Friday, May 11, 2012

Beliefs



I scratch my head and wondered how to understand Romans 8:28 could possibly be for my good. In the Bible, divine sovereignty and human responsibility are not enemies and that we need to embrace the paradox of God's sovereignty and our responsibility. Reading Ecclesiastes explains that "History repeats itself in every generation." Reading Ecclesiastes have reminded me that people have been taking "life" for granted. There's a right time and way for everything. It's true that no one knows what's going to happen, or when. Life leads to death that life, while it lasts, will soon be over. I believe that God is greater than my “if onlys.” His providential hand encompasses the whole of my life, not just the good days but the “bad” days too. Even though, in this world, we have the word accident in our vocabulary; God does not. Nothing is a surprise to God; nothing is a setback to His plans. He were not sovereign, He would not be God.

God often comforts me with His grace, not by changing the circumstances of my life, but by changing my attitude toward them. My life’s experiences taught me that my good feelings may come, or they may not, that whether or not I honor God by the way I respond to my circumstances.  God is omniscient and knows everything. He has known everything from the beginning. Nothing is a surprise to God, nor does He ever come into possession of new knowledge. God’s plan for us is not based upon our decisions and actions. It includes our foolish decisions as well as our wise ones. Though He most often uses them, He is not dependent upon them. At the same time, I have to understand God’s sovereignty control my every steps like a puppet while at the same time understanding my freedom to the point of limiting God’s sovereignty. I often question God’s sovereignty because I do not understand what God is doing.  God’s sovereignty and my freedom together is a paradox and I cannot ever make any attempts to explain the relationship of the two wills.  God is at work in all the circumstances of my life to bring out the good for me, even if I had never heard of Romans 8:28.  To understand Romans 8:28, I must realize that God is at work in a proactive, not reactive, fashion. That is, God does not just respond to an adversity in my life to make the best of a bad situation.

We think we are standing on principle when in reality we may be only insisting on our opinion. Sometimes the majority only means that all the fools are on the same side. Right and wrong are judged on the basis of subjective human feelings. Emotions are a wonderful gift from God. And our relationship with God should bring to our lives strong godly affections. However, our emotions shouldn’t be vested with final authority. This should be reserved for God’s Word alone.  The Holy Spirit contains our minds and our emotions. Our emotions should never be allowed to rule over our minds.  We must seek to let the truth of God rule our minds. The Holy Spirit is the Author of the Book that informs us of the identity of the real, historical Jesus. Scripture works hard to set forth the real Christ. To the Christian, doctrine is unavoidable. Ours is never a choice between doctrine and no doctrine, but between sound doctrine and false doctrine.

If we do not listen to theology, that will not mean we have no ideas about God, rather it will mean we have a lot of wrong ones.  Theological ignorance won’t take us very far, at least not in the right direction. Excitement uninformed by truth invariably leads either to idolatry or fanaticism.  A Christian is known not only by what he believes or affirms, but also by what he rejects and denies.

 I like this quote: "If God is not in some sense responsible for bad things, then he is not responsible for good things either. If we do not "blame" God for death, we should not praise God for life. We cannot have it both ways." Joseph Hill

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