God yesterday isn’t always the same as today

Or so says the bible.

In these uncertain times the go to sentiment among many in religious circles is to cling to the certainty that is God. If you take the bible literally, however, this isn’t actually the case.

Yesterday’s flood the world God is tomorrow’s never shall I do such a thing again God. Yesterday’s Abraham sacrifice your only son God is tomorrow’s never shall I ask such a thing again God. The nature of Christ’s forgiveness in dying on the cross implies that where God was once not so forgiving, God is now. Depending on how you read it, Jacob was able to wrestle with God and gain a blessing where God was once unwilling.

This isn’t something to take away from your faith in God. I’d like to look at it another way. God is constant, but our understanding on God is not. We also have personal relationships with God that are limited by our earthly perspective and varied for our individual needs. The constant element in these relationships is love.

Love isn’t a static ideal subject to rigidity. It is a more fluid servant for our improvement as people. It is as much about us as it is about God. That is where the variability comes in. You can take heart that the relationship that defines God for others doesn’t have to define God for you. We all have different needs and God’s love is sensitive to that.

God’s love is constant in that it’s always there. While it might seem to take away from faith to say that God changes, perhaps it’s better to say that we change, and God’s guidance for us is sensitive to that. It is like Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son. The father in that scenario had a very different relationship with his sons, and in fact the difference in those relationships was driven more by the sons than the father.

In these uncertain times the way you need God today might change tomorrow. Take heart that God is flexible enough in love to meet those needs.

God isn’t a bureaucracy

Faith before a god of love isn’t about filling in forms and following procedure in order to have a relationship and be justified. Many prayers go up from people of different faiths and different denominations within faiths. It’s above any human pay grade to decide which of those prayers are heard and which aren’t based solely on the person’s religion.

One can argue that it limits the definition of a god of infinite love to do so. Take an old man in a third world country who has never learnt to read and has just accepted Jesus as their lord and saviour. The message of love and forgiveness really connects with them, and is the completion of the equation for the part of himself that always thought there was more to life. He has a limited grasp of the holy trinity, and really doesn’t get the purposes of God, The Holy Spirit, and Jesus. To him it’s all one and the same and when he talks about what others might call the gift of the Holy Spirit, he says the gift of Jesus. If he goes to his grave not learning the distinction, is he any less closer to god that someone who has? Is the volume of his prayer turned down in anyway?

Does a god of love hungry for contact with their people turn the cold shoulder to prayer for procedure? The Catholics go to confession for forgiveness. Regardless of the form of forgiveness, it takes nothing away from their absolute faith that God’s forgiveness flows through that form. Would a god of love justify them any less? Muslims and Jews pray straight to God for atonement, would a God of love station a bureaucrat at the gates of heaven to reply brusquely that all enquiries be directed to the office of Jesus?

I think it behooves us not to talk about God’s great love and grace on the one hand only to limit it this way in the other.

Love is the greatest miracle

Praise of god is important. It helps to find humility in our connection. We often hear the likes of god is great, god is good, my favourite is god is love.

1 John 4:8

8He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

To me it doesn’t get any greater or all encompassing. Love is the beginning and the end. Those who know its touch through friends and family know how miraculous it is. In accepting it from others you take faith in that which you cannot measure or prove. You are humbled before the idea that these people know the good and the bad about you and embrace it all, knowing that package of your virtues and weaknesses are part and parcel of each other. There is empathy, compassion, honesty and forgiveness. These virtues are intrinsic. In offering it to others you find delight in the connection and the opportunity for you together to be greater than the sum of your parts.

It’s something to take heart that god gave birth to creation, that in that connection divine love could find its  fulfilment.

Some people like to add wrath, judgement, vengeance, and other characteristics to god. As their faith is let it be so to them. To me those are the things we see when we cannot accept the unconditional love of god.

Love is the pinnacle. It stands above all, super cedes all, and leaves all else irrelevant in its wake.

God is love. I believe that is all and the highest praise god could ever have.

Jesus was happy to part ways with scripture

Jesus could see that the application of scripture into laws that governed people’s lives had limitations, and even went against the spirit of love that god was about. He changed an eye for an eye to turn the other cheek, changed the observance of the sabbath, and even said outright that the scripture regarding divorce was born of the hardness of man’s heart. Great pains were taken sometimes to point out how some scripture was not part of god’s plan from the beginning.

