Friday,
September
13, 2013
Jeff Lampl
“God's
angry displeasure erupts as acts of human mistrust and wrongdoing and lying
accumulate, as people
try to put a shroud over truth. But the basic reality of God is plain enough.
Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at
what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as
such can't see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine
being. So
nobody has a good excuse.
What
happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn't treat
him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into
silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in
their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life.
They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap
figurines you can buy at any roadside stand."
Romans 1:18-23 (MSG)
Romans 1:18-23 (MSG)
This
passage tells us three really big things:
First,
God exists.
Second, no one who ever lived has any excuse for not knowing and honoring
God. Third,
God’s wrath (“holy displeasure”) is God allowing us to suffer the
consequences of our ignoring Him.
This
is a foundational part of the Christian worldview.
It is a way of seeing and understanding life on planet earth.
Other worldviews insist there is no God, or that God is in everything or
everything is God or that there are many gods, and the list goes on.
You,
too, have a
worldview. It is
the lens through which you see the world and this lens determines how you think
and how you behave.
If you think there is no God, then it follows that you can make up your
own morality.
If you believe there are many gods which need appeased then you will live
in fear, always
trying to appease the gods.
But
there’s more. Yes,
God exists. Yes,
I have no excuse for living as if my life is my own.
Yes, I suffer the consequences of my own rebellion.
Further, however, The
Christian worldview tells me that without God, I’m not only in trouble, but
that I can’t extricate myself from the mess of my own making, or even from
continuing to make more messes!
Still, yet, there is one more thing to know about the Christian
worldview. Whatever
mess I may be in, whether of my own making or of another, that mess is not the
end of the story.
The
final word in the Christian Worldview is always, always, always, Grace,
forgiveness and fresh starts for those who will accept them.
“
Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?
Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. .
. There is no condemnation for those who are in union with Christ Jesus our
Lord”
Romans
7:24-8:1
For
more:
follow on Twitter @jefflampl
No comments:
Post a Comment