RANDOM THOUGHTS ABOUT GOD: FEELINGS

October 31, 2012 at 12:07 PM (God Thoughts, Musings)
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DOES GOD HAVE FEELINGS?

I was laying in bed a short time ago having one of my “random” moments. What if God doesn’t have any feelings at all?  Whether any one of us will admit it or not, a lot of people believe He doesn’t.  

God can look at what we’ve done to the American Indian. The Negro of a dark, shameful era in American history. More recently, what America is doing with the unborn and the unwanted. And now, what America’s doing with God Himself. The nation is literally kicking God out of the public sphere. Whether we’re talking about public prayer, Bibles, the Ten Commandments, the freedom of Christian expression and conviction, or anything else Christian; vocal, militant, mainstream America wants nothing to do with God.

The nation’s assault on God has come to the very root, foundation, and core of any civilized society—the family. We’ve begun to change the traditional, really, the Biblical, definition of marriage and family.

What does God think about all these?

Anyone with feelings can’t help but be outraged by these travesties of justice and morality. You don’t have to be a Christian. You don’t even have to believe in God. All you have to be is a person of feeling, a person with feelings, and you will be outraged at all that is grossly and inhumanly wrong. We can talk about the treatment of animals. About what goes on in the farms and slaughterhouses where the nation’s meat supply comes from. We can talk about the poisonous chemicalization of our food supply, the depletion of natural resources, the rain forests, global warming, the ozone layer, and a whole host of other hot-button issues that people are so passionate about.  

We respond because we’re creatures of feelings. We feel pain. We identify ourselves with those who are pained—be it human or nature—and we get pretty vocal, even militant, about things that really get under our skin and arouse our dander. Why is that? It’s because feelings lead to a formative response. They lead us to action.

We can talk about the rightness or wrongness of our feelings-induced actions and responses. An anti-abortionist’s killing of an abortion provider; or a PETA person assaulting a woman in furs; are examples of the rightness or wrongness of an action that are matters of discussion or debate. Actions are another matter of discussion for another day. I’m simply trying to lay the groundwork here and say what we all already know: our feelings lead us to action.

What if God, unlike us, doesn’t have feelings?  Then it would be easy to understand why He can be so aloof or uncaring about all the evils that exist in our world. God doesn’t care!  It’s like God doesn’t exist!  He isn’t going to judge us for our evils or wrongs because He plainly doesn’t care. He doesn’t feel what we feel. He isn’t insulted, angered, or passionate about the things that we feel strongly about. He can look at what America has done to the Indians and the Negroes, or look at the genocide of the unborns, the killing fields in Russia, Europe, Cambodia, and Rwanda in bygone years, and not care or bring it to judgment because He has no feelings that would make Him care. Make Him mad. Militant. Responsive.

A person’s disbelief in God and consequent disbelief in prayer is a soothing and rational explanation for the presence of pain, suffering, and death. If God exists, if He feels what we feels, He wouldn’t possibly allow any of this to happen to us! The mere fact of pain and death are, to many, proof that God doesn’t exist. Or, if He does, then He plainly doesn’t care! And we flatly don’t need a God who doesn’t care!

But herein comes the problem. If this is so, if God doesn’t have feelings, then, within the framework of all of us who believe God made us, Can a God without feelings create people with feelings?  Can a God who doesn’t know anything about love, hate, anger, and the like, make people who feel such things? Feel what He doesn’t? Would God make us with something that He Himself doesn’t have, namely feelings?

You can mull on that while I move on. I’ve answered the question for  myself because I’ve read the Book and I know the Lord. God does have feelings. And, like us, He gets vocal about what He feels (the Bible); He’s responsive to what He feels (Calvary) and, one day, He’ll become militant about what He feels (the Tribulation and Day of Judgment).

In the meantime, regardless of where you’re at in Christian growth or where you stand in the Biblical, theological spectrum, rest assured that God has feelings. That’s why He’s going to bring every thought, every action, every person, every evil and travesty, to judgment. Feelings lead to a response at some time or another. We shouldn’t be surprised if they have this same effect on God.

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KNOWING WHERE YOU’RE GOING WHEN YOU DIE

July 3, 2012 at 4:56 PM (Doctrine, Knowing You're Saved)
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In teaching through the life of Christ the other day the Lord brought me to Matthew 7:13-14. It’s the familiar analogy of the two roads of life: Go in through the narrow gate. The gate to destruction is wide, and the road that leads there is easy to follow. A lot of people go through that gate.  (14)  But the gate to life is very narrow. The road that leads there is so hard to follow that only a few people find it.

