Job 30-41 God’s Zoo

Today, just as in the time of Job many deny the Creator and His creation. Yet we read in Romans 1:20 that all of creation reveals His attributes therefore we are without excuse. Where were we when God opened His vast storehouse of animals that we might see His powerful creation? Today, in Texas there is a riverbed of dinosaur tracks perfectly preserved. Last year in the drought we visited it and walked the riverbed and put our feet in the tracks! Amazing to think that Job might have seen animals such as these and as God described. 

God continues to ask Job if he really understands God and His creation. Job responds that he has spoken carelessly and will no longer question God for He has been humbled. When God speaks to us in dreams, as He did for Pharaoh or Nebuchadnezzar or the Holy Spirit speaks to us in the Word do we still challenge He who is Creator of all or do we humbly fall and submit to Him? 

Think about it! 

The Majesty of God

Psalm 104 The Lord God Almighty 

When we believe that God spoke His truth through the Bible, our lives are anchored upon a solid foundation of God’s power, perspective and purpose.

Over and over the writers of scripture remind us that God is light and in Him there is no darkness. Darkness is a picture of sin and God is pure with no sin. Light reveals what darkness cannot. It reveals purity and righteousness and holiness. The psalmist reaches back into Genesis and the creation to share his thought of how holy and pure and righteous God is. 

The Apostle John wrote that “Now this is the gospel message we have heard from him and announce to you: God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.”[1 John 1:5] Are we proclaiming that truth to others? Are we praising God for His creation? “O Lord my God, you are magnificent.You are robed in splendor and majesty.He covers himself with light as if it were a garment.” [Ps 104:1 and 2] 

The Glory of the Lord

God has revealed His glory

Ezekiel 43-45 All through the OT, men saw glimpses of the Lord’s glory. Moses said the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire. [Ex 24:17] Isaiah saw and heard the seraphim calling to one another, “His majestic splendor fills the entire earth.” [Is 6:3] Elihu described God as mighty, exalted in power, the number of His years is unsearchable; He spreads His lightning about him and covers the depths of the sea. [Job 36]

Ezekiel saw the glory of the Lord like the awesome gleam of crystal and a throne, like lapis lazuli in appearance. When he saw it, he fell prostrate. [Ezek 1] Ezekiel saw that same glory leave and return to the temple. [Ezek 10:18; 44:4] It filled the house of the Lord, and he fell on his face. And yet, with all of this evidence from men who did not have the written word, men believed. Therefore, God says we are without excuse, for even if we all had was His creation, we should know Him and fall prostrate before His throne. [Rom 1:20]

And if that was not enough, God sent His only Son of God as more evidence. He lived and moved among men yet was rejected. Therefore, “one day every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth.” [Phil 2:10]

Where am I today? Have I experienced the glory of the Lord today? How about you?

The Voice of God

Listen for the voice of God

Ps 29 The Voice of God

If you are an avid music lover, you are aware of a program called “The Voice.” It is a popular music program to keep your mind occupied with the world’s noise about us. The psalmist did not listen to the world’s sounds but to God’s voice, the eternal voice from heaven. His voice shouts over creation, and we stand in awe. We hear it in the waterfalls of nature, the birds that begin our day, and the sounds of cracking limbs in the wind. Our world is full of His voice if we stand quietly to listen.

The Holy Spirit is His voice to our souls, speaking words of His love and tenderness as He calls us to His side that we might praise Him.

Where do you hear the voice of the Lord in your world today? Take a moment and stand to listen.

The heavens and creation are God’s voice

The creation tells us about God

Psalm 19-20 “God in all of His Glory!”

In reflecting on this psalm, Dr. Henry Morris wrote: “The 19th psalm is one of the most magnificent writings in the Bible and indeed in all literature.” As we stop, ponder, and then meditate on the beauty of the world around us, we are without words to exclaim this marvelous beauty. We see the grandeur of the mountains, the raging rivers, the expanse of the plains and the desert, and we stand in awe. Just think, we have the privilege to live and move and exist here for one reason: His glory. [Acts 17:28]

God is sovereign, and He is revealed in the glorious expanse of the heavens. Thus the words of Paul resonate with our spirits: “For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, because they are understood through what has been made.” [Rom 1:20] God has revealed himself that we may bow our knee in humble adoration and praise him for who he is and for his glorious majesty and we surrender all of ourselves to Him.

The Witnesses…

God reveals Himself in creation

Matt 12:22-50 and Luke 11 The Witness of the Spoken Word & Creation

There are many today that seek visible or tangible evidence to believe. I will believe when x,y,z happens, or when I can see God do a miracle before me. I will believe when I find the “real Bible.” I will believe when…and you can fill in the blank. Yet, as Jesus is looking about the corrupt leaders of the nation, He said to them, and He says today: neither Nineveh nor the Queen of Sheba had some miracle or some visible evidence. They believed because of the spoken word of Jonah and King Solomon, and they believed.

