God is Constant

He is perfect; He doesn’t need to change...

I once worked with a guy who always wanted to debate "religion" with me. He didn't know God personally, but he wanted to convince me that he knew plenty about God, and how everyone else had the subject completely wrong. Our conversations didn't typically last very long because it's really difficult to try to describe the most amazing relationship imaginable to someone when the other person is attempting to prove that the one you are relating to adheres to his own personal religious formula. Can you imagine this happening in other relational introductions?

"Hey, Joe, meet my wife Elizabeth. I love her very much, and she loves me in return even when I don't deserve it."

"You know, Craig, I hate to break it to you, but your wife doesn't exist. She's a figment of your imagination, created to fulfill your felt needs."

Or

"Craig, let me explain to you the fine details of your wife. I don't have a relationship with her, but I think I can school you pretty well on what she's like and how she responds in any given situation."

Yeah, Joe and I shared some real heart to hearts about God. He would end every conversation with the emphatic statement, "To live is to change." He'd say that with a really philosophical look in his eye and then repeat it in case I didn't understand the depths of his thinking. Then he would say that God is alive and thus must change, which would always lead to his venting about people who believe in a God who does not change His mind about evil or sin or laughing at crude jokes or some other concept which he believed wholeheartedly in. I would always simply listen and nod my head from time to time to indicate that I was hanging on his every word. I completely disagreed with him, but whenever I offered my thoughts from God's autobiography, he'd change the subject. Joe really didn't need his philosophy changed. He needed to meet God personally.

But I'm going to interact here with the concept of whether or not God indeed changes with the times. If you are out there reading this, Joe, I don't want to change your mind. I'd rather you go read "God is Not a Gas Bubble," and come to speaking terms with Him. For the rest of you, any absolute statements I make come from God’s autobiography the Bible. Truth is relative to the distance that exists between one’s statement and the statements made by God Himself.

Joe was right when he stated that "to live is to change." Everything created changes--it either breaks down or gets upgraded--but God cannot and does not change. He exists outside of imperfection. We are imperfect. Our world is imperfect. Our parents are imperfect. Our spouses and children are imperfect. So we naturally begin to think that nothing exists outside of imperfection. But God is absolutely perfect and no change for the better within His character or mind is possible. Whatever God does, says, or lives for is right the first time.

God’s Hatred for Evil and Injustice is Constant

“So I will come near to you for judgment. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me,” says the LORD Almighty. “I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD Almighty (Malachi 3:5-7).

God judges unholiness and junk in our lives like sleeping around outside of marriage, and lying. He hates it when employers steal from their workers’ wages, when individuals oppress the helpless, and when people mistreat immigrants. God will never change His mind about these things. He will always get angry about it.

God still hates evil. He always will. God still offers mercy to the undeserving who still draw breath. He will until they die. God doesn’t get desensitized. He doesn’t hear the F-word five hundred times, and then on the 501st time not blush. It still ticks him off even after hearing it 500 times before. God doesn’t get used to the fact that the rich oppress the poor. He doesn’t think it’s old news when another minimum wage employee gets the raw end of an unjust deal. God’s hatred for evil will not change because God does not change. God also does not change in His proposal of mercy. He offers mercy even to those who have neglected Him, rejected Him, and cheated on Him. He always has. That’s who God is. He’s the unchanging, evil-hating, mercy-lover.

God’s expectations do not change. No matter what your circumstances are, no matter who your parents are, no matter what kind of energy you have, no matter what childhood experiences you’ve had, God’s expectations for you do not change. God’s desires are set, and the reason they are set is because they are perfect, and good, and the best we could possibly ever conceive.

God’s Promises are Constant

God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? I have received a command to bless; he has blessed, and I cannot change it (Numbers 23:19-20; see also 1 Sam. 15:24-31).

