Renewed Hope

Does God Slap Us?

March 5, 2013

Have you ever heard a person say something like, "God needed to slap me in the face to get my attention."  I heard this recently and actually had enough restraint to keep my mouth shut. But inside I was shouting, That isn't MY God!"   I read on a post tonight by Charles Capps that the Word says that Paul attributed his thorn in the flesh to an emissary of Satan sent to buffet him.

I have so often heard people talk about God kicking their butts and things like that.  That isn't my God who  revealed himself in Jesus Christ, who paid for my sin and who makes His power available to me to deal with any circumstance in my life.  When through my failures I reap consequences such as a Driving Under the Influence charge, it isn't God doing it. That probably isn't even the devil, but the consequences of my flesh seeking the self satisfaction that it is used to having.


Have you heard men talk about being a "good man?"  I often hear this kind of language from people and even one video that I use tells the audience "they are good." The more I thought about this kind of thinking the more I realized this kind of person often  thinks they deserve the wonderful things God does for them because they are "good". Otherwise they wouldn't think it is "bad" or God is treating them "badly" when uncomfortable and unpleasant things happen.I have a friend  who says he  is a "good man" and he calls everyone good . What is he measuring himself up against? What is his standard of good?  And often "good people" thing they deserve all the "good things" in their lives because they think they are good.

Paul says to see no man after the flesh but Jesus Christ and him crucified.    I value men because they are alive and they have worth and value because of the Life that they have that my God gave them and through which He desires to have fellowship with them.  Jesus is the only one that makes it possible for God to have fellowship with us and the only reason that I can value and honor and respect another person, not because of their works either positive or negative.

I know very ""nice men", who have great smiles and who seem to be highly functioning in terms of society and the ability to "make money" and gain acceptance in society. But they are just   "dead" good men.They may be men who live by a higher sense of morality than others. However, we know that this animalistic/flesh man in us does not ever submit 100% to any standard of "rightness." It fights against relationship with God as a result of the seed of Adam. So how often we find men that are very "moral" suddenly fall because they aren't "righteous"? How easily are we deceived even as woman was in the Garden!
 
How could we see it when we see ourselves through our own judgement of "good and bad" and as a result partaking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil?  We are deceived of the capacity of our own human nature and it's characteristic limitedness that needs the life of Jesus Christ in us and us in Him to have a relationship with the Father!!   And He alone is "good".
With that I will close and hopefully in  the next few days I will have to time share some musings about what constitutes "righteousness" which could be considered part two of this subject.


Meri Ford

Meri Ford
516 Park Rd
Winlock, WA 98596
360 520 4503
blog http://meriford.blogspot.com/