the universe, has brought about everything we see as a matter of His own will. Which is easier to believe: that a powerful God intentionally and intelligently created the world through His will, or that some unexplained particles accidentally created the world through chaos? 

 

“You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for you created all things, and by your will they exist and were created.”

Revelation 4:11

False Advertising

 

Helmut Thielicke was a German theologian and prolific author in the 1900s. He once told the story of a time when, as a college student, he was riding through town on his bicycle. Having skipped breakfast that morning, Thielicke was hungry as he pedaled his bike. When he saw a large sign in a store window that said “Hot Rolls for Sale,” he had to stop in. 

 

Thielicke said the sign made him realize how hungry he was, and as he parked and made his way to the store, his mouth was beginning to water in anticipation of filling his empty stomach. Once inside, it dawned on him that he was not in a bakery or diner at all, but had actually entered a print shop. The sign in the window was not advertising hot rolls; it was advertising the company’s ability to make signs.

 

Helmut was bitterly disappointed. He entered the store under false pretenses. The sign got his hopes up, but it did not deliver what he felt it promised. How many churches do that same thing every Sunday? There is a big sign out front that indicates it is a church, but once people go inside they discover it is anything but. The music is entertaining but it has nothing to do with the Lord. The message is well delivered but it isn’t based on the Bible. There might be great multimedia, interior decorating, and activities for the kids, but there is nothing of redemption or sanctification. 

 

To quote Erwin Lutzer in We Will not be Silenced, “Our churches may advertise the gospel, but once inside, you might find an extension of the culture around us…what you might not hear is a word from God. You might hear a lot about grace but nothing about sin; you might hear how to get blessed by God but nary a word about how to withstand the cultural pressures that are destroying our children and silencing our witness.”

 

Our churches must be churches, preaching the gospel and being the hands and feet of Jesus. But it starts with the individual church members being the people they are called to be. If you are expecting hot rolls, it is disappointing to wind up in a print shop. If you are expecting a New Testament church, it is disappointing to wind up in a shallow service. And when you meet someone who claims to be a Christian, it is disappointing to find out they are living like the world.

 

Proverbs 11:30 says, “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he who wins souls is wise.” It is refreshing to meet a Christian who lives out his faith, and when we live right, we are a tree of life to those who need it. We might not produce hot rolls, but we do produce fruit. Because each person has a God-shaped void in their life, they are looking for something, and we can provide it for them. No false advertising; we must live up to our name. 

 

El Shaddai

 

Many of us have heard messages on the names of God used in the Bible. One of the classic titles bestowed on God is El Shaddai, which is first seen in Genesis 17 where God introduces Himself to Abraham. Most English Bibles have translated El Shaddai as “God Almighty”— “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, ‘I am Almighty God; walk before me and be blameless (Genesis 17:1).’”

 

Almighty is a great word. Unfortunately, this translation causes us to miss out on what God was really trying to say about Himself. We often use this verse to speak on God’s omnipotence, to portray Him as a commanding military general able to save the day. There is a better title for that. Yahweh Sabaoth is translated as Lord of hosts or Lord of heaven’s armies, as in Psalm 24:10– “Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, He is the King of glory. Selah.” Shaddai definitely does have connotations of might and power (See Joel 1:15), but I don’t believe that is the main idea.

 

El Shaddai is not so much about God’s might and power as it is His power to supply our needs. Shaddai comes from the Hebrew root shad, which means breast (we see it so translated in Genesis 49:25, for example). Dr. Charles Parkhurst has written that Shaddai could be thought of as “The Breasted One,” and Dr. Herbert Lockyer agrees, saying that El Shaddai “supplies us with a delicate yet precious metaphor, seeing it presents God as the One who nourishes, supplies, and satisfies.” 

 

Continuing this thought, Dr. G. Campbell Morgan points out that the idea behind the use of Almighty to translate Shaddai was intended to highlight God as “the mighty One of resource and sufficiency.” He went on to say that Shaddai suggests “perfect supply and perfect comfort. We should reach the idea better by rendering [it] ‘God All Bountiful’ or ‘God All-Sufficient’…To gather sustenance and consolation from the bosom of God is to be made strong for all the pilgrimage.” Parkhurst has also translated Shaddai as the pourer forth of blessings. 

 

This makes sense in light of Naomi’s statement in Ruth 1:20-21. Her name meant “pleasant,” but she told everyone instead to call her “bitter” because, “The Almighty (Shaddai) has dealt bitterly with me.” In calling God Shaddai, she was emphasizing the fact that God was supposed to pour forth blessings, but in her estimation He had failed to do so. Just as she made a play on her own name, she made a play on God’s name. The supplier stopped supplying, so pleasant became bitter. 

