January 26, 1999
A talk show hostess interviewed a black woman who fought illness, poverty and racial tension. She became a successful business woman and mother. Her family, part of the studio audience, rose to bless her. One son said something like, “Mother, thank you for allowing me to stay in your body and be born, for raising your family and sticking it out for us.”
Most of us know that God tells us to honor our father and mother. What we do not realize is how much our children depend on us for their concept of God. That is, if they see us as loving and wise, they think God is loving and wise also.
However, children whose parents are thoughtless, selfish or abusive have a difficult time imagining God as someone who could possibly care for them. To them, the word ‘father’ can have unpleasant connotations. When they hear it they feel, at the least, disappointment and are often angry and fearful, emotions that carry over to their concept of a heavenly Father.
The father image that God choose to use in His revelation of Himself was never intended to be a bad image. God created marriage and the family unit. His design included loving parents who give their best effort to raise children who love, obey and respect them.
Occasionally, we meet a family that seems close to this ideal. I think of the Pattisons, a couple whose lives recently ended in a car accident. Married 63 years, they had sons and daughters who honored and respected them because this couple loved and nurtured their children.
Yet for many, the image of father and family is deeply marred, not because poor parenting is God’s pattern but because human nature, in general, has also been marred. Even the Pattisons were not perfect yet many more families fall far beneath their standard.
In a marred family, parents resent their children. Children curse their parents. Sometimes, headlines tell of tragic situations in which parent or child goes so far as to injure or even kill others in their family. How can this be?
God made man and woman in His image. That is, we have characteristics that are like God and that reflect His nature. These characteristics appear whenever we selflessly give time and effort toward raising our children. They also appear when our children honor and obey us.
Yet the nature of God in us is marred by sin. Who is perfectly like Him? The Bible says, “There is none righteous, no not one . . . . All have fallen short of the glory of God.”
To get back on track, we need our sin and imperfections forgiven by God and cleansed from our lives. The Pattisons experienced that, even before they were wed. For most of their lives, they honored God in their personal life and in their home and community. God blessed them in return. Their children love and serve God and are wise and loving parents themselves.
The lady on the television show also honored God. She said that she owed all the good that was happening in her life to Him. Proverbs 31 says, “A woman that fears the LORD, she shall be praised” and that “Her children arise up, and call her blessed.” What a joy it must have been for her to have her son rise up on national television and bless her.
These and others like them are examples of how to be a great parent. They clearly show that when we obey God, we are not only living up to His intention in our creation but making a difference in the lives of our children.
Showing posts with label image of God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label image of God. Show all posts
Monday, August 14, 2017
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
Where do we come from? .................. Parables 418
April 26, 1994
I remember the first time I talked about creation with one of my grandchildren. She was an easy-going five-year old. First I pointed to the trees and flowers and said God created them. She smiled her approval of that idea. Someone once said you seldom find five-year old atheists. However, when I told her God also made her, she surprised me. She stamped her foot and declared, “Nobody made me!”
My intention was to show her the wonderful design in nature and let her know she was well-designed too, but her response reminded me that independence and a desire to be self-reliant starts in the crib. She was not about to give anyone any control over who she was, at least not that day.
Intent on building her sense of worth, I tried again a few days later. This time she grinned at me and expressed pleasure. For reasons only known to her, she decided it was okay to be created by God.
When I challenged the creation story, my mother strongly defended it. I was much older than my granddaughter. I did not mind the idea of being created by God but at that time the theory of evolution sounded reasonable. Not wanting to give up God, I tried to separate the issue into two camps: science and religion. God was someone to worship and hear my prayers but since science seemed to have proven otherwise, He must have created everything by some sort of evolutionary method.
What I didn’t know is that all scientific data is not in yet. Even since then, research has uncovered evidence of an instantaneous creation. Igneous rocks and coal have “radio halos” which indicated a very young earth. The familiar process of erosion also shows that the earth cannot be as old as once thought.
As far as where life came from, in the middle ages, people saw mold grow, insects come out of morning dew, and maggots appear in rotting material. To them, it was reasonable to believe life was spontaneously generated. It was only after Pasteur proved otherwise that this medieval alternative to Creation became obsolete.
However, there were some scientists that did not want to let go of that idea. They determined Pasteur proved very little. They said life may be able to occur spontaneously in other conditions. To them, scientific proof was not enough and life must somehow just happen. Author J. H. Rush says, “It illustrates beautifully the tendency to believe what we want to believe.”
Genesis 1:26-27 says, “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all creatures that move along the ground.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
It seems that people have said, “Let us decide that humans are creatures evolved from a primate, evolved from a one-celled whatever, and that this one celled creature came from... we are not sure. In any case, we intend to rule everything, including our creation history.” So men and women created gods in their own imagination and made them creatures that vaguely resemble themselves.
I remember the first time I talked about creation with one of my grandchildren. She was an easy-going five-year old. First I pointed to the trees and flowers and said God created them. She smiled her approval of that idea. Someone once said you seldom find five-year old atheists. However, when I told her God also made her, she surprised me. She stamped her foot and declared, “Nobody made me!”
My intention was to show her the wonderful design in nature and let her know she was well-designed too, but her response reminded me that independence and a desire to be self-reliant starts in the crib. She was not about to give anyone any control over who she was, at least not that day.
Intent on building her sense of worth, I tried again a few days later. This time she grinned at me and expressed pleasure. For reasons only known to her, she decided it was okay to be created by God.
