God’s Promises
Late at night I often sit awake and wonder about God. I think about God all day long anyway, but at night is when it is most intriguing—and disturbing. I force myself, sometimes unintentionally; to the brink of my knowledge and understanding until I’ve no option left but to bow before Him and say, “Great is Your glory!” Only so far can the intellect go before it wears out and gives way to outstanding awe. When the Bible declares that our God is an awesome God, it is not exaggerating. Let me tell you why, in four major acts of kindness on God’s part.
There is an infinitely powerful, intelligent, knowledgeable, wise, good, holy, loving, righteous, just and perfect being who English folk often refer to as God (also: Lord, Jehovah, and The Guy Upstairs). Though God is just a translation of His revealed name of Yahweh (also a translation of His revealed name in Hebrew), God is His name. God is simply a name meaning “I AM”, if you go back far enough. Typically, it refers to Him being supreme over everything else. So when you say to God, “God,” you’re admitting His supremacy.
Now, observe: this being that we address as God can do anything He pleases. He is above the universe. He is above science—science only deals with the universe and since God made the universe, He made science as well. Logic can explain God, but only as far as our intellects can go and no further. This being can do anything! No more oxygen for us to breathe? Well, we’re dead. No more sun to keep us warm? Well, we freeze. No more—you get the picture? If God can do anything He wants with us, then we ought to first sit down and say, “Well gee God, thanks for what you haven’t done to me.” I, for one, actually do that on an almost-daily basis.
Consider this! This God didn’t have to make anything. He’s fine on His own; He’s His own source of life and power. He’s the First Cause, the Uncaused. He never began and will never end, since He’s outside of time—since time only applies to the universe, and He made the universe. So what’s anybody got that He needs? And so God’s first act of kindness to all: to create. God created, and since He is perfect, He created perfect. God’s world, God’s universe, was flawless.
Except for one thing that some would indeed call a flaw: free will. God has a free will, the ability to choose what He wants. And so He replicated that. He gave it to mankind. The first humans had it, we have it, and according to God and the Bible, and our own consciences, we consistently rebel against God. When God says not to lie, we lie. Not to steal, we steal. Not to lust, we lust (which God equates with adultery). When not to hate, we hate (which God equates with murder). God calls this sin, lawlessness, rebelliousness, wickedness, an abomination, etc. etc. etc.
God’s second act of kindness: Not instantly wiping us out when we lashed out at Him. He could’ve.
And now this God, looking at us, says, “I love them.” We spit at Him, we use His name as a curse word, and we ignore Him. We hate Him. We rebel against Him. And He says, “I love them.” More than that, He says, “I am love!”
God’s third act of kindness: Redeeming us.
He didn’t have to, you know. When He says that sinners, those who sin, us, go to Hell and are punished because we deserve to be punished, He means it. When He says the wicked will die, He means it. And when He says that we have no hope of saving ourselves from the punishment He declares all who do wickedly deserve (and He can do whatever He wants, and yet He’s fair and righteous!), He means it. But when He says He loves us, He also means it. And when He says that He doesn’t want to punish us, He means it. And so He says, “I will fix this. I will make it right. I will take your punishment for you so that you don’t have to.” And He does. He becomes a man. He fulfills prophecies, hundreds, words that He spoke through people hundreds of years before—He does them, fits them to a ‘T’. He proves Himself to be Himself. He lives a sinless human life. And then He dies a sinless human death, but not a natural one.
No, the being we call God is murdered. He does not stop existing, He is not physical—but He has taken physical form, and His body has died. He has died, but He lives. Some call it deicide—the homicide of the deity. And it is true, that is what it was. Deicide! But, planned deicide.
For in three days, God rises physically again in the same body and declares that He is alive! By dying for us, He has defeated sin and the punishment of Hell. By rising, He defeats death, and no longer is it permanent for those who come to Him in faith. He says, “Come!”
God’s fourth act of kindness: Heaven. Not a cloudy, boring, idiotic place—like it’s often displayed. It is Earth, a New Earth, perfected as it was. No more death, pain, sorrow, or sadness. Perfect happiness here abides, in God’s fourth act of kindness toward man.
In the beginning, God promised goodness.
God keeps all of His promises.
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