 

El Shaddai, God Almighty, is a God of blessings. That is why Isaac invoked that name when blessing Jacob— “May God Almighty bless you, and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may be an assembly of peoples (Genesis 28:3).” Just as a child is dependent upon his mother to nurse him, children of God must never fail to reach up to heaven and ask our Father for His blessings, that He may nourish us for the pilgrimage that is this life. 

 

 

 

   

 

Water in the Ship

 

The famous preacher D.L. Moody once said, “The place for the ship is in the sea, but God help the ship if the sea gets into it.” That succinct quote is easy to understand. Ships are made for the very purpose of being in the water. A boat that isn’t afloat is not fulfilling its reason to exist. We also understand the problem when water starts to find its way into the ship. While ships were made to be in the water, they were not made to retain it. A ship that takes in water will eventually sink. 

 

But Moody’s point was not to make us think about ships, but Christians. We are the ships in his illustration, and the world is the sea. We were made by God and put into this world for a purpose. According to the famous catechism, that purpose is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. According to Scripture, “You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for you created all things, and by your will they exist and were created (Revelation 4:11),” and “For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him (Colossians 1:16).” We were created by God and for God.

 

We live in this world, but we are not to be of this world. When interceding for the disciples, Jesus said, “I do not pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. (John 17:15-16).” Christians, like a ship in the sea, are meant to be in the world. But just as the sea is not supposed to get into the ship, the world is not supposed to get into us. What does that look like? 

 

The world getting into Christians means the world influences us in such a way that our thinking, beliefs, and actions begin to bend towards the world’s system. Rather than being molded by God’s Word, we let the world shape our worldview. Once we begin to take in water, it is only a matter of time until we sink. At first it is only a little water—a small compromise or two that we justify and excuse as “no big deal.” But one compromise eventually gives way to another, and then another. Before we know it, there is standing water in the ship, and we are a little closer to the waterline. Many lives that have been ruined by sin were tragedies over time, not sudden catastrophes. 

 

If your ship is taking in water, you need to repent right away. Don’t let it take you down. 

 

 

 

 

How Do You Explain Religion?

 

As long as there have been people, there has been religion. As far back as we can trace, people have been religious from Day 1. While religions differ across continents and centuries, the common denominator is that people believe in a higher power, and they do something to pay homage to that deity. The fact that the world is still very religious in 2021 is a big problem for those who believe in Darwinian evolution.

 

We are supposedly evolving towards perfection. Darwinists have no problem with their caricatures of dumb cavemen believing in God; those barely human, dumb-as-bricks mongrels were too stupid to know any better. But by now there should not be any more religious people. Evolutionists teach that religion is an illusion, and it requires that one believes what is false to be true, and what is true to be false. The very idea of survival of the fittest means that humans should reject what is false because we should only do that which contributes to our own survival. Don’t take my word for it. Famed atheist Richard Dawkins said the existence of religion presents “a major puzzle for anyone who thinks in a Darwinian way.” Evolutionists know that religion hurts their theory. 

 

Religion does not contribute to our survival, humanly speaking. People give up things because of religion. Consider Christianity: most of us give away our money as an offering, wake up early on Sundays and spend our time at services; we abstain from things the world says we need; we deny ourselves and submit to a person we cannot even see. Our ancestors brought their best produce, even their best heads of cattle as sacrifices to the Lord. According to evolution, these things should have been weeded out to guarantee our survival. Contrary to what Darwinists say, religion isn’t going away any time soon.

 

That is because religion does contribute to our survival. Prayer is a wonderful gift, and faith, hope, and love make the world a better place. Atheists say they can be “good without God,” but God is the one who defines what is good. This is the biggest reason why religion is a problem for evolution: deep down we all know there is a God.

 

In Romans 2:14-15 Paul wrote, “For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them.”

Even the Gentiles, according to the apostle, have God’s law written on their hearts. The law was written on tablets for Jews, but in reality, all people know God’s law. We know stealing, lying, and hurting others is wrong, and we know this without having to read the Ten Commandments. In the same way, even without reading a Bible, we know there is a Higher Power, an Intelligent Designer. Evolutionists say religion is an illusion, but the only illusion is evolution.

 

Relying on God

  

George Muller is one of the most remarkable people I have ever read about. As a young pastor he felt burdened to do more than just preach in the church. He started what he called the Scriptural Knowledge Institute to train people in theology, as well as multiple orphanages. It isn’t just what he accomplished that makes him so fascinating, but how he funded these works. Muller committed to never talk about money with anyone outside of his wife or co-laborers in the ministry. He never held any fundraisers, or even asked for money. He never asked people for money because he asked the Lord for it. He believed it was the Lord’s work, so God would provide the money. Muller prayed for God to impress the needs upon people’s hearts, and that is what happened. 

