Thursday 5 November 2015

Man and God

Man and God
“A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.” 
                                                                                  C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain.
Over the sixty plus years I’ve been on this earth I’ve listened to many people say there is no God. I know they are wrong.
To quote C. S. Lewis again,
“We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God.” 
                                                                                                   C.S. Lewis.
The other day a friend and I took our camera’s and went to take some photographs of the autumn leaves in the area. We ended up in a small nature trail a few hundred metres from the mighty Niagara Falls. There, there was in contrast to the mighty Niagara a series of tiny small falls, just a metre or so high connecting a couple of small ponds in which a group of ducks were swimming.
Compered to the roar of Niagara this was peaceful and quiet. Yet in it I could see the handiwork of God. The trees bedecked in their fall colours. The ducks quietly swimming. I cannot believe that all of what I seen was by chance.
God was at work. I’m not one to worry if it took a six billion years or six days to get this way. I only know in my heart that there was a divine creator behind it all.
I think the reason people cannot see God is that they have to varying degrees closed their minds to the fact that He exists.
We have become very much a people that demand concrete signs.
The apostle Paul said,
“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  
For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” 
Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?  
For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.  
Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom,  but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,  but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  
For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.” 
              1 Corinthians 1:18-25
We as individuals want God to reveal himself using our rules. After all it would be far easier if God just appeared in the flesh standing in Jerusalem with a legion of angels demanding we worship Him. At least then we’d know for sure.
God however does not work like that. God asks us to have faith in him. The writer of Hebrews stating,
“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.’
                                                                                                     Hebrews 11:6
“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” 
                                                                                                Hebrews 11:1.
And perhaps Faith in God is the hardest thing for a person to have in this day and age?
Please think about it.

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