Balaam, a guy who got paid big bucks to bless or curse people, couldn’t change God’s promise to bless Israel when they obeyed Him even though he would have received a fat paycheck to do so. God isn't a man. He's a person, but he's not a man. Men change their minds because their first choice is not always the best or correct choice.

God cannot lie (Titus 1:1-3). He is unchanging and true. Some people think that God can do anything. This is actually not true. He cannot lie. It’s impossible. It goes against His very existence. Not only does God not lie, but He also does not change His mind (meaning He doesn’t make one choice and then realize that another choice is better). He never changes His mind because His first choice is always perfect. This doesn’t mean He won’t change things, situations, or people. It just means He does not change Himself.

In this way, other relationships can never satisfy. You desire an unchanging love, but no one in your life will ever be able to offer changeless, pure, constancy. Only God can achieve this. Your Mom and Dad can’t keep every promise. Your husband or wife can't keep that standard. That’s a role only God can fill.

God's Person and Presence are Constant

He also says, “In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will roll them up like a robe; like a garment they will be changed. But you remain the same, and your years will never end.” (Hebrews 1:10-12; see also Hebrews 13:7-8).

God remains the same for eternity. God will never die. God’s love for you, if you have been freed from sin, is constant. It doesn’t go up and down with your unfaithfulness. Jesus, God’s Son, is consistent. He doesn’t say one thing one day, and then say a different thing the next. Jesus doesn’t give up on you. He doesn’t leave you to your sin or your relationship problems.

God is completely and utterly trustworthy. He is a clinger. He is faithful. He is true. God is the giver of good things like peace, joy, hope, and anything else worth experiencing in this life. God does not change. He will always be good.

Perfection has no need for change; we like things to change because all we know and experience is imperfection.

God is Not a Gas Bubble

Bless the Lord, O my soul,

And all that is within me, bless His holy name.

Bless the Lord, O my soul,

And forget none of His benefits;

Who pardons all your iniquities,

Who heals all your diseases;

Who redeems your life from the pit,

Who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion;

Who satisfies your years with good things,

So that your youth is renewed like the eagle.

The Lord performs righteous deeds

And judgments for all who are oppressed.

He made known His ways to Moses,

His acts to the sons of Israel.

The Lord is compassionate and gracious,

Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness.

He will not always strive with us,

Nor will He keep His anger forever.

He has not dealt with us according to our sins,

Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

So great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him.

As far as the east is from the west,

So far has He removed our transgressions from us.

Just as a father has compassion on his children,

So the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.

For He Himself knows our frame;

He is mindful that we are but dust.

As for man, his days are like grass;

As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.

When the wind has passed over it, it is no more,

And its place acknowledges it no longer.

But the lovingkindness of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him,

And His righteousness to children’s children,

To those who keep His covenant

And remember His precepts to do them.

The Lord has established His throne in the heavens,

And His sovereignty rules over all.

Bless the Lord, you His angels,

Mighty in strength, who perform His word,

Obeying the voice of His word!

Bless the Lord, all you His hosts,

You who serve Him, doing His will.

Bless the Lord, all you works of His,

In all places of His dominion;

Bless the Lord, O my soul!

David, Psalm 103

I think a lot of us have it all wrong. I think when we hear the word “God,” we immediately get this picture of a hazy, abstract sort of cloud-being-thing which divvies out punishment and reward according to the likes of those hard-nosed celebrity judges on TV. We tend to not put a face on God. You know, keep the guy, or “thing,” distant, and don’t let “it” get to close to you because if you do, you might catch the religious bug and end up stuffing cartoon caricatures about Heaven and Hell into people’s hands on the corner of Jackson and State or maybe drinking Kool-Aid laced with arsenic. Yeah, we try to keep the God-thing distant. Or at best we’re not quite sure how to relate.