 

In his autobiography, Muller detailed dozens of examples of how they were down to their last few cents when somehow the needs would be met. One day the rent for the orphanage might be due, and the next day they might have needed coal to warm the buildings; no matter the need, it was always met at the last second by someone showing up, saying they felt like the Lord was leading them to bring money. 

 

Muller wrote, “I have never had greater awareness of the Lord’s presence than when after breakfast nothing was left for dinner, and then the Lord provided the dinner for more than a hundred people; or when, after dinner there was nothing for the tea, and yet the Lord provided the tea—all this without one single human being having been informed about our need.” 

 

Muller trusted that God, who owns cattle on a thousand hills, would always provide the necessary funds to keep the ministries going. It seems like a stressful strategy, but Muller said his way of living made the Lord feel “remarkably near.” He relied on his Father in heaven the way that any child relies on his earthly father. God is not a genie in a bottle, so this philosophy does not work for all of our wants or wishes, but the Lord does promise to provide for all of our needs. In Philippians 4:19 Paul wrote, “And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” 

 

Like children, we should also develop a dependency on our Father instead of trying to be independent and self-made. If God feels far away, maybe you aren’t depending on Him enough, so He is letting you try to manage on your own. Also, if the Lord lays it on your heart to do something for someone, do it; that person might be depending on God, and you might be the means God is using to make it happen.  

Choose Your Words Wisely

 

President Calvin Coolidge was known for being a man of few words. His preference for not speaking earned him the nickname “Silent Cal.” His wife Grace told a story about a White House dinner party in which a young lady was seated beside the President. She told Coolidge that she made a bet with her friend that she could get him to say at least three words during dinner. 

 

“You lose,” Coolidge said, without even looking up from his plate, and he didn’t speak another word during the course of the meal. Talk about choosing your words wisely! Coolidge didn’t say much, but when he did, he tried to make his words count. 

 

Some speak more than others, but on average people say about 7,000 words a day. Whether you are on the top end of that number, or whether you are closer to Silent Cal, you should still choose your words wisely. That is what David wanted to do. He once wrote, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer (Psalm 19:14).” 

 

A great question to ask is, “Are my words acceptable in God’s sight?” Sometimes we deem things as unacceptable. A parent tells their child their behavior is unacceptable, or a teacher tells a student the assignment they turned in is unacceptable. I would hate to know that God found my words to be unacceptable. That assessment is probably true of all of us from time to time, but for some their overall speech patterns are unacceptable. 

 

Crude words are unacceptable, and Paul said, “Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification…(Ephesians 4:29).” Dishonest words are unacceptable, and Solomon said, “These six things the Lord hates…a proud look, a lying tongue (Proverbs 6:16-17).” Blasphemous words are unacceptable, and Moses wrote, “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain (Exodus 20:7).” 

 

Some might wonder what the big deal is. How can words uttered into the air really be a problem? For starters, our words reveal a heart issue; if we are losing our temper and saying angry things, those words are just symptoms of a worse problem. But another reason to choose our words carefully is that they are a reflection of the God we serve. If we are liars, the world will not trust us when we tell them they need Jesus. When we are crude, they will not think they need Jesus if Jesus hasn’t cleaned us up. When we blaspheme, they won’t think Jesus is special to us. 

 

The words we say matter to God because they can turn people off to Him. You don’t have to be Silent Cal, but please choose your words wisely. 

 

The Sting of Death

 

One of my favorite lines from Scripture comes from I Corinthians 15:55, which says, “O Death, where is your victory? O Death, where is your sting?” Paul’s question to death personified was actually borrowed from the prophet Hosea; in the thirteenth chapter of his letter, Hosea asks four questions intended to serve as a call for judgment on God’s wayward people. 

 

Hosea was inviting death to come as punishment, but Paul forever changed the meaning of Hosea’s prophecy. Hosea summoned death, but Paul sneered at it. Hosea asked, “Come over here Death, where is your sting?” Paul asked, “Is that all you’ve got Death? Where is your sting?” 

 

When I think about a sting, I can’t help but think about a wasp or bee. Maybe its because I was stung so frequently as a child, or maybe because I am highly allergic to them, but at the mention of a sting I instantly hear buzzing in my ears. As a child there was nothing scarier than getting stung. I lived in fear of the stinger. But now that I am older I realize the sting is the end of the wasp. Once he stings me, he can never sting again. It may hurt for a minute, but I’ll live to see the other side (provided I take my medicine, of course). If a wasp stings me today, I can taunt that wasp by asking, “Where is your sting?” Its stinger is forever dislodged, and that wasp has done the worst it can do. 

