The Mind of Brian

Pardon my slacking, but we finished Knowledge of the Holy this week and I am finally posting on it.  The last chapter is called, “The Open Secret.”  In this chapter, Tozer talks about how the knowledge of the holy God has been opened to us through His revelation.  This is what have explored in the book, but it is a short book   We discussed some of the things that stood out to us:  looking at his love and grace in new ways (how it is tied to our sin), seeing how all the attributes fit together, reminders of his sovereignty, but also our choices, seeing Him as a person, not just a concept. 

The journey continues, and for us, it journeys without the same sort of explicit reflection on the character and attributes of God, so we need to figure out how we can continue to grow in the knowledge of God after this book.  Tozer mentions six things to do to continue on this journey: 1) Forsake sin, 2) Commit our lives to Christ, 3) Reckon that we are dead to sin and alive to Christ, 4) Say no to the cheap values of the world, 5) have loving and long meditation on God and His majesty, and 6) Serve others…which restarts these too, as it usually causes us to see our sin.

We sang some songs about the person and character of God (the Love of God, Indescribable) and songs that looked at this character and called for response (The Deep, Deep Love of Jesus; Take My Life).  We prayed for each other, as we are in this journey to know God together, remembering that God is for us in this too (Phil 2:12-13) and that we are being conformed to his image (Romans 8:28-30…but keep on reading cause it is awesome too)!

Next up for our small group:  Selections from the Psalms

Almost done with Knowledge of the Holy!  This week, the two sections were on the holiness and sovereignty of God.  We looked at Isaiah 6 and saw that the holiness of God causes us to see the sin in our world and, first and foremost, in our lives.  We only experience this holiness when we see God’s self-revelation of Himself; it is a new way of looking that is not natural.  This holiness is different from simply having awe because it points to our unworthiness and the need to eliminate sin.  We are called to be holy because God is holy (1 Peter 1:16; Lev 11:44, 45; 19:2).  However, this is not to be holy as God is holy, as that is impossible.  But we must seek holiness, eliminating sin and aligning ourselves with God’s purposes.  This means we will try to be holy in an unholy world, which will be tough.  We also have to be holy without being “holier than thou.”  It comes in our attitude.  This idea of seeking holiness is important as we move to the sovereignty of God.  The sovereignty gives us great confidence, as we see a God who cares for us and interacts with us.  One of the “problems” with sovereignty is that it seems to eliminate our choice…but Tozer presented an analogy of a boat; its destination is fixed but how you live while you get there is up to you.  This analogy breaks down, but we must remember that His sovereignty and our choices go together.  That is, we make real choices (just like a rock is hard or water is wet, so we make choices by our design).  Therefore, our choices should seek the holiness and goodnes of God.  It gives us confidence, but gives us a choice.  Will we choose to be holy?

This week we looked at the Grace and Love of God.  The group as a whole seemed to agree with the statement, “While two of the most popular attributes of God, these are also two of the most misunderstood and abused attributes of God.” People love grace and they love love, but they sometimes worship them instead of the God of grace and love.  So, how do we get a true view of these two.

Grace is connected but a little different than mercy, as all attributes are one but we break them down to help us understand them.  Grace is God’s act upon us who do not have merit; mercy moves God to act, grace is how He acts and responds to our need.  While it is ultimately seen in Christ, that is just the big act of grace, as the whole Bible is God acting in grace.  Grace excludes works because it excludes merit (Romans 11:6; Ephesians 2:4-9).  And we see that grace is infinite.  Therefore, when we see commands to grow in grace (2 Peter 3:18) and be strong in grace (2 Timothy 2:1), we realize that this is our own understanding of God’s infinite grace.  It means that we are seeing our sin more, but we see grace even more.

Moving to love, we see that God’s grace is an act of love (Romans 5:8).  But what is love?  We looked to 1 John 4:7-21 to see that love is something that acts on behalf of others.  And when we see love acting for us, we then are able to cast out fear.  When we truly experience the love of God, we do not have anything to fear.  But we have all sorts of fears!  A way to see our growth in love is our growth in the areas of fear.  When we think of love as the sacrifice for the good of others, we see what it means to love others (John 13:35) and love God (Matthew 22:37-38).  The sacrifice does not bring merit but shows the love.

This week in our study of Knowledge of the Holy, I did something unexpected–I did not lead the discussion, but left that to my good friend Jonathan.  I realized that this is something I should do more often–let other voices dominate the guiding of the discussion.  If nothing else, it lets other sorts of questions be asked.  Once again, trying to make sure that I show that I truly beleive in the plurality of ministry (thank you John Calvin!).  Here is how my co-laboerer and brother-in-Christ lead our discussion of the faithfulness and goodness of God.

