THE ANSWER IS CLEAR

We live in times when God is hated, denied, considered irrelevant, or simply ignored.  And yet, we act shocked at the daily news reports of the violence in the world.  Nations fight nations, people fight people, dignity and respect are denied to many labeled unworthy, the needs of many people are considered irrelevant, and the cries of the poor and needy are ignored.

The Bible is not only a testimony of God and the world He created.  It is also a record of human beings and the world we have created and continue to create.  From the beginning until the end the Bible reveals the conflict between God’s nature and human nature; God’s wisdom and human wisdom; Spirit and flesh; between those who believe and obey God and those who don’t.

God’s sovereignty and love for His creation is faithful and true throughout the whole book.  But so is mankind’s hatred of God and inhumanity to mankind when left to its own devising. The culmination of that hatred and inhumanity was the crucifixion of God’s own Son on the cross.  Human beings acting in their own human nature and human wisdom condemned and killed a man they found no fault in; a man they pronounced as innocent.

How much more vivid a picture could there be?  How much more vivid a lesson could there be?  Some had eyes to see and ears to hear.  Many did not and in their own human nature and wisdom turned on those who did and acted with great violence against them.  All but one of the Apostles were murdered and all of those who believed in God were forced to live under the terror of persecution.  But that is not the end of God’s sovereign and redemptive plan.

The thing that amazes me is that God never gives up.  He sends the Holy Spirit to continue the work, to show us the Way, to offer the life we were created to live, not by our human nature and wisdom but His nature and wisdom.  He sends His Holy Spirit to guide us into all Truth, the Truth that glorifies His Son Jesus Christ and leads us into the Kingdom of God where we will dwell with God forever.

May we have eyes to see and ears to hear, to know and understand that human nature and wisdom lead to destruction and death but God’s nature and wisdom lead us to Life everlasting.