 

Death is like that. I am not trying to minimize the sting of death because my family has taken its best shot recently. Death is hard on us because we miss our loved ones, but Paul helps us see to the other side of death. How was Paul able to transform Hosea’s summons into a sneer? The answer is found in the work of Jesus and the gift of salvation. In the next two verses the apostle wrote: “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

 

This comes from Paul’s longest treatise on the resurrection of Jesus, and because of His resurrection, there will be one for us as well. Because Jesus walked out of the tomb, we will rise from ours. These bodies which are sown as perishable will rise as ones imperishable. Even now, our loved ones who have passed on are alive and well in the presence of the Lord, celebrating this victory and laughing in the face of death. Death stings us because we miss those who have departed, but if they were saved, death did them a favor. 

 

For those who are alive and well in the presence of Jesus, they can join Paul in taunting Death, asking, “Is that all you’ve got?” As a child I feared death as much as I feared a bee sting, but as a child of God I am no longer afraid of either. I know their sting is temporary, and Death has been swallowed up in Victory. Our weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes with the morning. When our time on earth is up, Death will have done all it can ever do to us, and we will be the ones found victorious.   

 

Samson: Hero or Villain?

A favorite Bible character for many people is Samson. The Old Testament figure is preserved for us in the book of Judges, and his life was truly noteworthy. He never had a single haircut (well, he had one near the end of his life, and it was very costly), he killed a lion with his bare hands, and he was known for his incredible strength. He was so powerful that some have suggested the Bible exaggerates his feats (a position I do not hold). 

 

By all accounts Samson was a bad man. Here are some of the highlights of his life:

He proposed a riddle to thirty people, and the wager involved a change of clothes—thirty for him if they could not solve it, and one for each of them if they could. When they solved his riddle, he killed thirty Philistines, disrobed them, and presented their clothes as his payment. On another occasion he caught 300 foxes, tied them together by their tails, and set them on fire; this sent 150 sets of burning foxes running through the Philistine fields, devastating their crops. After visiting a Philistine prostitute, he ripped the city gate off its hinges on his way home, and carried it forty miles away. His last act on earth was a murder/suicide, something that if occurred today would be called a terror attack. 

 

Bad guy, right? If that is all we ever read about Samson we might conclude that he was a failure, a villain that would go down with people like Nabal, King Saul, or even Queen Jezebel. But the New Testament has something nice to say about the intriguing judge; of all places, he appears in Hebrews 11, the “Hall of Faith” of the Bible. After naming great people of faith, the writer adds this conclusion:

 

“And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens (v.32-34).”

 

I’m sorry, did I just see Samson’s name on that list, in the same breath as David and Gideon? The author of Hebrews recognized something in Samson, particularly what we see in the last line, he “became valiant in battle,” and “turned to flight the armies” of the Philistines. Bestselling author Stephen Miller wrote, “Some historians say Samson’s legacy assured Israel’s survival. Before he came along, the kingless Jews were in the process of becoming assimilated into the culture of their stronger neighbor…Samson forever changed the relationship by driving a wedge of distrust and anger between the two nations. In time, the Jews would emerge as winners in the war for the Promised Land.” 

 

I love Samson because, even though he had his many faults, he is proof that we are not defined by our worst moments. He messed up many times, but when push came to shove, he demonstrated faith in God. Many of our Bible heroes are just like that: a collection of successes and defeats. Please don’t misunderstand me: I am not saying that it doesn’t matter how we live or what we do. We should do our best, but the reality is we will make mistakes. The most important thing, then, is if we have faith in Jesus. Let your faith be what defines your life, not your feats or failures. 

 

 

 

Laziness

 

Are you a lazy person? I’m not talking about enjoying times of rest; we all need that. But rest is actually a break from activity. The lazy are inactive, so they cannot actually rest. The lazy are the people who would do anything to never have to do anything. When there is work to be done, they cannot be found. 

 

Solomon had nothing good to say about the lazy, and nothing but good to say about those who work hard. In Proverbs 6 he uses a loathsome insect as an object lesson, writing, “Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest (v.6-8).” Solomon was right; as far as we know, ants have no overseers in the field making sure they do their work, yet off to work they go. To the best of our knowledge, there is no recourse for an ant not doing his job, but you will never see one lounging around with his feet up. In fact, ants can be seen carrying an astonishing fifty times their own body weight with just two arms. No wonder Solomon pointed to the ant as an example of work ethic.

 

Turning his attention back to the lazy person Solomon continued: “How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man (v.9-11).” Ants always have plenty to eat because they work for it, but if the sluggard isn’t careful, he will walk to his pantry and discover its shelves to be bare. Poverty will come upon him like a bandit, and he will have no one to thank but his own inactivity. 

