This is our world. Whether we like it or not, it is what it is. We live in a world where there is illness, deception, suicide, and murder. The world we live in is filled with heart disease, autoimmune disease, and cancer. The world we live in has unfaithful marriages, greedy bankers, and shifty pedophiles. The world we live in has desperate people who have been bullied to a point of insanity or have let substance abuse take control that the thought of living is unbearable. The world we live in has people who would rather kill and destroy than reconcile and submit to one another. It is a place where a man can open fire on a defenseless crowd or bomb a building full of unsuspecting people. Whether we chose it or not, whether we like it or not, whether we believe it or not, this is our world.
How do we go from a world, where God says it is VERY GOOD, to a world where we cry daily, “Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus!” The problem began where sin entered the world through the beginning of mankind and continues today. Too many times we define sin as the things we do wrong that are against God’s rules or will. That is a portion of sin. The actual word in Greek means to “miss the mark”. But are we missing the mark of the rule or are we missing the mark of what it means to live for God? Obviously, Adam and Eve broke a rule. Obviously, we break rules often (God’s and otherwise). However, what if sin is just as much a state of being as it is an action. What if the action is actually the manifestation of where we are with God in general? Maybe sin is being distanced from God and the God-life. Maybe sin is being and thinking and acting more human than divine. I’m not trying to say we are divine, but we are in a relationship with the divine. We often lose sight of that and forget whose we are and why we chose God in the first place.
If sin is a choice, then so is holiness. We get up every morning and live our daily life making constant choices to choose God. And sometimes we don’t. Those are the small pictures. The small pictures make up the big picture. The big picture is as a general rule of life; we choose God. Both reflections are needed. I would hate for us to get so caught up in the daily that we lose sight of the lifelong journey. I would hate for us to get so caught up in the big picture that we forget what the daily call of God can do within our lives.
One of the biggest problems with the brokenness of this world is that the innocent are always affected along with the guilty. Just think about those in scripture who either lost their life or their city or their fortune, simply because evil was present. Today is no different. Innocent people are affected by the guilty. God doesn’t think this is good! And everyone who experiences pain and tragedy isn’t evil or far from God. It is not people’s individual sin that wreaks havoc in the world. It is the overall evil that exist in the world…a spiritual battle where evil is trying to push the divine out of the picture altogether. It is not a fight over us as if we are that important, but rather it is a fight around us and even if we don’t want to believe it, the battle is affecting us and we are in this for God and His kingdom purposes.
God hates evil and it cannot be in his sight. Therefore God longs just like we long for the end when He will restore every piece of creation to better than its original state. He longs to make the grass greener, animals livelier, and humans divine. It will come in the end, but until then we live for God on this journey surrounded by brokenness with exclamations that He, God, is VERY GOOD and MARANATHA, COME LORD JESUS! We must live in the now, and for the not yet!
How do we go from a world, where God says it is VERY GOOD, to a world where we cry daily, “Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus!” The problem began where sin entered the world through the beginning of mankind and continues today. Too many times we define sin as the things we do wrong that are against God’s rules or will. That is a portion of sin. The actual word in Greek means to “miss the mark”. But are we missing the mark of the rule or are we missing the mark of what it means to live for God? Obviously, Adam and Eve broke a rule. Obviously, we break rules often (God’s and otherwise). However, what if sin is just as much a state of being as it is an action. What if the action is actually the manifestation of where we are with God in general? Maybe sin is being distanced from God and the God-life. Maybe sin is being and thinking and acting more human than divine. I’m not trying to say we are divine, but we are in a relationship with the divine. We often lose sight of that and forget whose we are and why we chose God in the first place.
If sin is a choice, then so is holiness. We get up every morning and live our daily life making constant choices to choose God. And sometimes we don’t. Those are the small pictures. The small pictures make up the big picture. The big picture is as a general rule of life; we choose God. Both reflections are needed. I would hate for us to get so caught up in the daily that we lose sight of the lifelong journey. I would hate for us to get so caught up in the big picture that we forget what the daily call of God can do within our lives.
One of the biggest problems with the brokenness of this world is that the innocent are always affected along with the guilty. Just think about those in scripture who either lost their life or their city or their fortune, simply because evil was present. Today is no different. Innocent people are affected by the guilty. God doesn’t think this is good! And everyone who experiences pain and tragedy isn’t evil or far from God. It is not people’s individual sin that wreaks havoc in the world. It is the overall evil that exist in the world…a spiritual battle where evil is trying to push the divine out of the picture altogether. It is not a fight over us as if we are that important, but rather it is a fight around us and even if we don’t want to believe it, the battle is affecting us and we are in this for God and His kingdom purposes.
God hates evil and it cannot be in his sight. Therefore God longs just like we long for the end when He will restore every piece of creation to better than its original state. He longs to make the grass greener, animals livelier, and humans divine. It will come in the end, but until then we live for God on this journey surrounded by brokenness with exclamations that He, God, is VERY GOOD and MARANATHA, COME LORD JESUS! We must live in the now, and for the not yet!
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