Cadences of God

As has been noticed by more than a few people, today is the 50th anniversary of the greatest marketing disaster in automotive history. Fifty years ago today, the Edsel was launched by Ford. It last three years, which by most accounts was three years too long. It was proclaimed before it’s arrival as the greatest innovation in the history of cars, but was nothing new. It’s only two innovations were it’s ungle grill and it’s push button transmission which caused people to flip into reverse when they went to honk their horns. It was a complete flop.

There are more than a few things we can learn from the disaster that was the Edsel. But here is just one: Ford is still around. Yes, the lesson is that we all make mistakes. Sometimes we make major, gigantic, huge mistakes. So be it. Such is life. Get up, dust yourself off, and move on. If God did not bring you down, then He still has some piece of business for you to be about. Get on with it.

In 1 Kings 19, Elijah goes to mount Horeb and prays: “I have had enough, LORD . . . Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” When God appears and asks Elijah what he is doing in Horeb (as oppose to Israel?) the prophet complains: “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

But God answers harshly, “Go back the way you came”. Disasters and fiascoes in our lives are not the sort of thing which hinders God and God would not have them hinder us. If anything, God seems to be impatient when we spend too much time wallowing in our misery. If we are still around, God has something for us to do and - while he will allow us a moment of pity - he then wants us to do what we were supposed to be doing all along.

Tags: Discipleship by Administrator
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There are some people who are upset about the notion of the “Lord-hood” (to coin an ugly phrase) of God. In a world that has become so democratic and egalitarian, the very notion of someone being a Lord over another seems barbaric and backwards. It seems the very opposite of what God would ever want, or even should want.

The problem with this objection is that it fails to understand God as God reveals Godself to humanity in Jesus Christ. What is odd about this problem is that the very instrument to overcome this misperception about God is found in the most conservative of churches who consistently fail to see it, while the liberal churches who would look for it are theological ill-equipped to discover it.

God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ reveals that God is the Lord who made heaven and earth but chooses to be the servant of that creation and the redeemer of that creation to the point of self-death.

God is the Lord who shows us what earthly lords ought to be, not what they are. God empties Godself to weakness and oblivion. He does not puts earthly lords to shame by being more brutal and powerful and arbitrary than they. God washes the feet of his friends, gentle kneels at their feet, and offers his life for me and for you.

Tags: Sovereignty of God by Administrator
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One day after another, I hear about the collapse of the housing loan market. I hear about the banks and the financial lending institutions which are collapsing and unable the meet the pressures of their defaulting loans.

Is there anyone out there who has heard a single story about the people, the actual flesh and blood people, who were duped into these non-fixed mortgages and whose lives are no ruined as a result?

Why do we care so much about the banks and so little about the people who were ruined by these banks?

If we believe that “the LORD will maintain the cause of the afflicted, and justice for the poor” (Psalm 140) and is “a defense for the helpless, a defense for the needy in his distress” (Isa. 25) and that the poor are the heirs of the kingdom of God (Luke 6:20-21), then how do we stand by like nothing is happening to these people?

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Redemption cost nothing to humans and everything to God. This is the message of the cross, pure and simple. We human beings were helpless and unable to effect our salvation in any way at all. God, who had the means, took up our cause in the the death of Jesus Christ and redeemed us with the price of divinity’s death that no human could offer.

If as Christians we know nothing else, it should be this: God has everything and we have nothing. There is nothing that we have done to deserve our love by God. And God does not waver in love the way so many humans can.

And this is as it should be. Because, if the love of God were something that we could effect in some way, then it would be possible to lose it. If there was something I had to do to get the love of God, then I might stop doing it and lose the love of God. But since God loves me (and you) without price, there can never be any fear that is founded on anything.

We are beggars with empty hands before a Lord who every morning drops a billion dollars into our bowls.

Tags: Sovereignty of God by Administrator
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