Before we directly talked about the faithfulness of God, we talkd about the unfaithfulness of humanity–what does that look like and who does that affect?  We see unfaithfulness all around the world, from marriage to ministry to life in general, and it affects both the unfaithfuler and the unfaithfulee (I just made those up!).  However, the faithfulness of humanity leads to the faithfulness of God as in 2 Timothy 2:11-13.  This idea of faithfulness connects to other attributes (like immutability) as it shows that He remains faithful to who He is.  Faithfuless is God keeping His Word, which means that He makes promises and fulfills them–willingly!  He has chosen to be faithful (and good).  When it seems like God might not be faithful to our eyes, we need to remember that, like in Narnia, God has a “deeper way” and that this way is tied to His character–nothing outside hinders Him!  A worshipping heart sees this.  How have we seen God’s faithfulness?  It allows us to see it continuing into the future; we have steadfast hope.  In moving to the goodness of God, we see that it is His kindness, benevolence, good will towards the world.  Goodness isn’t being a pushover but having a “good nature” out of the “goodness of his heart.”  We may take it for granted, we may not realize it all the time, but God is the definition of goodness (and the lack of the goodness is badness).  Finally, though, we must remember that His goodness is not manuiplative; it is not based on our merit and we cannot manuiplate it.  Though in some ways, the true goodness of God is Himself–knowing Him.

This week, in Bible study we looked at the wisdom of God and the omnipotence of God (power).  As we study God and His person, we want to do so both vertically (how it affects our relationship with Him) and horizontally (how it affects our live and interaction with each other).   Wisdom of God, we defined as being “His having the best goals and the best means to achieve those goals.”  That is, God knows what is best and does what is best.  We must acknowledge that His way of wisdom might be beyond us at times (1 Corinthians 1:18-31, Romans 11:33), as He is truly the “only wise God.”  But yet he invites us to ask him for wisdom (James 1:15).  We must fear Him to find wisdom (Proverbs 9:10); that is, wisdom comes from belief in Him.  At times, we will not know why what He chooses is best, but we do know it.   We must not expect everything to make sense; some incidents might be like Joseph, who sees why he was in Egypt, but others might be like Job, who nevers gets an answer.

As we consider that the wise God is omnipotent, we want to think of omnipotence in different categories than we might usually consider it.  That is, we usually think of it as “God can do everything.”  While Scripture points us to that (Luke 1:37; Mark 10:27; Jeremiah 32:17), we know that God cannot lie (Titus 1:2) or sin (James 1:13)…and we don’t even want to talk about the “Can God make a rock so big He can’t lift?” question.  The key to consider omnipotence is in Isaiah 14:27, Job 42:2, Daniel 4:35–God is able to do His holy will, and nothing stops Him.  He does not do things that are outside of His will; He has a plan and is able to do His plan.  The wise God is able to do what He wants!  What might this mean horizontally for us?  We have power too, though not omnipotent.  This power, though, is meant to be used in wisdom, to have God’s will be done.

So, we should trust God in the dark places of life, knowing that he knows best and is able to do what is best.  But we also should order our lives with wisdom, so that we use our power wisely.  For more on that, looks to Ephesians 5:15-17 and Colossians 4:5.

This post is a bit late, but last week, we talked about the immutability and omniscience of God.  Now, how do these doctrines fit together?  And perhaps more importantly, what the heck is immutability (it means not changing, as in no mutations!).  And why are these important for our lives?  Well, when we consider that God does not change and that God does not learn, it should point us once again to turn to God in all of our troubles, as He will not change.  There are passages that might seem to have God changing (Moses’ prayer on Mt. Sinai, Jonah and Nineveh, King Saul), but remember, those are situations where 1) the situation changes (people repent, intercede, etc.) and 2) where God changes for the “better.”  That is, we do not have a God that loves us and then turns our backs on us, but a God who, yes, will punish sin but, more importantly, forgives us when we turn to him in repentance because of what Christ has done for us.  Therefore, we can turn to him in confidence that he will forgive us.

But we look at God as the creator, as a unique one.  He does not change or learn–but we do.  Which begs the question, “How are we changing?  What are we learning?”  And when we think about that, the one who “knows all,” including Himself, is God alone.  So as we learn and change, we must turn to the Him.  Therefore, knowledge of His immutability and omniscience prompts us, yes, to trust in Him, but also, to learn from Him.  Amen.