Friday, August 28, 2015

Changeless Love






God is changeless.

Not boring and monotonous sameness, but changeless, I believe.

Changing seasons, even changing vistas hourly scroll as the backdrop of our days so that constancy can be a difficult concept.

We make distinctions about 'the God of the old testament' and 'the God of the new testament' as though God is changing costumes during intermission and playing the role of another in Act II. In fact, some like to distance themselves from that old testament God; a kinder and gentler God sells better.

Marketing experts know people love puppies and babies, so Jesus in a manger scene can bring folks on board. Then just when we think we can handle reconciling those two like an out of kilter bank balance, the Holy Spirit shows up and we have another person to define. Some just want God to get in the right box and stay put.

But God will not be leashed. The creator of the universe will not sit and stay in order to appeal to one's notions of theological propriety. Try as we humans do, we cannot diagram the actions of God, Jesus, and the Spirit so that they fit neatly into a compact travel size paragraph of Christianity.

God is bigger than that.

Far bigger.

God is still in the business of calling and redeeming humankind. That mission has taken many turns through the centuries, and it continues still. In God's economy nothing is ever wasted. God can redeem and restore what we would throw away - and whom we would throw away.

Yes, it may take a long time, but God operates outside of our time and space constraints.

Learn from the blessings and promises of the scriptures of the old covenant just as we receive those of the new: God is the god of them all. And I ask daily for a larger understanding of this unsearchable Greatness:

"Study to show yourself approved unto God, a [worker] who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth."
2 Timothy 2:15