 

What have the lazy ever contributed to society? I have never walked through a museum and heard the tour guide say, “And in this room we have all the accomplishments of lazy people.” I have never seen a monument erected to honor a lazy person. There are no museums or monuments for the lazy. On the other hand, we honor people like George Washington and his men for crossing the Delaware because they were exhausted and low on rations. We honor people like Thomas Edison for not letting his earlier failures keep him from perfecting the lightbulb. When the going got tough, they pushed through. 

 

If you want to do something significant then you can’t be lazy. Aside from the fact that laziness is a poor testimony for Christians, it reduces our lives to insignificance. God made us on purpose for a purpose, and He expects us to work. If He was done with us He would have already called us to heaven, so as long as He leaves us here, we need to be busy. 

 

 

Carried Along

 

When it comes to how we understand the Bible, there are several different opinions. Some believe that the Bible is nothing more than the words of a handful of people who were starting a man made religion, while others believe the words of the Bible are nothing less than the words of God Himself. The latter position holds to the idea of inerrancy, that the Bible is absolutely free from errors (there are varying degrees of belief in inerrancy, but I am a firm believer that what is inspired is surely inerrant). 

 

Perhaps the best clue we have to the claim for inerrancy is found in II Peter 1. There we read “Knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit (v.20-21).” The King James Version says these men spoke as they “were moved by” the Spirit. I want to focus on that word moved or “carried along” in the English Standard Version. 

 

One of the best ways to get an understanding of what a word means in this situation is to see how the same Greek word was used elsewhere. A good help to us is the word’s appearance in Acts 27:15 where Luke described their shipwreck: “And when the ship was caught and could not face the wind, we gave way to it and were driven along.” The “driven along” at the end of the verse is the same verb Peter used to describe the process by which men wrote the Bible. Derek Thomas wrote about this word, saying, “These men…were not simply prompted or led by Him, but by carried by Him. When someone is carried, he is set down at the destination of the carrier.” 

 

Benjamin Warfield added, “What is ‘borne’ (carried along) is taken up by the bearer and conveyed by the bearer’s power, not its own, to the bearer’s goal, not its own.” Luke and everyone else in the ship were completely at the mercy of the wind. They lost all control of themselves and would wind up only where the wind sent them (interestingly, the same word for wind gives us the Holy Spirit). 

 

Peter’s point, then, is that the men God used to write the Bible were the instrument in the hand of the Holy Spirit. Yes, their human hands physically penned the words on the paper, but the message came from God. The men who wrote knew they were writing; they were not in a trance or mere secretaries transcribing a dictation. But the finished product was exactly what God wanted recorded. It was not Paul’s opinions, Micah’s musings, or David’s daydreams. It is Holy Scripture, something breathed out by Almighty God, written by men, and preserved by the church for thousands of years. We can trust what we read because what we read was written by our Lord. 

 

Enduring Pain

 

I used to play a lot of basketball, like seven days a week. I was always on teams or just playing in the driveway. I have always loved the sport. One of the downsides of playing a contact sport, however, is that it leads to injuries. I always had jammed fingers or sprained ankles, not to mention broken bones. If left untreated, these small injuries can turn into long lasting ailments. 

 

Do you know what the best treatment is for a sprained ankle? The answer is an ice bath for your foot. If you fill a bucket with ice and submerge your ankle into the icy depths, you can greatly reduce your recovery time. The only problem is that keeping your foot under ice is excruciatingly painful. If you can keep your foot in the ice for two solid minutes you will cut your recovery time in half. Leave it there an additional minute and you will be walking the next day. It’s a great remedy, but leaving your foot in ice for three minutes brings a level of pain most people are not willing to endure. Instead, they will hobble around for days or weeks, when all they needed was three minutes of pain. 

 

James 1:2-3 holds the title of MVP of the “easier said than done” verses in the Bible. James wrote, “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.” That word patience, translated as steadfastness in newer versions, comes from a combination of two Greek words, meaning “to remain under.” James encourages us to count our trials as pure joy because the hardships we face produce within us the ability to remain under for a longer period of time. If we have come to recognize that many of our trials have been allowed by God in order to refine us, we can think of our trials as that bucket of ice; it isn’t pleasant, but it will bring about some good. 

 

When most people give up on the ice after a minute, they shortchange themselves and miss out of their healing. In a similar way, when we beg God to end our trials, that is like taking our foot out of the ice before it is time. We end up aggravating the injury, so to speak, going through more and more trials because we haven’t learned the lesson God is trying to teach us. Our trials build up our endurance and make us able to “remain under” the ice until the full and proper time. 

