His Truth in Life (2)
Sometimes Bears
It is impossible to see ourselves as others see us. We are all like a children's book I used to read to the kids. A small bear is walking through the forest with his mother and sees various other bears. Some were quarreling, some playing nicely and sharing, etc. As they passed, he asked, "Am I like those bears?" She always replied, "Sometimes." When they were bears with bad behavior, he was sad. When they were good little bears, he was very happy. The story ended with his saying, "I guess I'm just a Sometimes Bear." His mom heartily agreed. That is true for all of us, we are all "sometimes bears". Which is why we must be so thankful for God, who loves us and forgives us anyway, despite our bouts of those all too human feelings and behaviors that don't honor Him. We are to be "conformed to the image of His Son." (Rom. 8:29) When we fall short, because of Christ's sacrifice, we are forgiven. How can we not live lives of gratitude and joy?
Happiness Is
We all know our constitution says "we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. That among these rights are the pursuit of happiness (not the attainment of happiness). In the paper this week I saw that our tax dollars are going to be used for the Department of Health and Human Services to do a study on what makes people happy. I wonder why they want to know the answer to what makes people happy, as if the government should guarantee happiness, as well as health care, etc.
When asked, "What makes you happy?". I suspect most people interviewed will start with "I would be happy if...." That thought, that people are not happy now makes me sad, sick, and frustrated because I am most always happy and we all should be! I am happy that we live in this wonderful country. I am happy that my Sweetheart and I and all our children are healthy. I am happy for the gift of laughter. I am happy we live here in Jupiter, FL, with the best VA in the entire country to help my Sweetheart. I am happy for our church and teaching pastor. I am so happy I know that the Bible is altogether true, God's words spoken through men. And I am happy for so many other things. What makes you happy? Are YOU happy right now? You should be. You'll stand out. Jesus said by our fruits people will know we are his. (Matt. 7:20). One of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, Who is within every believer, is joy (Gal. 5:22). Ask HIm and He will give you His joy. If you're happy and you know it, let it show.
Remember what God Has Done
Perhaps remembering is the key to all that's good. I once taught a Bible study on Deuteronomy in which we are told over and over what God has done, what wants of us, and what He promised to do if we do or don't do what He's asked. When we remember what God has already done for us, we will trust Him in everything.
It reminds me of when our son Will nearly drown in our swimming pool just before his first birthday. He had been born by emergency C-section less than a year before. I pulled him out of the pool. He was blue and bloated. I had never had CPR. I lifted him to heaven and declared, "Lord, I know you did not save his life a year ago to have him die now. I know that. Show me how to save his life!" He is now an adult, an engineer with a beautiful wife. We all need to remember what God's done for each of us and trust Him.
What isTruth
I have been musing on truth lately, what is is and how we can know it. Here is a truth. Humans will always be self centered, selfish. No child was ever admonished to be less kind. No, we must teach children to share and that not everything is theirs. "Mine!" is a favorite toddler's word. Sure, there are people who seem so good, who are caring and loving. Yet, even these need to be praised, loved, encouraged. The Bible calls it our sin nature.
The Bible is truth. It has never been disproved. There are those who debate the ages of the world, for example. Yet, the Bible says a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day to God. Time is not the same to God, who created it all, as it is to us. He created the means by which we tell time, the rotation of the earth and of the earth around the sun. So was everything created is 6 days or 6 eons? Does it matter? The point is God created it. Likewise, where did Cain's wife come from if God only created Adam and Eve? Again, there is nothing in the Bible that says God only created Adam and Eve. It says He created them first. The others do not matter. They were killed in the flood anyway. The Bible is not meant to be a complete history of the earth. It is to give us what we need to understand our relationship to God and to understand how we got to be who and where we are. We not allowed to cut out the parts of the Bible we don't like, like a man sleeping with another man as if he was a woman is an abomination to the Lord. (Lev. 18:22) Or that there is no place in heaven for fornicators or homosexuals, among many others. (1Cor. 6:9) Or that the only way to Father God is through Jesus, (Jn. 14:6) We might not like the truth, but truth does not depend on us.
One way we can tell the Bible is true is in the fulfilled prophecies. God gave people prophetic visions and promises throughout the Bible hundreds of years before they came true. Yet, except for the end times prophecies, they all came true, exactly as prophesied. Christ's coming exactly when and where He did was prophesied hundreds of years before in various passages. There are books of nothing but the prophecies that were fulfilled by Jesus being born then and there and how and why He would live and die and rise again.
So why doesn't everyone cling to the Bible, since it is the only truth that brings hope? It goes back to our self centered nature. We want to believe anything except that we are accountable to a God who knows everything we think, say and do. We want to be able to exclaim, "I did it!! I discovered it!! I made it!!", "I'm good!" For those of us who do believe the Bible, how thankful we must be, not just at Christmas when we celebrate God coming to earth, as was promised, as a child to die to pay the penalty for our self centered hard hearts, but for knowing the Bible is true and we can cling to it's promises and learn how to live from it's instruction.