When I challenged the creation story, my mother strongly defended it. I was much older than my granddaughter. I did not mind the idea of being created by God but at that time the theory of evolution sounded reasonable. Not wanting to give up God, I tried to separate the issue into two camps: science and religion. God was someone to worship and hear my prayers but since science seemed to have proven otherwise, He must have created everything by some sort of evolutionary method.
What I didn’t know is that all scientific data is not in yet. Even since then, research has uncovered evidence of an instantaneous creation. Igneous rocks and coal have “radio halos” which indicated a very young earth. The familiar process of erosion also shows that the earth cannot be as old as once thought.
As far as where life came from, in the middle ages, people saw mold grow, insects come out of morning dew, and maggots appear in rotting material. To them, it was reasonable to believe life was spontaneously generated. It was only after Pasteur proved otherwise that this medieval alternative to Creation became obsolete.
However, there were some scientists that did not want to let go of that idea. They determined Pasteur proved very little. They said life may be able to occur spontaneously in other conditions. To them, scientific proof was not enough and life must somehow just happen. Author J. H. Rush says, “It illustrates beautifully the tendency to believe what we want to believe.”
Genesis 1:26-27 says, “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all creatures that move along the ground.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
It seems that people have said, “Let us decide that humans are creatures evolved from a primate, evolved from a one-celled whatever, and that this one celled creature came from... we are not sure. In any case, we intend to rule everything, including our creation history.” So men and women created gods in their own imagination and made them creatures that vaguely resemble themselves.
Friday, September 4, 2015
And where did you come from? ................ Parables 322
June 16, 1992
When our children were in elementary school, one of their playmates had rather unusual mannerisms and speech patterns. We often wondered the source since his accent was not recognizable. It was not French or a Texas drawl. His movements, while not comical or weird, were also distinctive.
His mother usually picked him up when he finished playing at our house, but one day his dad dropped by to take him home. Within moments of answering the doorbell, I understood why this boy talked and moved the way he did — he was a carbon copy, a smaller version, of his father.
I think of that boy nearly every time I hear something to do with the long-standing debate about the origins of man. Of course the debate basically offers two choices. One is that we evolved from primates, which evolved from who knows what, which originally was some sort of cosmic soup. The other is that we were created by a supernatural being — namely God.
Without apology, I believe the second option. Logically, it seems all things require a cause or a designer. Also, the greater and more intricate never seems to come from the less complex. How then could man come from animals?
Furthermore, evolution offers no source for ethics. Where do our ideas of right and wrong come from? Related to ethics is faith — and I think I would need far more of it to believe that “Time + Chance + Energy (where did that come from?) = Humanity,” than I need to believe the Biblical record of creation.
After giving a general account, there is a description of the pattern God used in Genesis 1:26-27: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
Since the record does not explain what it means to be made in the image of God, people speculate. Some think since we reason, have a will, and experience emotions... that must be what God is like. Others include creative ability, appreciation for beauty, and the ability to enter into relationships. Whatever it actually does mean, and even though there is not a whole lot of “goodness” in most of us, mankind somehow reflects “God-ness” — we resemble our “Father.”
This debate is not settled by opinion though. What happened happened, outside of what any of us choose to believe. However, science has yet to answer why people, with our deep capacity for selfishness and evil, can also have a deep sense of what is good. It points to a “godlikeness” and a higher “goodness” that apes and animals do not share.
Our young friend imaged his dad. We, somehow, image our Father. We do not usually do it with words and actions as he did, but when we do talk and behave in a godly way, there are no explanations other than love and good deeds come from a supreme Love and Author of all that is good.
When our children were in elementary school, one of their playmates had rather unusual mannerisms and speech patterns. We often wondered the source since his accent was not recognizable. It was not French or a Texas drawl. His movements, while not comical or weird, were also distinctive.
His mother usually picked him up when he finished playing at our house, but one day his dad dropped by to take him home. Within moments of answering the doorbell, I understood why this boy talked and moved the way he did — he was a carbon copy, a smaller version, of his father.
I think of that boy nearly every time I hear something to do with the long-standing debate about the origins of man. Of course the debate basically offers two choices. One is that we evolved from primates, which evolved from who knows what, which originally was some sort of cosmic soup. The other is that we were created by a supernatural being — namely God.
Without apology, I believe the second option. Logically, it seems all things require a cause or a designer. Also, the greater and more intricate never seems to come from the less complex. How then could man come from animals?
Furthermore, evolution offers no source for ethics. Where do our ideas of right and wrong come from? Related to ethics is faith — and I think I would need far more of it to believe that “Time + Chance + Energy (where did that come from?) = Humanity,” than I need to believe the Biblical record of creation.
After giving a general account, there is a description of the pattern God used in Genesis 1:26-27: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
Since the record does not explain what it means to be made in the image of God, people speculate. Some think since we reason, have a will, and experience emotions... that must be what God is like. Others include creative ability, appreciation for beauty, and the ability to enter into relationships. Whatever it actually does mean, and even though there is not a whole lot of “goodness” in most of us, mankind somehow reflects “God-ness” — we resemble our “Father.”
This debate is not settled by opinion though. What happened happened, outside of what any of us choose to believe. However, science has yet to answer why people, with our deep capacity for selfishness and evil, can also have a deep sense of what is good. It points to a “godlikeness” and a higher “goodness” that apes and animals do not share.
Our young friend imaged his dad. We, somehow, image our Father. We do not usually do it with words and actions as he did, but when we do talk and behave in a godly way, there are no explanations other than love and good deeds come from a supreme Love and Author of all that is good.
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