The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
“God’s Part, Our Part”
What is God’s part in our relationship with Him? What is our part?
The fatalist suggests we have no role in the relationship. Whether he believes in a divine being or some influence that governs all things, the fatalist perceives all events as resulting from an overriding determination that precludes any real response on the part of humanity. We may feel as if we have involvement in the course of things. Appearances surely seem to confirm. However, the fatalist affirms freedom as mere illusion in an existence wherein everything that occurs results from the determination of God, the gods, materialistic processes, or some force beyond our understanding. This explains the reason for many New Testament passages that address the deceptions of Greek gnosticism, which was generally fatalistic and suggested as illusion anything other than spiritual reality. “Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world” (I John 4:3).
Conversely, born again believers in the Lord Jesus first all to our knees and faces in wonder when the question of God’s part and our part comes to mind. We know He “works all things after the counsel of His own will” (Ephesians 1:11). We also know that countless events occur that He does not determine. “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man” (James 1:13). Indeed, believers often rightly affirm that our Lord controls all things. By this, we do not mean He causes all things, but rather that He coordinates all things for the glory of the Lord Jesus, the fulfillment of His will, and the furtherance of “the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Ephesians 1:11). This results in the awareness of vast mystery, leading to the realization that we love, trust, and serve a God whose “ways are past finding out” (Romans 11:33).
Only a weak and tawdry God would require absolute determination of all things to fulfill His purposes. Consider the dictators of human history, pathetic figures who seek absolute control of their populations in order to further evil purposes that could not be fulfilled otherwise. Or think of Satan, their master. If he could create, we can be sure he would require all that happens in his unfortunate domain to occur according to his precise dictates. In modern terms, his denizens would live in a simulation wherein existence might seem real and personal, but which would actually be nothing more than a controlled inevitability. The living and true God does not require such a pointed domination. He rather fulfills His purposes in the midst of granting and requiring freely willed choices to trust and obey Him in response to His working. Or not. How does He do this? How does His will coordinate with the wills of conscious beings, whose freedom He Himself created and granted? No one knows. We simply know that He is that wise, that knowing, that present, that involved, that able, that glorious, that active, and that loving in all things, while all the while requiring active response in us. “I am the LORD your God. Walk in My statutes, and keep My judgments, and do them” (Ezekiel 20:19).
An ancient lie guides the fatalist. “Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). Eternal truth guides the believer. “His understanding is infinite” (Psalm 147:5; emphasis added). The former believes he can fathom a reality so wondrous that eternity will not allow for more than a modicum of understanding. The latter wastes no time or mental effort seeking to know the unknowable. He rather seeks to trust God completely in the awareness of our complete need for His working, while actively and proactively using the freedom our Lord formed within us to make real relationship possible. The Psalmist knew this reality of a willed love, fulfilled by availing ourselves of the power of God: “I will love Thee, o Lord my strength!” (Psalm 18:1).
Moses closes our consideration with counsel that leads us to our knees and faces in utter wonder and dependence regarding God's part, and then raises us up to fulfill our part in the freedom of genuine and loving relationship with our wondrous Lord…
“The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”
(Deuteronomy 29:29)
Weekly Memory Verse
The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
(Deuteronomy 29:29)
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