Children Born of God by God and for God

There is a distinct sense of gratefulness which comes at unexpected moments in the course of seminary. This morning was one of those moments. Being taught and equipped in the Greek language has a great deal of responsibility to it. I'm not learning this language to benchmark myself as more spiritual or better able to access the "real" Word of God. I've been given this opportunity to learn Greek in order to use it for equipping and teaching others the gifts and the treasures which are found in the original New Testament language. There is a sense of responsibility and gratefulness which comes when we realize that the opportunities and gifts which God gives us are to be used so much further beyond ourselves.

As my brain begins the aging process of shutting down and the amount of cells dying each day becomes exponential, I thought it would be helpful to remain in the Greek everyday in order to at least give some life-support to the cells that are still hanging on for dear life (and still hanging on to my beginning Greek). I spent this morning in John 1:12-13 looking at the Greek. What I saw there gave me a clear picture of this responsibility and gratefulness.

In this passage John is writing to remind the people of God that their adopted position before him is conceived and founded in the will of God and not in anything they bring to the table (their genetics, family line, self-discipline or self-will). We are children of God because He says we are children of God. In the birth of my sons, they didn't enter the world thinking "Cool. I'm glad I made this happen." They come into the world completely and utterly dependent on the the ones who have given birth to them. The verb John uses of "being born" is both in the Aorist tense (it happened at a distinct point in time) and the passive voice (it happened to us rather than by us). We have been born children of God because God made it so. What a privilege and an honor to be made His own child on His own will for His own glory. Thank you, Father.

"Not what my toiling flesh has borne can make my spirit whole."

This is Our God

After wading through, or rather trying desperately to keep my head above water, one of our books for this semester - Reformed Dogmatics (even the title makes me want to apologetically put a brown paper book cover on it) - my expectation was to finish the book with some understanding of at least the gist of it. I had no expectation that God would use a book, so dense and thick for this sparse and casual brain, to reveal Himself. Reveal Himself in way this brain could understand. That was basically the thrust of the book. God, infinite and incomprehensible, reveals Himself to His creatures, finite and limited, in ways in which we are able to understand.

Within His word we are able to begin to formulate our understanding of Him not through studying Who He is (which is ultimately impossible for us) but rather what He does (which is tangible to us). For example, when we see God deliver His people, Israel out of Egypt, we begin to form an understanding of God as Deliverer. When we see Him pull Joseph out of a death pit and into a king's presence, we see Him as Rescuer.

But what I didn't expect was, during worship last week, to use this same line of thinking in understanding God when it comes to the cross. The cross, at the center of the sanctuary's front wall, became a vivid reminder to me of not only what Jesus had done for us (which is typically the phraseology I use for the cross) but one of the boldest definitions and understandings of Who God is. As Christ is on display crucified, we see who God is. God is just. God is wrathful. God is humble. God is mercy. God is pursuer. God is rescuer. God is deliverer. God is perfecter.
God is King. God is love. At the intersection of the cross we see Jesus, through His actions declaring loud and clear "this is our God."