I need to stop being so reactionary. Having a child makes sitting down and spending time listening to instructions from the Lord more difficult. No excuses. I have been convicted. I have made the adjustment. New material is on the horizon. But I'm starting on a personal, reactionary note...
I had a professor in college who always took issue with a lack of what he liked to call "jazzy titles." The first batch of papers in each of his classes were always met with disappointment as he glanced over the tops of the pages and muttered, "no jazzy titles..." We learned real quick that a good piece of writing always comes with a catchy title. However, "God has A.D.D." or "The Inconsistencies of Jesus" are too inconsiderate - even when used for no other reason than to catch an audience. So we will go with this one.
If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.
~2Timothy 2:13
If we are faithless [do
not believe and are untrue to Him], He remains true (faithful to His
Word and His righteous character), for He cannot deny Himself.
~Amplified
Why is this so difficult for us as "believers" to grasp? Jesus cannot deny His character. Jesus cannot do something contrary to His Word or His Nature. And yet, I have been confronted with endless teaching to the contrary. It is infuriating. It is frightening. And worst of all, it is detrimental to my faith and to yours.
Contradiction is the word I have used in the past when discussing the church and the Word. I stand in churches and hear about the faithfulness of God. I listen as pastors and lay-people declare that our God can and does do great things for His people. Everybody gets excited and praises God for His goodness and faithfulness.
Then it happens.
The CYA moment.
God's faithfulness comes crashing down when someone in authority says something along the lines of "sometimes God does, and sometimes God doesn't." Other times it sounds like "sometimes God delivers, but there are times when His Plan doesn't allow Him to deliver His people."
"God gave me cancer."
"The Lord told me He needed me to hurt a little bit."
"Lord, we don't know why You choose to do what You do."
Inconsistent. Contradictory. Faithless.
If I were the type of man that the Church has portrayed God as, I would have no credibility with anyone. I couldn't do anything for anybody, because I wouldn't be able to establish trust with anyone. My question to anyone who will listen is this: how can we trust God when we claim that He is inconsistent? How can we call God 'faithful' and continue to claim that He is responsible for things that He promised to redeem us from? We are unintentionally proclaiming that God cannot be trusted.
This proves that many of us do not believe the Bible as we claim to. It proves we have more faith in negative testimonies than we do in our Father's own Word. Just because something bad happened to a person, just because we see atrocities within the Bible itself, does not mean that God is inconsistent. Our faith must be in God - not in the bad things that happen to people.
Just because God turned a horrible situation into a good testimony does not mean that the atrocity was His Will. If that line of thinking were true, then sin itself would be the Will of God. Jesus has redeemed us. Redeem means "to rescue." He rescued us from the Curse (Galatians 3:13), but we are still hanging onto the curse with all our might, rather than proclaiming (by faith) the freedom that belongs to us by right. Just because we don't see the promises of God come to fruition in our lives or in the life of another, does no mean that those promises are not sure!
We are promised protection. We are promised abundance. We are promised health and healing. We are promised freedom from addiction and oppression. The question is: do we believe in these promises, or do we put our stock in the words of tainted testimony? Does someone's misunderstanding carry more weight than the Words of our God?
We're told to test the spirits to see if they are from God (1John 4:1). We hold the testimony of others up against the Word of God. If someone claims "God said," but their testimony flies in the face of Scripture, God didn't say that! That is why we're given this more sure Word (2Peter 1:19).
There is no might with God. He will do the things He promised us. He will deliver. He will heal. He will save. He will protect. That is our covenant right with God as His people.
The question is not "why did You let this happen?" The question is "why couldn't You protect me?"
Set you up pretty good for next time, didn't I...?
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