As it stood Jesus saw a lacking in peoples’ relationship with god and came down to offer something more. His was a life that said no matter how far you’ve come in your life and faith, there is further to go, and laying back on static scripture literally and rigidly denies you the opportunity for progress and freedom. In fact his coming along and adding to the store of wisdom, and placing no limits on where it should stop, was a doorway for people who weren’t prepared to be bound by unchanging words that defined beliefs from times when people regularly went to war for power and stoned others to death for sin.

Jesus never proclaimed how long the bible should be nor spoke on what should be included in the years to come and what should be ignored. Authority to collate the correct books together was never given by Jesus to those who eventually did so while Jesus was alive. The nature of what he gave was the open ended question about what it means to have a relationship with god going forward. “As your faith is, so be it unto you.”

There’s nothing wrong with being bound by the bible as a personal discipline. But if you feel there’s something more, if you feel the nature of the love between you and god isn’t limited to how it’s defined in the bible, then take heart in Jesus’ words: Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

You never know when it may lead to a “You have heard that it was said… But I say to you…” moment.

Be sure to share a piece of that with me when it happens too.

As your faith is, so be it unto you

It’s a great concept, and one that should be considered closely for what it isn’t. It isn’t: “As a wise man’s faith is, so be it unto you” or even “As my faith is, so be it unto you.”

Jesus was able to let people establish the parameters of their relationship with him in terms of how miracles were bestowed. A blind man gains sight through touch, a centurion petitions for healing through words, another touches the hem of Jesus’ garment. These people didn’t feel their worthiness of love was qualified in any way by the virtue in their life, or that the intimacy of that connection would be elevated by knowledge of scripture.

In turn Jesus doesn’t preface healing with a sermon or tell them how to get their life right moving forward. Regardless of background or personal practice of religion they saw themselves worthy of a gift of love that was already theirs for taking.

None of these people, however, would be justified in telling the other how to seek a miracle. As faithful as the centurion’s example was, he had no right to go around insisting to people that they show the true strength of their faith by eschewing Jesus touching them or vice-versa. Also, Jesus didn’t say to the centurion “Didn’t you realise a truly powerful faith could have prayed for the same healing without needing to send word to me of a request?”

When it comes to love we should feel free to define the parameters of the relationship in such a way that make us feel most comfortable. A god that is love takes joy in the connection and doesn’t insist on form or restrict with criteria. There are those who are happy to see God as wrathful, those who perhaps need a relationship with a stick because without that fear would be more prone to the weaknesses of their nature. But if you’re happy to frame the relationship as more positive and empowered with love, humility, and tolerance thereon, take joy that god allows your faith to be on your own terms and them theirs, and is happy for anything that helps maintain the connection.

As long as you don’t let that be a tool for getting in the way of god and others.

Scripture was the justification for killing Jesus

Jesus wasn’t set upon by his people and murdered outright. A legal process was brought to bear and scripture was the basis of that process. What was the meat of the judgement? Effectively that any prophet, even if he performs miracles, must be put to death if he speaks of a god unknown to the Hebrews and to their fathers.

The Bible is not without value. However, it’s value does not lie in seeking to condemn others or to cast aspersions on how another person stands with God simply because their position on the matter differs from your own. Jesus came to move the dialog away from condemnation through forgiveness, and move to a more positive fellowship based upon encouraging empathy and love over disciplining through condemnation and fear.

It is the challenge for contemporary Christians to move away from negative speech that reflects the same modus operandi that the Pharisees used to put Christ to death. Just because you’re not putting them to death, having it your heart or worse saying that they are deserving or in danger of hell unless they see it your way isn’t actually much better.

Put it this way, God is love, and it is upon you as God’s servant to be the best example of love you can be. Surely the most loving response in the face of someone who’s faith you disagree with is this: Lord, as much as I see imperfection in their walk, I realise they see some in my own. I accept your forgiveness for those things I have not and perhaps never will have the wisdom to change. In this I take heart that they too are worthy of your forgiveness through your love and grace, and that opens the door for us to meet again one day and rejoice in the truth.