For too many of us, our concept of salvation is glued to John 3:16 and Acts 16:31. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved! It’s so easy to get saved! That’s the way the Lord made it so that everyone can get saved if they wanted to. All we have to do is believe. I mean, how hard is that? It isn’t. It’s so ridiculously easy that anybody can believe and be saved. Nobody, but nobody, can ever accuse the Lord of making it so hard to get saved!

But, like all of us, the Lord couldn’t say everything in a single verse, a single sermon, or a single point of time. There’s always the rest of the story, the whole picture, or the whole counsel of Scripture. Jesus went on to say more things about salvation and Matthew 7:13-14 is a good case in point.

I was musing on these verses when the Lord reminded me that the sermon on the mount was given to believers (Matthew 5:1-2). Jesus isn’t talking to heathens here. He’s talking to people who believe and follow Him. In other words, they’re already saved.

So if we’re already saved, why does Jesus tell us to enter the strait and narrow gate? When He tells us to go through the strait and narrow it’s because we’ve not gone through the strait and narrow yet. We’re outside the gate and He’s telling us to go through, and inside, the gate.

But wait a minute, Lord. I’m already saved. I already believe in you. Aren’t I already on the strait and narrow?

Obviously not. Conversion takes us off the broad road and it brings us to the gate of the strait and narrow. Getting saved doesn’t automatically put us on the strait and narrow. We get there only when we make a personal, knowledgeable decision to go through the gate and spend the rest of our life walking the strait and narrow. If we haven’t made that decision, then we’re not on the strait and narrow. Since there are only two roads in life, not three or four, then not being on the strait and narrow means we’re still on the broad and wide.

Each road takes us somewhere. Each road leads us to its ultimate destination. The strait and narrow leads us to life (Heaven); the broad and wide takes us to destruction (Hell). {BTW, there is life after death. When we die we either go to life, or Heaven; or we go to destruction, or Hell.}

Here’s the kicker. WHERE WE GO WHEN WE DIE IS DETERMINED BY WHAT ROAD WE’VE TRAVELLED ON. If we’ve walked the strait and narrow, we’ll go where that road takes us: to Heaven. If we’ve walked the broad and wide, we’ll go to Hell because that’s where that road takes us. There’s not a snowball’s chance in Hell that we’ll end up in Heaven when we’ve spent our whole life walking the broad and wide. We’ll go wherever the road takes us. And the broad and wide road definitely doesn’t take us to Heaven.

So if we’re saved, but not walking the strait and narrow; if we’re Christians, but walking the broad and wide; how in the world can we expect to go to Heaven? Do we seriously believe we can live like heathens on the broad and wide and still make it to Heaven because of the “Christian” nametag that we wear? Because we say we believe? Because we say we’re saved?

Just so that none of us are surprised by what Jesus would say to us on Judgment Day, here’s what He’s going to say to all those who aren’t walking the strait and narrow (Matthew 7:21-23): Not everyone who calls me their Lord will get into the kingdom of heaven. Only the ones who obey my Father in heaven will get in.  (22)  On the day of judgment many will call me their Lord. They will say, “We preached in your name, and in your name we forced out demons and worked many miracles.”  (23)  But I will tell them, “I will have nothing to do with you! Get out of my sight, you evil people!”

Okay. So you’re saved. You’ve gotten saved. That’s great! Way to go! But don’t stop there! Don’t keep on walking the broad and wide road that you’ve known all your life.  Go through the strait and narrow gate and start walking the highway that leads to Heaven.

If you’re counting on going to Heaven just because you’ve gotten saved and can therefore continue living like the heathen you’ve always been, the Lord’s got news for you. You’re not going to make it to Heaven if you don’t walk the strait and narrow. What road are you on?

Getting saved is the start of your journey. Where you end up depends on the road you choose to take. So choose wisely. YOU CAN CHOOSE THE ROAD YOU TAKE, BUT YOU CAN’T ALTER ITS FINAL DESTINATION. You will go where the road leads you.

In this sense, then, IT’S POSSIBLE TO KNOW WHERE YOU’RE GOING WHEN YOU DIE. TAKE A GOOD LOOK AT THE ROAD YOU’RE ON AND YOU’LL KNOW WHERE YOU’LL END UP.

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