The way is paved

A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble. (Charles Spurgeon)

Let everyone see that you are gentle and kind. The Lord is coming soon. Don’t worry about anything, but pray and ask God for everything you need, always giving thanks for what you have. And because you belong to Christ Jesus, God’s peace will stand guard over all your thoughts and feelings. His peace can do this far better than our human minds. Brothers and sisters, continue to think about what is good and worthy of praise. Think about what is true and honorable and right and pure and beautiful and respected. (Philippians 4:5-8)

While society pushes for this thing or the other, believers are to be focused on one thing above all - allowing God to develop his character within us through the actions of the Holy Spirit teaching, reminding, and reinforcing the true character of Christ in our lives. While society tells us to think about our own needs, God tells us to think about the needs of one another. While society finds peace easily interrupted by one crash of the market, or the devastation of a storm, God tells us to build upon a foundation that is strong and enduring - his Word. God's peace is standing guard when our hearts and minds seem to be swaying back and forth between what society touts as 'worthwhile' and 'important'. We begin to 'feel' the Spirit of God sorting out the chaff from the wheat in our thoughts, and then it begins to affect our actions, bringing 'evenness' and 'peace' while others seem to be in all manner of chaos. 

God wants us to look out for each other, so who is it that he has brought across your path today who may need your help? Who is it whose mind is whirling with all manner of uncertainty, just longing for someone to help them sort out those feelings and thoughts? Where is it that your hands can be useful? God isn't just improving our thought life and giving us peace within our hearts so we can sit on our hands - he expects us to share that peace. Who needs to shift their focus away from all the chaos of society and toward the things that are good and worthy of praise? Perhaps you will be the one to help another realize the futility of all that strife and striving - helping them to find the peace and grace of God to endure even when life isn't all that 'great' right now.

God's message for us today is simply to 'continue'. Continue in his grace to give of yourselves, even when others seem to reject your efforts. Continue in his peace, allowing others to feel the 'spill-over' effect of that peace. Continue in hearing his Word, then putting it into action in your life until it begins to affect more than just you. When we begin to allow the Spirit of God to develop the character of Christ within us, we are paving the way for him to touch the lives of others through us. Just sayin!

Faithful

Faithful - what does that word mean to you when you hear it spoken?  To many, it carries the idea of being thorough in the performance of one's duty - there is such a strong adherence to the way things are done, not a thing is overlooked or missed.  To others, it may carry the idea of being true to one's word - the person can be counted on to do as he or she has said, simply because they always have.  It also carries the idea of being trusted and reliable - signifying a little bit of both of these meanings - carrying out one's duties with consistency and always being true to one's word.  When we think of the faithfulness of God, do we put him in either of these "boxes", or does his faithfulness bespeak something else?  I wonder how many of us simply look to God as the one who consistently performs his "duties" as God and simply leave it at that. Whatever those duties may be, he is there doing them.  If this is our impression of God's faithfulness, we are missing out on some very important things in our relationship with him.  On the other hand, if we simply think of him as the one who is true to his word, we may also miss out on much of what goes into describing God as "Faithful".  

God! Let the cosmos praise your wonderful ways, the choir of holy angels sing anthems to your faithful ways!  Search high and low, scan skies and land, you’ll find nothing and no one quite like God.  The holy angels are in awe before him; he looms immense and august over everyone around him.  God-of-the-Angel-Armies, who is like you, powerful and faithful from every angle?  (Psalm 89:5-8 MSG)

As we consider the faithfulness of God, it may help to use an acrostic to help us remember these points:

Forthright - God doesn't beat around the bush with us.  In his faithfulness, he puts things as they are and helps us to see them for what they are.  He goes straight to the point - because he knows we don't always "get stuff" when it isn't clear.  To the Pharisees (the religious, self-righteous leaders), he spoke in parables - stories designed to illustrate a point to those who would actually pay attention to them.  To the disciples (those who willingly sat at his feet as his students), he shared the depths of those stories.  Why?  He wanted them to "get them".

All Knowing - Another word for this aspect of God's faithfulness is his omniscience.  Yep, he knows what we will do and how we will respond even before we do.  Maybe this is why we can count on him without wavering - because he knows the end from the beginning and will not let his kids down along the way.

Immutable - A fancy word to describe him as unchanging.  Nothing describes faithfulness better than this idea of being unchanging - consistent, constant, and coherent in all ways.  This aspect of God's faithfulness helps us to hold on to what we have learned in the past and helps us to see the elements of his handiwork in the present.  

Truthful - There is no way God will ever lie to us.  His word has been consistently the same since the beginning of time.  The way he does things is consistently the same since the beginning of time.  The circumstances may change, but his truth remains.  What he says, he does.  What he proclaims, comes to pass.  What he promises, he will perform.

Holy - To some this may not seem to "fit" in our defining God as faithful, but if we stop for a moment to consider that he would never veer from that which is upright, honest, perfect, and pure then we might just see how this describes his faithfulness.  God cannot change his character - so he will not tolerate sin - but because he desires closeness with us, he counters our sinfulness by bringing those who have a sinful nature to the place of grace in his Son.  

