Replies

Excellent post boatbums!

I’m reminded of a few verses where The Lord is actually attempting to nudge us sinners back to Him - to turn to Him.

Isaiah 1:18
“Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the LORD, “Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool.

Ezekiel 18:27
But if a wicked man turns from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he will save his life.

Isaiah 43:25
I, yes I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake and remembers your sins no more.

Isaiah 55:7
Let the wicked man forsake his own way and the unrighteous man his own thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that He may have compassion, and to our God, for He will freely pardon.

The Lord simply wants us to humble ourselves before Him. He knows more about us than we know about ourselves.
What could be better than the mercy of an Abba Father?

I appreciate your kind words. I firmly believe that God's word does not return to Him void but it shall accomplish that which He pleases, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto He sent it (Isa. 55:11). I pray that a seed is planted and we can help water it through prayer, fellowship, encouragement and edification, but it is God who causes the growth into full faith. Perhaps the "Hound of Heaven" has been unleashed and the resister will be dragged kicking and screaming into the family of God. C. S. Lewis knew about that full well!

I've also been thinking about those who deny that God desires a personal relationship with us - that He is an "impersonal" force. He's some nebulous superior being that zapped everything into existence and then went off somewhere else oblivious to what us puny humans might come up with on our own. It's the idea that "a god/God" is unknowable or impersonal.

But, I wonder, if those who think like that have done much searching to find out if their conclusion is reasonable. Why, if God was impersonal, did He create beings with an innate knowledge of a Creator or a universe where all of creation screams out design and order?

Now, if God desired to know and be known by His created beings in a personal way, how would He go about doing so?

I guess a good start would be to speak directly with someone and tell him about Himself, right? Yeah...He did that (see Adam, Eve, Noah, Lot, Abraham, etc.)

Another might be to appear in a form that humans can recognize and relate to. Yep...did that, too.

He could communicate directly with certain people and tell them specific things that were going to happen and explain how only a true God could do that and then those things DO happen exactly as He said. Ditto.

He could demonstrate His power through miraculous signs and wonders and rescuing those who believed in Him through insurmountable dangers. Seeing a pattern?

And if this god/God demonstrated that He wanted to be known by His creation by speaking to them, appearing to them, showing His power through foreknowledge and delivering them by miracles, then wouldn't that be evidence that He WAS knowable and desired to be known?

Anyway, just some things I have been pondering over lately. Your thoughts?