 

In his book When Life is Hard, pastor James MacDonald asks, “Why remain [under]? Because the nail that doesn’t remain under the hammer will never reach the goal; because the rough diamond that doesn’t remain under the chisel will never become a precious jewel; because the gold that doesn’t remain under the fire will never be a thing of beauty; because the Christian that doesn’t remain under the hand of God will never see His purpose for trail accomplished and will never experience the blessings on the other side.” 

 

Let me encourage you to remain under when you go through trials. They are a guarantee, so we might as well learn the lesson we are meant to learn. Instead of begging God to end the storm, ask Him what He is trying to teach you. 

 

Two Different Paths

 

In his classic poem The Road not Taken, Robert Frost described stopping at a fork in the road as he took a walk through the forest. The poem begins this way:

 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

We often come to similar forks in the road in life. We can choose the worldly life, described in Psalm 1; this is the man who stands in the path of sinners and takes his seat among the ungodly. We can also choose the Christian life, where we put on the full armor of God and cultivate the fruit of the Spirit. The choice is completely up to us. 

 

Proverbs 5 mentions different paths. While giving advice to his son Rehoboam, Solomon told him to avoid the path of the adulterous woman because “her feet go down to death, her steps lay hold of hell (v.5).” That word used for path in Hebrew refers to that which is movable, and has been translated elsewhere as slippery. Today we speak of something as a slippery slope, meaning that if Rehoboam began to spend time with this woman, before he knew it, he would be slipping and sliding down the path that would ruin his life. 

 

Sometimes in a store or mall I see signs posted, alerting shoppers that someone has recently mopped and the floor is still wet. That is what Solomon is doing here. He is putting out one of those yellow wet floor signs for Rehoboam, warning him that he is certain to fall if he isn’t careful. Instead of bruising his tailbone, Rehoboam could lose his life. 

 

At the end of that same chapter Solomon wrote, “For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and He ponders all his paths (v.21).” This word paths is different than the one in the fifth verse. This Hebrew word describes the path made by wagons and horses where there were no paved roads. This word came to speak of a person’s habits because following the same path over and over would develop grooves in the ground. A person’s paths were the things he did repetitiously. The warning is clear: do not follow the slippery path of the adulterous woman, because the Lord knows your paths. God knows full well the patterns in our lives. 

 

Jesus mentioned two roads—one broad and easy to traverse, and the other narrow and difficult. Many, He said, meaning the majority, travel the broad road, and few—the minority—travel the narrow.  

 

Frost concluded his poem this way:

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

 

Few people choose the straight and narrow road. It is unfortunately the road less traveled by, but choosing it makes all the difference. 

Jesus is the Word

 

In John’s Gospel he famously referred to Jesus as “the Word,” writing, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (1:1).” How do we know the Word is Jesus? John tells us in verse 14: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”  

 

It is clear John called Jesus the Word, but why? The simplest answer is that John was referring to the words spoken by the Godhead during the week of creation, for John wrote, “All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made (v.3).” By calling Jesus the Word, John clearly pointed back to the words spoken in the opening chapters of Genesis, when God said “let there be…and there was.”

 

But John meant more than just the spoken words. He used the Greek word logos, which is a special word. He could have used the word rhema, for example, but he didn’t. Logos is deeper than just the words used, but speaks to the thought process behind the words. As William Dembski wrote in his book The End of Christianity, “Logos is therefore an exceedingly rich notion, encompassing the entire life of the mind.” 

 

Etymology refers to the study of a word’s history, and the etymology of logos is interesting. The Greek word stems from the root lego, translated as “to speak,” but the earliest definition of lego is actually “to lay something down.” Over time, lego began to mean “to pick up and gather,” and then “to select and gather.” As it relates to speaking, then, logos means “to select and gather words.” Logos is not just about speaking, or even speaking certain words, but in choosing which words to speak.

 

Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon has among their many definitions of logos, “the word by which the inward thought is expressed.” The etymology continues when we trace the variant root lec (rather than leg), which appears in our English words intellect and intelligence. Intelligence literally means “to select or choose between.” 

 

Now we have something larger than just saying Jesus spoke the world into existence. Logos speaks to the question of motive. God chose to create the world; speaking was just the vehicle by which He accomplished His will. Logos speaks to the intelligence in our Creator. Jesus was the brains behind the operation, not just the one who carried it out. Isn’t this exactly what we see when we look at the universe? The world attributes everything to random chance, but the Bible points to intelligent design. The universe is far too intricate to have been a coincidence or luckiness; our Lord—the Logos, the Word—put it together as only a sovereign God could.        

 

 

Augustine’s Pears

 

Have you ever stolen anything? If so, it was probably for a reason. A beggar steals food because he is hungry. A child steals candy because he wants to put that chocolate in his mouth. An addict steals anything of value to fund his habits. Others steal out of jealousy and a desire to have what others have. 

