The calendar has just flipped another year for us, and again I ponder the passage of time. It is something that is unstoppable for us humans. It is just one of many things that has been ordained by God Himself. Speaking of God ordaining things, I must wonder just what there may be that God has not ordained. Do you consider God to be in charge of the universe? I do. He is the creator and the sustainer of all things. In the beginning of the Bible, the book of Genesis, God tells us that at the end of each day of creation, He pronounced it as good. And that at the end of the sixth day we read, “God saw all that He had made, and it was very good.”

Soon after, in Chapter 3 of Genesis we see that man (i.e. Adam and Eve) couldn’t keep one commandment. Yes, He has graciously given us 10 commandments, but to Adam and Eve He only brought forth one: “Do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” They failed the test and that was not good! I believe we know the rest of the story. They chose to take upon themselves the knowledge of what was good and what was evil. And so without God’s guidance in navigation, things went downhill from there. At this point in scripture God puts the Bible on “fast forward” and takes us about 1,650 years in two chapters and so we come to Noah’s day. Genesis 6:5, “The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that He had made man on the earth and His heart was filled with pain.” My friends, this was not good news. God grieved and His heart was filled with pain! These are strong words that are used for God’s emotions. Have you ever grieved? It is not a pleasurable time. Has your heart ever been filled with pain? Same comment!

Some have wondered how a good God could allow bad things to happen. Let me state right here that the bad things that happen on this earth grieve God and fill His heart with pain. His hand is not here to stop an inebriated person’s car from starting and eventually killing an innocent bystander. But I believe His heart grieves.

I can answer this seeming dilemma in one word; freedom! Adam and Eve chose a certain path and it was not a path of freedom but slavery. And yet God (who “changes not”) still allows us the freedom to go out and get drunk and try to drive home.
But God has now, once again, given us His true freedom through His Son Jesus Christ. In Him we are free. Free to not sin. Free to love Him. Free to walk before Him in true righteousness and holiness. We all know that freedom is not free and Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice. He paid the ultimate penalty for us so that we may once again be truly free.

And friends and brethren, that is good news.

Here is a word right out of the heading, “good.” Just what is good? Do you think of yourself as good? Do you know anyone of your friends or acquaintances who you might label as good? How do you define good? What might be the qualities of someone who is good?

In the Garden of Eden, God told His “first children,” that they must not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil. So, just because God labeled something as “good,” it didn’t mean that man should desire it. What God was really saying is that He, the Creator, was the one to define what was good and evil. “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end, it leads to death.” (Proverbs 14:12) In the account of the Garden of Eden, Eve sees that “the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom.” I guess this means that everything man sees in this world that seems good, pleasing and desirable, is not necessarily so.

One of the things about which we must be careful is labeling ourselves and others as good. Mark 10:17 has this episode, “As Jesus on His way, a man ran up to Him and fell on his knees before Him. ‘Good teacher,’ he asked, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ ‘Why do you call me good?’ Jesus answered. ‘No one is good except God alone.’” Hmmmm! The only human to live a perfectly righteous life took umbrage at being called good! I guess it might be presumptuous on our part to call anyone here on Earth good.

Let’s dig a little deeper. In the book of Romans, Paul opens up a barrage of scriptures that should set us back on our heels a little. Chapter 3, 10 - 18 he quotes from several places Psalms and Isaiah to let us know that, “there is no one righteous, not even one ... there is no one who is good, not even one ... etc.”

While Sally and I were visiting relatives over Thanksgiving, someone gave me a book to read titled, “Good or God?” by John Bevere. The premise of the book, as Bevere states “is one simple question, is good enough?” He goes on to ask the question, “ If good is so obvious, why does Hebrews 5:14 say that we must have discernment to recognize it?” Hebrews 5:14, “ ... but solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” I really think that this is the whole concept of what constitutes “good” must be handled correctly. Eve thought that if it looked good, smelled good, and tasted good; it must be good. But God sees things differently! And so, if we really want to understand what “good” is, we must consult the instruction manual of the author of all things “good.” We know that manual as the Bible! And it tells us about the “good news” of the Kingdom.

We’ll talk some more about this next time.

Last week I mentioned several scriptures that talked about seeking the face of God. So I ask the question: what does it mean to seek the face of God? There are three significant words in this phrase: “seek, face and God.” The last of these words “God” is, I hope, familiar to all of us. God is the creator, the sustainer and the one who gives life. He is life itself. He says His name is Yahoveh, which means, “I am that I am,” in other words, “the self existent one.” Okay, so far so good!

The next to last word “face” is a very important word.

We know in English (in our society) what is located at the front of one’s head is one’s face. When we meet someone, the fist thing we normally look at is their face.  So if you were to ask me, “Where are you going?” and I answered, “I am going downtown to seek my wife’s face,” you would look at me with great curiosity! But not so with the ancient Hebrews. This statement would have been appropriate.

