The God on the Shelf - Who is God to You?

Who is God to you?  Really.  I mean on any given day at any particular moment who is God to you.  Now the reality is that God is who God is regardless of what you think of him but who he is to you determines how you live and how you die. You might initially give me a laundry list of the usual Christian responses:

"He is my heavenly Father."
"He is my friend."
"He is my guide."
"He is my Lord."

I'd like to give you a picture of what I believe most of us have done with God and maybe what you're doing right now.  Be careful not to put up your shield of defense right away. Instead meditate on this and let it do its work in you.  I think we all can see a little of ourselves in this.

God is often a god on the shelf; a definable, compartmentalized, usable god.  We put him on three different shelves depending on where we need him.

First, is what I see as the work shelf.  It's like a shelf in a workshop, carrying a cordless drill, a belt sander, and a couple hammers. Oh yeah, and a tiny god. He sits on our work shelf silent and lifeless until we have a job for him to do. We go about our days and weeks with little or no acknowledgment  of his presence and we rarely if ever look at him in awe of who he is.  That is, until we need a little financial help, maybe maybe we're in legal trouble, or in a relationship struggle.  It's time to go to the shelf, dust him off and see it he can get the job done.  We cry out, "Why God? Why this or that and why me?  Help me please!" When the situation passes we place him back on the shelf in case we need him in the future.  Off we go,

The second shelf is more like a mantle above the fireplace.  It's a place where we keep our trophies and various awards.  It's the shelf of religiosity of pride.  It's where we place God to show others that we have him. It may look like a weekly trip to church where we really don't meet God or truly worship him. It may look like the donations we can tell our accountant about at tax time.  However, like the god of the workshop, this god is also lifeless and doesn't play any real part in the minute by minute reality of our lives.

The last shelf is like a shelf in the medicine cabinet or vanity. Like the mantle place god this is also a god of religion but based less on pride and more on guilt.  We look in the mirror and see a blemish a rash or a sore.  We are sick or just don't look very good. We open the mirror pull out the little Bandaid god or the makeup god and cover up the blemish.  This god doesn't heal the wound or make us younger, it just makes us look better.  Then back in the cabinet, on the shelf and the mirror closes.

Before you say, "Not me!!" think carefully about your typical day.  How does it start?  Does it start in prayer, in worship, in acknowledging Him?  How do you make the hundreds of decisions you make every day?  Is God  . . . GOD . . . in your life?  I mean a living, all powerful, all knowing, ever present, eternal, Holy, loving, creator GOD in your life?  Because whether we act like it, live like it, or acknowledge it, that's who he is.

God loves you (cordless drills, trophies, and mascara can't love). God can do amazing things in you, through you, and for you.  He is El Shaddai "God All Mighty", Elohim "God the Creator".  You see a hammer can't create.  It can only create if it is carried.  God needs no help.  He is there to help in times of need but not as a part time god on a shelf.  He is Yahweh-rapha "The God who Heals".  He heals our insides and outsides, not just covering up the wound but healing it. Jesus died so that we might have life.  He made blind eyes to see, deaf ears to hear, lame legs to walk, and brought the dead to life. If God has at times been a shelf god in your life (as he has in mine) ask him to forgive you and walk with him in a new way today.

Peace, David

The God of the Universe Can Live in You! How Cool is That?!!

I've had some pretty deeply moving conversations lately with people who are broken, tired, afraid, confused, guilty, hopeless, lonely, and addicted, and just don't know where to go or how to break free. I've heard some of them say that they believe in God but can't feel him, can't find him, or simply can't surrender to him. Some of them have even looked in church but can't seem to find him there. They have a sense that what the pastor is teaching and what I am sharing holds a key to that freedom so they stay near but not too near. They hold onto their lives and at the same time reach out grasping for hope. It's like a person in a burning building who is leaning out of the window, stretching out their hand to the fireman on the ladder truck but can't let go of the window frame with their other hand. If you're reaching out or even if you are lost but haven't yet reached out I want to invite you to begin to see the dwelling place of God. How amazing would it be to find Him?! Where is he? God, where are you? Help! We're dying down here!