 

In his classic autobiography titled Confessions, Saint Augustine of Hippo recounted the time he stole some pears from another man’s tree. He was only sixteen years old, and many might dismiss his actions as a harmless teenage prank, but for Augustine, his theft revealed a deeper heart issue. Listen to how he would later describe this pivotal event in his life: “We carried off a huge load of pears, and after barely tasting some, fed the rest to hogs. We had no intention of eating the pears, but to simply steal them. This act pleased us because it was forbidden…I had no desire to enjoy what I had stolen, but to enjoy the theft and the sin itself.” 

 

Far from sweeping this petty crime under the rug, Augustine lamented, “Behold with what companions I walked the streets of Babylon!...I loved my own undoing…I had become to myself a wasteland.”  

 

Typically people steal to feed themselves or a habit. Augustine’s thievery accomplished no moral purpose. This was not a situational ethics case of arguing that the ends justified the means (Better to steal than starve to death). For Augustine, the act of stealing pears was symptomatic of a larger problem—that his heart was totally depraved and far from God. It mattered not whether he stole pears or pearls; the dollar amount was of no concern to God. 

 

His brutal honesty in assessing his fallen condition is what ultimately led to his salvation. As long as we insist that our sin is no big deal and try to downplay its seriousness (Relax, it’s just a few pears!), we will never come face to face with our own separation from a holy God and need of a Savior. Many who live in sin choose to view God as an officer of the law, someone who just waits for us to mess up so He can make the big bust. Augustine viewed God differently. He wrote of his Lord, “…as I recall in the bitterness of self-examination my wicked ways, that you may grow ever sweeter to me, You who are sweetness without deception! You are sweetness, happy and assured! You gathered me up out of those fragments in which I was torn to pieces while I turned away from you…”

 

The Bible is clear that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23),” and that “the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).” We will not make it to heaven by sinning less than other people, by sinning for noble causes, or by sinning in only minor infractions. It all comes down to your heart. The natural person—the one who has not yet been saved by grace—sins for sin’s sake. Sin is what sinners do. Is your heart a wasteland, or have you been saved? 

In God’s Time

 

We often say that God does things in His time, not ours. Because we live in time we want things to happen right now; there have been plenty of times in my life that I wanted God to do something, and I wanted it done yesterday. We live by time. We keep calendars and make notes in planners. We know what time to punch in and what time to go home. Every morning when the alarm clock goes off we are reminded that the time to wake up is now, otherwise we will be late. Things start on time, and when we travel we like to make good time. We cannot separate ourselves from time because it is all around us. That has always been the case for civilization. The ancients made sundials because time was important even when there was no clock. 

 

We operate in time, but God exists outside of time. In fact, God created time to help us. He existed before there was time, and during the days of creation, God introduced the concept of time with the first evening and morning forming a literal day. Many stories begins “Once upon a time,” but the Bible begins “In the beginning [of time],” and God was already there. The point is, we want things done in our time, but God exists outside of time. 

 

This would be easier to understand if we were Greek. While the English language has supplied us with but a single word for time, the Greek language has twice as many. One word is chronos, which is the word associated with our understanding of time. It refers to the time of day, and gives us our word for chronology, the sequence of time. The other word is kairos, which refers to special moments in time. Chronos is quantity of time, while kairos is quality of time. You and I are always concerned with chronos time, but God is concerned with kairos time. This is why Peter could write, “But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day (II Peter 3:8).” Similarly, this is why Jesus so often told people, including his human mother, that His time (kairos) had not yet come. It was not the divinely appointed time to act.

 

This is why Paul could write, “We look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal (II Corinthians 4:18).” The things that are seen are temporary (chronos), and the things that are invisible, or occurring in the heavenly realm, are eternal (kairos). There is only one time zone in heaven, and it is KST, Kairos Standard Time. 

God’s time is not about the words on the calendar or the hands on the clock. God’s time is about accomplishing His will at the precise time, and in His sovereign control, He is able to work things out perfectly, based on factors that you and I cannot see. We can only look back in time, but God has our future in mind. So right now, in this moment in time, you may be wishing God would hurry up and do something, and maybe you are wondering what is taking Him so long. God will do what is best in His will and will work all things out for good, but He is going to do it in His perfect time. The time has not yet come, but that doesn’t mean that it wont, so don’t lose hope.   

 

Mr. Irrelevant

 

The professional football world has bestowed a rather inglorious title upon the final person selected in the annual NFL draft. Since 1976 the last person drafted has been dubbed “Mr. Irrelevant” because, after seven rounds, there is almost no chance of the last player actually signing a contract and making any money. While being drafted is an honor, and being draft last has to beat not being drafted at all, there has to be a bit of embarrassment that goes with that moniker. Mr. Irrelevant is usually honored with a parade as an ironic statement of his new standing in the league. He will probably never be in a Super Bowl parade, so let’s let him have this one.  

