I want to tell you about a scripture passage that has really impacted me.
In speaking about Rehoboam,
2 Chronicles 12:14 says, “He did evil because he had not set his heart on seeking the LORD.”
On average 175,000 people in the world are dying every day, who are lost and have done evil things having no knowledge or understanding because they did not believe or obey what the Lord requires of us. I wonder how many of these are faithful members of the church that have kept faithful to the end.
It’s a free choice to set your heart on the Lord.
This you do by reading the Bible (the Word of God) and learning about God’s character. You can’t just do it now and then. You need to set your heart on God as a regular practice of the soul. “Draw near to God and He will draw nearer to you”
If you do it – it will change you. It will change your worldview. It frees you from imagined ideas and misunderstandings about who God is. It steers you to turn away from ungodly and sinful desires, thoughts, actions, speeches, and worldly living.
If you don’t set your heart on seeking the Lord, that’s a choice too.
That choice pays off further along in life: you will do evil. You will misunderstand what God’s priorities are, or you won’t even care to ask much less to do.
This is so important that I’m going to work on my writing around the topic. We need to see God’s heart and see His understanding of what is “good.”
It is far too easy to think we know what God is like and to think our ideas come from scripture, when they don’t. They come from our childhood guesses, our unchecked premises, the voices around us, and our own desires and wishes.
To worship a god of one’s own imagination is idolatry. If we do this, by what right can we even say we are God’s followers?
What errors will we imagine about God?
- God’s Judgment
We tend to think the God of the New Testament will not judge, because, “love doesn’t judge or condemn.” That idea leaves us with no way to even comprehend what the Old Testament is talking about or what God was doing. Ultimately it ruins our grasp of the gospel, especially our need for repentance.
Take notice of the seven churches in Revelations. Five of the churches were failing and needed to appreciate they were of course and needed to repent or find themselves lost and condemned.
The church at Ephesus had left its first love and had fallen and where told to repent or else they would be lost.
The church at Pergamos were following the doctrine of Balaam and were eating things sacrificed to idols and committing sexual immorality. They were also holding to the doctrine of the Nicolaitans.
The church in Thyatira allowed a woman to call herself a prophetess and taught and seduced brethren to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.
The church at Sardis was spiritual dead, however there were a few who had not defiled their garments who were warned to remain faithful.
As for the church in Laodicea, they had become lukewarm because they had become wealthy having need for nothing, however they were considered as wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked and unless they got their act together they too would be lost.
So what about us here in the Ramsey church of Christ. Are we guilty of these things. Do we need to repent and get things right with God. Have we examined ourselves to see if we have a proper understanding of God’s righteousness. If not we need to get back on course and do right before God, because we will be judged for all the things we have said and done.
- God’s Goodness
We tend to think of God’s goodness as an abstraction with little idea of what goodness means, so we are confused when we see God doing evil toward people. No … because God doesn’t want anyone to be lost. He wants everyone to be saved. He has given us all the right to choose our finally destination and it’s up to us to make the right decision. Failure to do so will lead to destruction. God is long suffering and patient.
- God’s Righteousness
We tend to think righteousness is primarily a question of putting others before oneself, so we fail to reconcile God’s righteousness with His jealousy, wrath, or straightforward pursuit of His own self-interest.
Romans 10:3 For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.
Proverbs 21:21 He who follows righteousness and mercy Finds life, righteousness and honour.
Matthew 5:20 For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
Philippians 3:9 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith
- God’s Truth
In light of our above confusions, we have a hard time understanding God. Stacking confusion upon confusion, we conclude, “It seems like a contradiction, and it must be. God does not make sense.”
1 Corinthians 14:33 For God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.
Do you wonder how a Virtuous God could be “jealous”? Or how Jesus Christ could delight to stand upon His slain enemies in the day of His return? The Lord your God is a jealous God and has the power to destroy His enemies and all of us who are unfaithful.
Or have you ever heard it preached that God’s love for us is irrational? Or crazy?
If such low views of God and rationality were true, there would be no problem in the final misconception, that God desires us to develop a “faith seeking understanding” rather than a faith based on understanding.
The scripture DOES NOT support these ideological disasters.
These four main misconceptions about God’s character (His goodness, justice, righteousness, and truth) end up skewing our worldview and our very approach to understanding the good, the just, the right, and the true.
What’s the solution? We must take our view of God and our view of the world from the scriptures rather than from our own imagination. As we set our hearts on the God of the Bible through the reading of the scriptures, we are surprised to find that the aspects of His character do accord with one another, but only when the evidence has been considered and our premises have been checked.
A logically consistent view of God’s character is possible to man.
God has revealed Himself sufficiently.
A true view of God brings enormous applications for our own lives. As examples, consider that God’s treatment of us is not the main criteria for determining His goodness. He is good apart from us and independent of us, and He IS NOT obligated to you! We are totally dependent on Him and obligated to Him. How freeing it is to base your love of God upon who He is, rather than upon current circumstances.
In fact, God’s treatment of us relates more to the question of His justice. The motive of God is radical, wholehearted self-interest, and it is from that principle that He works to show His goodness to us, within the constraints of what is allowed by His justice (Romans 3:26). This is what a rational, truth-oriented God is like.
For God, and also for man, it is rational to understand value as relating to the individual.
Goodness is not subjective, for there are indeed facts about what is good. But these facts are always about relationships between an individual and the world he inhabits. They are facts about the long term benefit to the individual.
For man, as for God, righteousness consists in following one’s own self-interest; all moral considerations are for this purpose.
For man, as for God, the commitment to radical self-interest requires us to uphold justice: rationality in our evaluation of other men.
Further, though we are not omniscient, we should embrace the absolutism of reason and truth. Though man’s mind is not infallible, man can never do better than to follow the course which best seems to accord with the evidence.
It is a very lengthy project to show all the scriptural evidence for these facts about God’s character, but I sincerely hope that I have encouraged you to study to your utmost to learn and adopt God’s characters by obeying the gospel of Jesus Christ and start following in the steps of Jesus Who is man’s perfect example from God.
In Conclusion
Now set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God. Therefore arise and build the sanctuary of the Lord God. Do you best to draw closer to God and do the things He has asked us to do and contend for the faith. Do your best to become more like Jesus Our Lord and stand firm. Don’t be confused or lead astray into things that make us stumble. Be strong and stand up for Jesus.
Amen
Lesson brought to you by: Bro Robert H Brown
