Monday, June 12, 2017
He makes Lebanon’s mountains skip like a calf; he makes Mount Hermon leap
like a young wild ox. The voice of the Lord strikes
with bolts of lightning. Psalm 29:6-7(NLT)
I think if
I owned two horses I would name them “Joy” and “Judgment”.
There is a
certain amount of duality or dichotomy that appears in all of us, and it stems
from the fact that we are created in the image of the One who can appear that
way. One day we seem, like Job, to be
enjoying the joy of God; everything is smooth and life is good. The next moment, like Job, we seem to be
under the harsh thumb of God’s judgment.
I’ve heard
God called two-faced
before, and it’s always when the person is experiencing something of a painful judgment
kind of day, rather than the joy to which they assume they’re entitled.
Preacher’s
sermons always seem to focus on one side of that equation or the other. On this Sunday we are hearing about the joy
of skipping calves, or mountains that leap like a young ox – the next Sunday there
are bolts of lightning scorching everything in sight.
You can
just hear the anguished cry of confusion: When
you say ‘God’ do you mean joy or judgment? Will the real God please stand up; is it
Joy or Judgment?
And the
answer is always Yes!
Uhhhh,
Preacher, would you care to run that by me again? What can I really expect from God, is it joy
or judgment?
Yes!
Always!
The fact
that God created this universe with polar opposites (up/down, cold/hot,
positive/negative) should give us a clue that God, being altogether consistent
in all things, would relate to that creation with joy in appropriate circumstances,
and judgment in the other case.
Let’s take
a short course in parenting: you can be
joyful with your children, but there are times when training them properly must
include judgment. You might be called
two-faced (or a lot of other things under their breath), but a parent who loves
the child will not let the child grow up a self-serving, obnoxious brat!
Applying that
thought to the way God “parents” us, you have to magnify the skill of the
parent (compared to us human parents) by a factor of one million to the
umpteenth power, and you have a faint picture of how much greater God’s love is
applied to all His creation, whether it is in joy or judgment.
For You Today
God’s
love is unquestionably in action right now for you; mostly it’s your choice
whether it comes down as judgment; He prefers joy.
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