 

South Carolina Gamecocks fans might remember the name Ryan Succop, the former place kicker for USC. As you might have guessed, he had the title of Mr. Irrelevant endowed upon him in 2009 when he was taken 256^thoverall by the Kansas City Chiefs. After four years with that franchise, and five with the Tennessee Titans, Succop made history this year when he won Super Bowl LV with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Yes, Succop is the first Mr. Irrelevant to play in and win a Super Bowl (1994 Mr. Irrelevant Marty Moore played in Super Bowl XXXI, but his New England Patriots lost to the Green Bay Packers).   

 

Succop didn’t just play in the big game, he was a major contributor. He made all four of his extra point attempts (12 of 13 in the playoffs) as well as his lone field goal attempt from fifty-two yards out (he was a perfect 9 for 9 in the playoffs). There is obviously nothing irrelevant about Succop’s talent. To add to the Cinderella story, he was playing with quarterback Tom Brady, who was famously drafted in the sixth round and has arguably become the greatest of all time at his position. 

 

There was a time when people may have snickered at Ryan Succop. “He’s irrelevant!” I even remember a few Clemson fans having a chuckle at his expense when he was branded with his new nickname. Succop drowned out the noise and made a nice twelve year career (and counting) for himself, which happens to include a Lombardi Trophy. Most of the people who called him irrelevant will never even see a Super Bowl trophy, let alone hoist one up in victory. The Bucs kicker is an example of why we should never let people define us. We have to drown out the naysayers and just keep working. 

 

Those hurtful names may come from other people, but they ultimately originate with the devil. His name literally means “the accuser,” and his favorite tactic is to tell us and God how bad we are. He reminds us of our shortcomings. We were drafted last. No one wants us. We will never contribute anything. 

 

We are sinful. We have let God down. Jesus could never love us. 

 

Satan may accuse us now, but we will have the last laugh. John was given a vision of a future day: “Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, ‘Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down (Revelation 12:10).’”

So don’t listen to him. When Satan says you are a failure, God says you are forgiven. 

When Satan says you are a loser, God says you are loved. 

When Satan says you are worthless, God says you are worth it. 

And when Satan says you are irrelevant, God says are significant.   

Amen and Awoman

 

Prayer has been a bedrock in our country since it was founded, and that includes using it to open each new session of Congress. It was nothing new when Representative Emanuel Cleaver was asked to open the 117^thCongress in prayer last January, but it was the final two words of the invocation that raised some eyebrows. Instead of the traditional amen, the Missouri democrat added the words “and awoman” to the end of his prayer (inasmuch as we can call “awoman” a word).

 

The reason for this inclusion was the new rule set by the Speaker of the House that eliminated what she calls gendered words. Words such as mother and father, son and daughter, and grandmother and grandfather have been banned in the House of Representatives, and Cleaver must have thought that the last three letters of amen made it a gendered word. By adding “and awoman” Cleaver attempted to include the other gender into his prayer.

 

Is this what we should all be doing? The last thing we want to do is exclude women from our prayers or from Christianity in general. In Orwellian fashion, are we now to add awoman to the eleventh addition of the Newspeak dictionary? Is it chauvinistic if we stick to the traditional “amen”? 

 

The m-e-n at the end of amen does not make it a gendered word any more than the m-a-n in the middle of Emanuel makes the congressman’s name gendered. Amen isn’t even English. It is the transliteration of the Hebrew word that means “verily, truly, or so be it.” It is a term of agreement. That is why a congregant may shout it out when he agrees with the preacher, and why a believer says it at the end of her prayers. When we close our petition with the word amen, we are asking God to make it so, hoping that He will grant our request.

 

That is why it is fitting that amen is the final word of the Bible, not just our prayers. Revelation 22:21 says “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.” The preceding verse says “Amen. Even so, come Lord Jesus!” In the context of the Bible’s final book, there is a big amen stamped across the bottom, verifying not only the Revelation of Jesus Christ, but the sixty-five books that come before John’s vision as well. More specifically, we say amen when Jesus promises to return for His church. We say amen when He promises to bind Satan and cast him into the lake of fire. We say amen when He promises to bring heaven to earth and establish His kingdom. We say amen when He promises there will be no more curse, and nothing unclean will ever enter the city. 

 

We say amen because we are agreeing with God that this is the best end, and that we want Him to come back quickly. We do not need to add a fake word, but both men and women can heartily say amen at the end of our prayers and God’s promises because our trust is settled in our living Lord. He always keeps His promises, and to that we can all say amen!