Forgiving - It is definitely part of his faithfulness to be forgiving.  In fact, God's mercies are new every morning - as many times as we need to seek his mercies (and they are many), he remains ready to forgive.  No sin is too great, no life is too insignificant.  He stands at the ready - we just have to come.

Unmatched - Another word for this would be omnipotent.  He is all-powerful and as such, no one and nothing compares to his greatness, nor his ability displayed on our behalf.

Loving - If we were to stop long enough to think about what every action of faithfulness really means, we might just find a root to those actions which stems from the intensity of love expressed by those actions.  As we consider God's faithfulness, it is beyond any comparison we have in the earthly sense of love, for his love surpasses all other love.  It is magnified in the actions of his grace being new every time we need it.  It is put on display in the majesty of transformed lives.  His love transforms the cold, hard hearts of mankind and opens the doorways to heaven's majesty.  I call this faithfulness in action, don't you?

God is faithful in all ways.  He is present everywhere, knowledgeable about all things, and more powerful than any other powers that exist.  He is unchanging and the ultimate authority in our lives.  He possesses all wisdom and is not afraid to share it with his kids.  He remains holy and provides a way for his kids to enter into that holiness through the exchange of their sinful nature for that of a new nature in Christ Jesus.  He rules with all righteousness and justice, never wavering from his standards of righteousness.  He is both truth and true - the beginning and the end.  His goodness and mercy cannot be fully comprehended, but it is as near as our breath.  His graciousness and love are ever-reaching and all-encompassing.  Now, if this doesn't describe "faithful", I don't know what does.  Just sayin!

Familiar, but not really

This past week, our pastor spoke to us about being so familiar with some things in the church, we almost "warp" our beliefs by the familiarity which has become a way of life to us.  Let me explain what he meant with this statement.  We get so familiar with the things of God, we almost take them for granted - taking them for granted leads to us not always developing and keeping a keen awareness of the truth.  We can sometimes "soften" the truth about God's character.  For example, we "believe" God is all powerful - but do we go to him in prayer each and every time we are faced with the impossible? We "believe" God is all knowing, but do we turn to him for the wisdom we need or just try to figure things out on our own.  We can end up in the pursuit of religious thoughts and principles, but miss out on the fact of the powerful God in the midst of our lives.  As Israel was set apart as the nation God would choose to dwell among, he told them to not create any other image of him as they would be tempted to create because of what he knew they would come into contact with in their journey into the Promised Land.  I think God was telling them the same thing my pastor was telling us - have no one else in your life that you trust in more than God - no image that you relate to in order to relate to God.  I wonder if we really understand what this means?

But 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)

I think God was warning us about bringing him down to our level.  We cannot bring God down to our level and remain steadfast in our beliefs.  God's kingdom came to us in the reality and power of Christ - we don't change God's character just because his character was present with us in the form of Christ.  Any time we take the truth, become so "familiar" with it so as to allow it to lose its original intent and purpose, we have engaged in changing the reality and power of Christ's character into something we form an opinion about rather than the steadfastness of his "real" character.  We are always in the business of creating something we trust in, aren't we?  I believe God was really trying to remind us of the silliness of trying to create anything more than we trust in him.  The issues we face today are really stepping stones to clarify our "image" of God - not a literal image, but our beliefs; what it is we are certain about as it concerns God.  One truth we must keep in mind - we become like whatever it is we idolize.  Let that one sink in a little.  

If we see only one side of a truth, we often don't create a "perfect" image of that which we see, don't we?  For example, look at a tree.  If you were to close your eyes and then I asked you to create an "image" of the tree in your mind, you'd probably make it leaf-covered, complete with the bark.  You'd likely miss the "image" of the inside workings of the tree - the place where the life of the tree is actually maintained.  To see only one side of the truth about God's love is to see only one side of his character.  Love is both embracing AND just; it is both nurturing AND correcting.  We need to have an accurate perception of God's character.   We cannot get there by looking at what another "imagines" God to be - we have to discover it ourselves in the truths of his Word, the teachings of his Holy Spirit within us, and the revelation of his character in the creation around us.  Even creation serves to reveal him to us.  We find out who we are by finding out who God is - for we were created in his image.  I think we have struggled with this for a long, long time.  We look to anything or anyone else to define who we are, but since we were created in his "image", any other image is really inadequate to express the fullness of his character.

Having any other image of God than the truth of who he is will lead to us having things in our lives which block our growth in relationship with him.  We need to see him accurately in order to grow adequately!  Others will attempt to "script" our lives for us - we cannot allow this to happen - for only one person really knows what we were created to do - God himself.  All God asks of his children is pure and simple devotion - to have no other image of him than the truth he reveals.  To "fill in the blanks" with any other "material" about what we "suppose" about God's character is to create an untrustworthy idol of God.  We might just need to find out what we have made so "familiar" about God in our lives - those things we have used to "fill in the blanks" the way we "see" them.  In so doing, we might have to let go of a few things which really don't measure up to the reality of who or what God is, how he operates.  In developing an accurate "image" of God's character, we open ourselves up to the possibilities of following him differently than we ever have before.  For truth begets truth - familiarity begets sloppy religious pursuit.  Just sayin!