God loves. Because He loves, He is pulling all toward Himself: the willing and the shy, the miserable and the hated, the sad and the released. He is also pulling the others: the proud, the satisfied, those who are drunk on their money or their sex or anything else. But the others do not listen: they resist, pulling away and being pulled away.
God hates. He hates lying. He hates murder. He hates cheating. He hates stealing. He hates fornication of all sorts, whether it be devotion to money, or sex outside of that true Marriage which He made in the beginning, or anything else which satisfies people only in very personal urges, desires, dreams, and ways.
God listens. He listens to everyone who talks to Him wanting His way for their lives: He listens to everyone wanting to repent of their ways, wanting Him to replace their ways with His ways.
God chooses not to listen. He closes His ears to everyone who talks to Him demanding that He respect them, their family, their past, their nation, their privileges, their way of life. He closes His ears to all denial of His total power and right and knowledge of all things, every single thing which occurs and does not occur in heaven and earth. He has all power and all knowledge of every thing, from petals of daisy to bullet of gun, and there is nothing outside of His hands.
God gives. When any man or woman or child or beast on the face of the earth eats, or drinks, it is because God has given that food and that drink. All things, all human beings, and everything else, exists, persists, and are able to do anything we do, because God has decided to give us enough solidity, enough energy, enough of everything that makes it possible. Freedom is also something He may give. And He deserves and shall receive all true glory.
God takes away. There is no force, and there is no existence, apart from the deliberate and willful power of God. When He decides to take something away, from a child or an adult or a city or a nation or this world, it is taken. When He decides that something shall not be taken away, no one can, for He is God.
God does very violent and radical things in word and in deed. He kills single human beings, makes whole families miserable, and He has and in the future will destroy whole nations.
And God does wonderful conversation. He speaks sometimes as a still small voice. He speaks sometimes in a loud voice which cannot be shouted out. He speaks in holy words written long ago, and attracts our attention to them, and changes our mind instantly so we cannot do other than know that they apply to our moment. He gives tiny gifts, and huge inundations of goodnesses, and everything in between, both unexpected and expected, interactively, at all times. He is God.
There is none like Him. But if we are willing, He will transform us to become more like Him, as He cleanses us from the loves of this world, as He renews our minds.
Jonathan Brickman
Please do email me!
jeb@christian-oneness.org
Some Thoughts on God Reaching Out |
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The Top | The Church Today |
a site with some great reading and also videos |
Of Christ a new Space on Quora |
Recent writings from Ian Johnson |
a message in the mission |
Truly excellent Biblical archaeology on YouTube and an excellent book |
Using Computers and the Internet to Facilitate the Great Commission |