A good friend of mine recently told me that her daughter wanted to be married in an outdoor ceremony. She wanted to say her "I do's" under the canopy of God's creation. However, after speaking with church authorities she learned that this wouldn't be possible because the ceremony had to take place in the church since the building was "sanctified". Really? I want to show you a bit of the character and truth of who God has revealed himself to be and even more so to help you to draw closer to Him to understand where he truly resides. Not from my thoughts but from his Word.

OK, I know this sounds ridiculous because even little kids know that God is "Everywhere". The theological term for this attribute of God is his "omnipresence". And, that is true in the sense that God is outside of the confines of time and can be "over here" and "over there" at the same moment as we experience it. I know that bends your mind a bit but that is how big God is! But God has also shown us in his Word that he has give man more tangible expressions of his presence over the course of history. For instance, in the Garden of Eden, he actually fellow-shipped with Adam and Eve walking with them in the cool of the day but after the Fall he no longer was approachable. As the Jews wondered in the desert the manifest presence of God (called his Shekinah Glory) resided in the tabernacle, specifically in the holy place where the Ark of the Covenant ( a gold box that contained the two stone tablets of the ten commandments, the staff of Aaron, and a pot of manna) was housed. This same presence of God was present later in the inner chamber (the Holy of Holies) of the temple built by King Solomon. Bottom line: God had a manifest presence on earth but he was not approachable because of man's sin. The Holy of Holies was "sanctified" or set apart for the presence of the living God. Did that mean the God wasn't everywhere? No, just that he chose to reveal himself to man in this way.

Fast forward to a small stable in Bethlehem where a cry is heard coming from a woman giving birth to a child. Not any ordinary child but God made man (Emmanuel - God with us). The fullness of God was now among men and would soon walk with them and talk with them and touch them and heal their blind eyes. Was God now not everywhere? No. But he chose to manifest himself in the flesh to mankind.

Now here is where I want you to draw near and listen closely. Jesus sits with a Samaritan woman at a well as she draws water. He talks to her (quite against the rules for a Jew to speak to a Samaritan, especially a woman!). After Jesus gives her reason to believe he is something quite special the following dialogue takes place:

"Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."

Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."

Jesus was telling her that God was doing a new thing. God was no longer unapproachable behind the curtain of the temple's inner room. It would no longer be necessary to travel to Jerusalem to worship him. She was, at that very moment, sitting with, talking with, and being freed from their sin and death by God in the flesh.

Now hold on because here is where it gets even more crazy!! After Jesus died on the cross, was buried, and rose from the dead on the third day, his disciples didn't want to let him go again. But Jesus told them that unless he ascended to the Father's right side, the Comforter couldn't come. Who was this "Comforter"? It was the Holy Spirit of God, the third person of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). So where exactly did the Holy Spirit come to abide when Jesus ascended to heaven? A tabernacle? No! A church building? No! The Holy Spirit came to dwell WITHIN those who believed.

Stephen ( a disciple) said these words before he was stoned to death:

"However, the Most High does not live in houses made by men. As the prophet says:

" 'Heaven is my throne,

and the earth is my footstool.

What kind of house will you build for me? says the Lord.

Or where will my resting place be?

Has not my hand made all these things?"

And right before he died, the Word says:

"But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the Glory of God . . ."

When we come to the cross, repent of our sin, and look to Jesus and believe that he died in our place, took the shame and guilt we carried, that he paid the penalty for sin for us, that he rose from the dead and forever conquered death for those who trust in his name, then the Holy Spirit comes to take up residence in us. How amazing is that?! We are now the tabernacle of God.

In 1 Corinthians 3:16 Paul says, "Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?"

In Galatians 2:2 Paul says, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Last one! In Romans 8:11 Paul says, "And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you."

Look closely friends. "Sanctified" means to be set apart for God's use and you can be set apart and can become the dwelling place of the Spirit of God by faith in Jesus Christ. He can dwell in you if you are in prison, in rehab, in a college dorm, in your bedroom, or are getting married in the woods. He is not confined to a church building. (remember that the Apostles and the early followers of Jesus did not have fancy and ornate church buildings). I love to gather at the "church" with fellow believers and worship God but in reality the "Church" is body of fellow believers! If you are broken, lost, scared, lonely, guilty, hopeless, addicted then ask God to open your eyes to see the truth of his Son Jesus and the freedom and life he has come to share with you by faith!

We love you guys!

In Him, David