Transgression

Sin, offense, failing, wrong doing, evil doing… Jesus’ teachings on these are intended to help us find our own faults, not aid us in becoming the authority over others’.

Excuses

Someone else’s poor decision, bad behavior or mistake is not an excuse for you to make a bad choice, do the wrong thing or act out.

Unfortunately

As we said yesterday, everything good comes from the Lord even the great things that come from those that are unaware of Him. Unfortunately the opposite is also true. We that know Him are just as capable of making poor choices as anyone and while it’s true that we are unable to live perfect lives now, it’s also true that there is no bad decision that we have to make. He’ll always help us find His way.

The Case of Unbelief

This philosophical argument is also known as divine hiddenness and reasons that if there were a God that wants us to know Him then He would have made it so that everyone would. This line of thinking is very closely related to the problem of evil that we discussed a few days ago and is also best addressed by understanding that love and choice must co-exist. I believe that God has taken steps to draw us to Him and that His utmost desire is for each of us to choose to know Him. I think that if we were honest with ourselves we’d acknowledge that our greatest need is to be perfectly loved and accepted in a completely unique way. This is a need that God placed in us knowing that only He is able to fill. So in a very real sense God has created a situation to influence us into knowing Him but we still get to choose.

The Problem of Evil

We’ve all heard the argument that evil in the world proves that a loving, benevolent, all-powerful God cannot exist. I say that without evil, love would not exist. Love is a choice. Without the ability to choose, it’s not love at all. Would it have been possible for God to withhold our ability to choose? Not and still love us. This is one of those concepts that is easy for us to understand as it relates to our human relationships but somehow gets foggy when it involves God. If you had no choice in a relationship would you consider it a loving one? The biggest problem of evil is putting it on God instead of owning it ourselves.

Wrath

To whom much is forgiven, much is treasured.

God hates evil, really, really, hates evil. And as with all His attributes, He hates it all the time. We can’t minimize how intensely God feels about wickedness, when we do we diminish the cross. The depth of God’s love for us can only truly be celebrated when we realize what He has chosen to put aside on our behalf. Facing God with an honest awareness of our depravity, understanding how He feels about it and what should be His response, make the love in His eyes and the warmth of His embrace everything that they should be.

The Tree

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was placed in the Garden as choice. Without choice love is not possible and God so wants us to love. He enjoys loving us so much that He couldn’t have allowed us to only be recipients but wanted us to know the joy of being givers.

Generalization

Asking broad sweeping questions like, “Why is there evil in the world?” or “Why do bad things happen to good people?” is like trying to paint God with one color. Each of us is completely unique and God wants our relationship with Him to be the same. So rather than standing at a distance and throwing these questions out to the wind, we should draw close to Him and whisper, “What can I learn from this Dear Lord and how can we together survive and thrive?”.

Repentance

Scripture says, “The goodness of God leads to repentance.” The Word is also clear that God hates evil not evildoers and that we are to love our enemies. So how effective is it to stand on the street corner and rebuke people? Loving someone to Christ takes more commitment than that. Proving God’s love comes from investing in someone’s life not shouting them down as they pass by.

Remember

”For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” God always has your best in His mind. Get close enough to hear what that is for you today.