Paul told the Romans that God’s invisible attributes are clearly seen in His creation. Again he says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Yet he reminded them that even when Isaiah preached and they heard, they hardened their hearts so they could not believe. Men’s hearts are no different today. That is why we must be the Jonah’s and the Solomon’s to share the good news. “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!” [Rom 10:15]

Are our feet bringing the good news?

Is Your Heart Soft or Hard?

Soft hearts can see God in creation

Exodus 7  to 9   Pride goeth before a fall, and Pharaoh will learn how true that is. God sent the brothers Aaron and Moses to speak to Pharaoh: “Let My people go.” In return, Pharaoh responded, “Do a miracle,” and so they did.  Unimpressed, Pharaoh has his magicians work their magic to turn rods into serpents, but surprise, surprise; the rod of Aaron ate up the magician’s serpents. Pharaoh’s response? He hardened his heart just as God said he would. It was not until the third miracle that even the magicians realized that God’s finger was in it, but Pharaoh hardened his heart.  God provides the evidence, but man must make the decision.

We are living the pandemic life, and the world is searching for answers, and like Pharaoh, the hearts of the world remain hardened. As Paul noted in Romans 1:20; they see the invisible attributes of God in the sunsets and sunrises, the path of the sun and moon, and still, they say: “Who is the LORD that I should obey His voice? …I do not know the LORD.”[Ex 5:2] It is because of these prideful statements that we must carry the gospel message to them, EVEN IF they respond like Pharaoh. We must do this because “God is not willing any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” [2Pet 3:9] Moses and Aaron were God’s servants. Are we?  

Wisdom comes from God

Job 28 James succinctly addresses wisdom and remarks that there are two avenues: earthly and heavenly. One is demonic, and the other is godly.  James further notes that we have godly wisdom through our good conduct and works done in gentleness. On the other side of the coin is earthly, natural, and demonic wisdom, and then describes it as jealous, selfish, disorderly, and full of evil practices. The contrast is clear; the wisdom from above is peaceable, gentle, accommodating, merciful, impartial, and true.  

Job had no Bible, preachers, prophets, or the indwelling Holy Spirit, yet he understood what men today do not comprehend: ‘The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding.’ [Job 28:28] Thus, the truth that Paul expounds proves that even without all of the outside intervention:  through the “creation of the world [God’s] invisible attributes—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen because they are understood through what has been made. So people are without excuse.” [Rom 1:20]

 Which wisdom do you have? May you be encouraged to know that as Job wondered, you may also, but, even in his wondering, he still trusted God and had godly wisdom. You can be as well.

How to Love Thy Neighbor….

Discipline is hard for parents and for children but this keeps both accountable and keeps the family living peacefully with one another. Paul has been acting as the parent to these precious Galatian babes in Christ who are dividing the gal 5 and 6 love neighborf2Galatian church by their childish actions of snapping and arguing and had fallen for the bait of the “Thou Shalt be Circumcised and Obey the Mosaic Law” legalists. Paul asks those who had had not swallowed their bait to take on a mighty task of restoring gently those who were the back biters, devourers and provokers so that the church is once again united in Christ.

However, before they or anyone takes on this task there is are two steps that must be adhered to: “First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” And secondly, be living by the law of Christ which means living out the character of Christ step by step. Both of these require self-examination so as not to be self-deceived and quench and grieve the Holy Spirit. The only thing that mattered was: faith working through love and demonstrating that one is a new creation in Christ. This is how you love your neighbor as yourself.

Are we mature enough in the Lord to do this? This can only happen by immersing oneself in the Word, meditating upon it so you can discern truth from error. Only then can one bear the burdens another carries.

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Give God Glory

acts 14 glorify god2Luke wants us to follow his train of thought as he seeks to remind his reader of these principles: “The chief end of man is glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”

Herod was an example that lived by neither and in fact sought his own glory.  Luke teaches us through the illustration of Paul and Barnabas in Lystra, where a lame man is healed, that it is God alone who deserves glory. Seeing a lame man healed, the entire town erupts and seeks to glorify them. But, unlike Herod who accepted what was due God, Paul and Barnabas shouted, tore their clothes and said: “Men, why are you doing these things? We too are men, with human natures just like you! We are proclaiming the good news to you, so that you should turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them.”

When pagans (unbelievers) know not the living God and seek to glorify us we must do as Paul; present God as Creator and ourselves as the creation always seeking to give God his glory and the praise due to him alone. Paul wisely used God’s creation first for this reveals “God’s invisible attributes – his eternal power and divine nature.” Yet is not creation that points men to the Savior and their need of salvation;  it is the very breathed inspired Word of God. Every scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, [2Ti 3:16] “so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”[Rom 15]

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