The word “face” or “paniym” (pronounced paw-neem in Hebrew) connotes much more than the front of one’s head. In many contexts it means the visible portion of a thing; such as in Genesis 1:2, “The spirit of God moves upon the face of the waters.” But in the context of a person it most often signifies the person himself. And this is how we may view the statement, “Seek the face of God.” It is the person of God that we must seek.

The first word in this phrase is very interesting: “seek.” In the three scriptures I quoted in last week’s article (1Ch 16:11, 2Ch 7:14, and Ps 105:4), the word “seek” has a very peculiar meaning. The Hebrew word is “darash” and it means, “to tread or tromp something.” I’m sure that most of us have walked from here to there in tall grass. If we travel a path once, we can look back and see where we have disturbed the grass and identify where we have trod. The next day, however, the wind and sun will have erased our path. But if we walk from here to there several times a day, and do so every day for a month, we have trod down the grass and we will still see a well-defined path.

And so it is with our seeking God! We must travel the path to our God again and again. We come to God, our provider, and thank Him for the provisions of shelter, warmth, clothing, friends, etc.

I believe you get the point. Ps 105:4, “Seek the Lord, and His strength; seek His face evermore.” The blessings we receive when in His presence are indeed“good news.”

Until next time ...

So, we’ve had a short break from the previous article! The last thing I had to say in that article was, “Our Father delights to teach those of us who are interested in the things He has to say.” The one thing I know, unequivocally, about that statement is that our Father really does want to teach us. The thing I do not know is this: Are you interested in the things He has to say?

Let’s take a look at something. In the book of Galatians, Paul seems to suggest that those belong to Jesus Christ are to be considered as “the Israel of God” (Gal. 6:16). And I would like to take the Apostle Paul at his word. So, I find it acceptable to learn about the nation of Israel, from the Old Testament, and utilize them as a historical lesson. In other words, I have a template for my life as a Christian in the triumphs and tragedies that the ancient nation of Israel experienced. I can take the admonitions, the corrections, the training and the blessings from God toward them and have applications for my life.
So far so good! Let’s turn back to the book of Deuteronomy 10:12 where we find this written, “And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the LORD’S commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good.” God says that doing these things are for my own good! So if I do these 5 things: fear God, walk in His ways, love Him, serve Him and observe His laws; good from God will come my way.

Let me ask the above question once again, “Are you interested in the things He has to say?” Are you interested enough to pursue the things He tells us to do? Do you strive to seek God with all your heart?

In several scriptures in the Old Testament, God admonishes us to seek His face: 1Ch 16:11, Seek the LORD and his strength, seek his face continually; 2Ch 7:14, If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pay, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land: Ps 105:4, Seek the LORD, and his strength: seek his face evermore.

In other scriptures He asks us to seek Him with all of our heart: Ps 119:10, Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with their whole heart; Ps 119:10, With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments.

There are many more scriptures, but think on these for now and we’ll talk some more about them next time.

It has been more than two weeks since I sat down to write the last article. In the space of that time, my wife and I traveled to southern Utah to keep what God calls His “Feast of Booths,” or “Feast of Tabernacles.” No, this was not a vacation for us. This is an assembly of God’s people who desire to worship Him on His schedule. As a point of information, there are some 300 locations where this Feast is held worldwide; St. George, Utah is just the place we chose to assemble. I might write about the “good news of God” in this space, for a long time and never come close to telling of the joy and the “good news” that we experienced in our worshiping God with 200 brethren for those eight days. I had the blessing of being able to speak to the group twice during that time. My messages were titled, “What is God Worth to You?” and “Do You Have Any Zeal?”

So, let me pose that same question here, first; what is God worth to you? Have you ever pondered that question? He is the Creator of all things. He is the One who provides all things. He is so beneficent that He gives good gifts to both the righteous and the unrighteous. The sun shines on the Christian and the non Christian, the Godly and the atheist, the diligent and the slothful. As the song says, “God is good, all the time!”

One of our side trips was to the Zion National Park. I am sure that some of you have visited that awesome park. To travel through that canyon with shear cliffs rising a couple of thousand feet on both sides is pretty awe inspiring. But to see the beauty of the landscape and not recognize the One who created the landscape is to miss out on a great opportunity to really worship God.

What does the word “worship” mean? It is a contraction of two words: “worth-ship.” It is to consciously recognize the worth of God and so revere Him and all that He is. Worship can take place sitting by a rushing stream with mountains all around. It can occur while one sits under a night sky with thousands of stars twinkling overhead. It can happen while one looks out over the rolling hills of Iowa with a seemingly endless stretch of corn and soybeans waiting to be harvested.

I could go on and on and I am sure you could add many more examples of the greatness of our God.

So, is God worthy of your time? Do you greet Him every morning in prayer? Do you say good night to Him every evening before bed? God is good to us and He loves us very much. Are you a parent? If you are, do you enjoy the times when your children sit and just visit with you? For me, those times are a blessing - will you be a blessing to your Heavenly Father? What is God worth to you?

Until next time ...