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| Vol. 13 No. 5 May 2011 | Page 7 |
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| Vol. 13 No. 5 May 2011 | Page 7 |
Editor's Note
Marilyn LaStrape
When our cars, computers/copiers, appliances, etc. break down, we are not always able to fix them. If we cannot put them back in working order, we sometimes will call people we know. If they cannot help us, we may go to a repair shop. In some cases, we may even take or send the product back to the manufacturer for a refund or a replacement. This concept is known, accepted and practiced by virtually all of us in our day-to-day living.
God knows and understands more about us than we will ever know about ourselves! We will die not fully knowing what “made us tick”! How many times have we been asked the simple question: “Why did you do that?” or “What made you do that?” and our response is, “I don’t know.” So when our spiritual, emotional, intellectual or physical well being starts to break down, no matter by whom or what, we need to go back to the One who made us!
Sadly, for far too many of us, this is a fundamental unknown. We are all ignorant, just on different subjects. To be willfully ignorant of Who God is as He has revealed Himself to us in Scripture, and how it is that He deals with us, could not have a more tragic, eternal outcome!
There are countless differences between God and us – between the way He thinks, talks, sees and acts, and the way we think, talk, see and act. Isaiah 55:6-9 makes this profound truth unmistakably clear and emphatic.
Seek the LORD while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, and He will have mercy on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”
God is warning us that to believe He is like us will be to our utter dismay!
First Samuel 16:7b gives us insight into how God sees and the way we see. “For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” Second Chronicles 16:9a further reiterates this truth about God. “For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him.”
The way God has revealed Himself to us as His creation in how He thinks, talks, sees and acts is unparalleled! Through King David, the 23 verses of Psalm 50 defy any sane response of contradiction. Verse one forthrightly declares, “The Mighty One, God the LORD, has spoken and called the earth from the rising of the sun to its going down.”
Verses 4-6 announce, “He shall call to the heavens above, and to the earth, that He may judge His people. Gather My saints together to Me, those who have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice. Let the heavens declare His righteousness, for God Himself is Judge.”
Verse 12 reminds us that God is never in need or want of anything. “If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for the world is Mine, and all its fullness.” This is in stark contrast to our humanity with all its limitations, necessities and weaknesses of the flesh.
In verse 15, God extends His lovingkindness and tender mercies to the righteous. “Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.” Please note God does not qualify the kind or the extent of the trouble in which we may find ourselves.
Verses 16-17 put the wicked on notice. “But to the wicked God says: ‘What right have you to declare My statutes, or take My covenant in your mouth, seeing you hate instruction and cast My words behind you?’” Does that put it between the eyes or what? God just calls out all unbelieving, irreverent folks!
God continues His scathing rebuke to the wicked for their moral corruption in verses 18-20. Verse 21 will cause any serious minded person to sit up and take notice. “These things you have done, and I kept silent; You thought that I was altogether like you [such a one as yourself], but I will rebuke you, and set them in order before your eyes.” Countless billions have made and continue to make the mistake of believing that God is somebody that can be bought, bribed, bargained with and/or brought down to their level of thinking, talking, seeing and acting!
In the English Standard Version, verses 22-23 proclaim, “Mark this, then, you who forget God, lest I tear you apart, and there be none to deliver! The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies Me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God!” Even with this stern rebuke, God being God, gives all that will the opportunity to turn to Him in submissive obedience.
God’s ability in knowing us is almost more than the human mind can envision. Scripture is replete with that message. Psalm 139:1-6 states that unalterable truth in a most magnificent way!
O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thoughts afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O LORD, You know it altogether. You have enclosed me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it.
Those six verses alone challenge the thinking capacity of the most learned among us! They reveal how thoroughly God knows us!
To the church at Corinth, Paul wrote to them in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” God has the answer to all of our problems, dilemmas, and stresses.
If we need to establish the saving relationship with our Creator, we must go back to Him who made us. If we want to maintain and strengthen that saving relationship with our Creator, we must live in submissive, trusting, obedient faith all the days of our lives. If we need to reestablish that relationship, which has been severed through our self-willed, self-seeking, self-serving purposes, we must go back to the One who made us. God could not love or care for us more because He is God!