But if you read God’s autobiography, the Bible, you come away with a completely different portrait of the divine. You come face to face with Yahweh, not an inanimate object, not an abstract set of ideas or principles, but a person with a name who relates with individuals by name through friendship (Exodus 33:17), who grieves and feels emotional pain due to rejection (Genesis 6:5-8), who exhibits hatred toward injustices (Proverbs 6:16-19), who embraces compassion, graciousness, and love (Psalm 103:8-13), and who fully desires to connect with individual men and women in relationship accompanied by mutual understanding (Isaiah 43:10-11). In fact, “salvation”—a word which gets tossed around in religious circles about as much as “fare hike,” in Chicago public transportation realms—salvation is defined by Jesus Himself as a relationship with this personal God (John 17:1-5).

God is not an idea. God is not an object. God is not a thought. God, Yahweh, is a person.

If you’ve missed this somewhere along the way, please understand that people can be grossly misrepresented. Yahweh is a person. And He’s not escaped that detriment to personhood.

So if you think you may not have a grasp on the God-thing, do yourself a favor, and discard the preconceived notions, and acquaint yourself with God, the person. For starters, as in any relationship, contact has to be made between two people, and God has already initiated contact. In fact, he offers a relationship proposal, much the same as a man makes a marriage proposal to a woman. We were born dead to God and any relationship to Him as a result of our own self-addiction (you know, the egocentric realm you rule in your heart as king of the universe). But the beautiful conspiracy of history was initiated when God’s Son, Jesus, sacrificed His life for the correction of the human condition and then conquered death by rising back to life. As a result, the divine proposal now stands.

God wants to marry you.

He wants to relate. And once you accept His relationship proposal, that is, substituting the death of Jesus in place of your very tangible guilt and moral failure, you become family for life. Comment on this post with any questions you may have about accepting God’s proposal; I’d love to discuss it with you in more detail.

If you’ve already accepted God’s proposal, then talk to Him as if He were your best friend. We typically call that prayer. Share your concerns with Him. Confess the junk of your life to Him and ask for His forgiveness. Tell Him what you appreciate about Him. Understand that God knows all about you, better than anyone else, and He’s really tired of you putting on a mask any time you spend time with Him. Open up His autobiography, the Bible, and find out what He cares about, how He demonstrates His love, what He gets ticked about, and what brings Him the greatest thrills. Yahweh really wants to be on speaking terms with you. So start relating.

“God is better than my most ideal thought of the most delightful thing or person.” –Bill Thrasher

disCOVER

The word discover goes back to Latin dis- and cooperire, meaning 'to remove the covering; completely uncover.' By 1553, it was used to mean 'seeing or gaining knowledge of something previously unknown' and 'finding out; bringing to light.' You invent something that has never existed before, but you discover ('uncover') something that is already there, something that has existed but is generally unknown.


Thoughts posted here are my discovery moments. They are life attachments which I have uncovered while swimming in the Scriptures, the Holy Bible.

If you find value here it's not because I'm a guru (because I'm not). I do not invent truth. I simply discover it. It has existed before me, and it will exist after me. Even the discovery is not my own. I am led to it by a God who is crazy about people living transformed lives and transformed relationships. And He's interested enough in me to show me truth, just as He does anyone, who cares to read His autobiography.

I've found that God isn't really all too keen about holding truth from people. He actually gets pretty excited when we search after wisdom. Again, if you find value in this blog it is due to the truth I've discovered, and not the truth which I have invented.

You may catch bits and pieces of who I am as I blog, but I'm really not into talking about me as much as how the truth impacts me (and you). I'm also not interested in trying to prove points or debate.

Posts will likely be sporadic. I have a healthy fear of living in front of a computer screen. One thing I have discovered is that people are much more valuable when you can see their eyes and touch their hearts than when you peer at them through a Cat5. So with all due respect to those of you who lurk and surf like there's no tomorrow, read my blog and then give it a rest. Go love some flesh and blood people before your eyes rot out and you forget how to interact in a social environment.

There are times when you should probably laugh at me instead of getting offended.

Welcome to disCOVER-truth.

Craig