Oldham Minister’s Message – November

Minister’s Message

November 2022

 Dear Friends,

When I first started to write this letter, I wanted to say something about God. Not merely something, but within the constraints of my own finite being, try to point to the essential essence of God and our relationship with him. At first, I wrote the following words:

I once read that the kind of person we believe God to be is a reflection of who we really are; or words to that effect. Thus, we could be in danger of creating a false god.

I carried on writing but the letter lay unfinished as I continued to struggle with its completion, then I received a letter from The Bible Teaching of John MacArthur. In this letter he wrote:

As I’ve said over the years, you will never live above your beliefs about God. Whatever you believe to be true about God is the most controlling element in your life. How you view God has a greater impact on you than anything else.

McArthur’s letter went on to say, amongst other things that:

Having a high view of God demands we exalt the Lord Jesus, and to find Christ we need to look to Scripture

But what can we say to those who are finding it difficult to believe in God in the first place, or to those who dogmatically assert that there is no God? Again, we can look to Scripture and read Paul’s defence of faith when he said that we have no excuse for not knowing God:

Since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. (Romans 1:19-20)

Recently, I ordered a Tonka Truck toy online for my four-year-old grandson. I can only imagine the entire story behind that toy, its design its, its development, the raw materials required, its production, the lives of everyone involved in producing just this one commodity, its despatch from the factory, and the organisation required to ensure its delivery to my door; and there was finally, incidentally, my delight in witnessing the delight of the child. Such commodities are a result of complex human endeavour. But the point St Paul makes is that on earth, all is the product, ultimately of God’s invisible qualities, whether it be the lilies of the field that Jesus asks us to consider (Matthew 6:28-29) or a child’s toy. All we receive in this life is ultimately through God’s providence.

Of course, there are those that will scoff at the very idea of the reality of God. They are a long way from home. The Book of Proverbs tells us that fools have no delight in understanding, they just like the sound of their own voices (Proverbs 18:2).  Common sense tells us that every effect has a cause. What is the meaning of life if not God at the centre of the universe? God at the centre of all that is, manifesting creation through love. God is love says John (1 John 4:7). This is not an idle assertion but the essential truth. We, the world, exist because of God’s love, a love that through creation must become manifest. When God spoke to the young Jeremiah, he told him that he knew him before he was in his mother’s womb (Jeremiah 1:5) and that he had set him apart to become his prophet. Such is the omnipotence and omniscience of God’s love that we too, each one of us are known in the same way. Jesus gave witness to this when he told his listeners that even the hairs their heads were numbered (Matthew 10:30).

The real question is not, ‘what is the meaning of life?’ because love is the meaning, because without love there is no meaning because without love there would be no life because God’s creative purpose is made manifest through his love. The real question is who do we think God is?

Yes, Paul is right to assert that creation is a manifestation of God’s divine will and providence, and so yes, we do not have an excuse for knowing him, but there is more to it than that. God is the ultimate reality in the universe. The chief aim of mankind is to praise and glorify God. The chief aim of mankind is to worship God. This is the true meaning of religion. How can we truly worship him? The simple answer is we should seek to emulate him, to be like him. Through Scripture, he guides us to this task telling us that we should seek to become holy like he is holy (Leviticus 20:7) and those words as uttered by Jesus, that we should ‘become perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect’ (Matthew 5:48). We know that this is a tall order indeed but Jesus also said that with God all things are possible (Mark 10:27).

Jesus through his life, his death and resurrection revealed God’s love for us. He said:

I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. (John 14:6)

To take up the cross to follow him, to have faith and to believe in him. I think Paul expressed the relationship with God that we must seek when he wrote:

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

I am reminded of the closing words of The Prayer of St Francis:

It is in dying (to ourselves*) that we are born to eternal life.

My best wishes as always,

Bob.

(* My emphasis)