IMAGINE:
It's raining…
you're walking on a dirt road, in a foreign country, in complete culture shock, with hundreds of people around you.
They all seem pissed, screaming across the road from one store to the next, trying to make the sound of their voice carry through the loud noises of cars honking and fits of road rage.
Then all of a sudden, you come across a cold, pale, bruised body, laying in the middle of the road.
And as you walk closer to the body, then proceed to kneel down next to it to get a much closer look, you cover your nose with your soaking wet shirt because the stench of the body is unbearable!
PAUSE…
In this moment, what we believe about Daddy is crucial!
This moment, I only dream of! Crazy right, I know! But I can’t wait for the moment to see life dominate death! Because death has been swallowed up!! With preparing for The World race mentally, these are honest questions I've asked myself over and over again, and I always come to the same conclusion: that Daddy is ALWAYS good!
When this moment comes, what we believe about Daddy will determine how we act or re-act.
A.W. Tozer said, "The most important thing we can do is to think rightly about God." And I would 100% agree with this statement!
Now, I have not personally been in this situation, yet, but I know when the time comes, he/she will receive life! Why? Because faith is being sure of what we hope for!
You might be saying to yourself, Nate, how can you be so sure of it? And then you might proceed to ask other questions such as, Well doesn't God give and take away? But what if it was God's will? What if God is trying to teach the family a lesson? And so on and so forth…
If you lean towards any of those beliefs, I want to encourage you to keep reading and ask Dad these hard questions, not your pastor, mentor or professor. And I don't claim to have all the answers, but you have the same spirit living in you! Holy Spirit is our teacher and it is Him who abides in us and we need no man to teach us! (1 John 2:27)
PURE WATER OR POO WATER
If we were given a bottle of water and someone said, "This water is totally pure and delicious and good…but it has .5% poo in it, would we still drink it?" I didn't think so…(Thanks Tyler G. Johnson, author of How to Raise the Dead *shameless plug*)
God is light and in Him is NO darkness…yet we read this as God is 99.5% light and in Him is .5% darkness. Like He has a "secret" will to teach us a lesson through sickness, suffering, poverty and affliction.
We have to view the Father in light of Jesus being the perfect representation of the nature and character of Daddy! (Heb 1:1-3) That Jesus said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. Jesus also said, no one has known (understood) me which is why I have come. He also said that to the Pharisees (religious leaders) of his day, that they searched the scriptures for life, but refuse to come to Him so they could live!(John 5:39)
Jesus came to reveal that we had an enemy all along, and that the prophets and others who walked the earth didn't understand Him. Jesus said, in John 10:10 that the enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy but He has come that we may have LIFE and LIFE in ABUNDANCE. But since the fall, man has thought the Father is the one who steals, kills and destroys and we still believe that today!
ALLAH THEOLOGY
Jess and I went to a DRT(Dead Raising Training) this last weekend where we heard Tyler G. Johnson speak and he shared a story from when he was in the middle east. While he was there, I believe it was a man's child who had died, Tyler wanted to raise him from the dead. Tyler began to share that this man was highly offended because it was obvious that this death was Allah's will.
Now, if Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever and we take, let's call it the Allah theology as truth, then that means that Jesus was killing, is killing and will ALWAYS be killing stealing and destroying. Which would make it very easy for us to believe figuring we've been fed a belief system of an angry, vengeful Father since the days of flannelgraph's and graham crackers in Sunday school who can't even stand in the presence of sin. Instead of realizing that light penetrates darkness and sin can't stand the presence of Daddy!
Or we could actually think about this logically and choose to believe in a good Father who is 100% light and in Him is no poo. Which would mean that Christ has always been giving life, love and redemption, and He still is today and he will be FOREVER!! Dad has ALWAYS been for us, He IS for us, and He ALWAYS will be!
So if you believe that God kills, I want to encourage you to keep reading and to believe the gospel (good news) today!
BI-POLAR FATHER
This Allah theology about Daddy will always leave us wondering, does God really love me? And it actually makes us elevate our own goodness and our own love above God's. Like as if we want our family member healed more than Poppa! Like our hearts happen to be running over with hope and filled with more compassion than the Father's!
It will also leave us with a diagnosis of a split personality God. Jesus is for me, but Daddy is against me. And the Holy Spirit is always telling me what I'm doing wrong!
It leaves us with a bi-polar Father who's one moment ready to bless us because we are His child, but ready to punish us because of our stupid decisions. One moment He's ready to deck us in the face, but then we ask for forgiveness, (as if the cross didn't do anything), and Jesus steps in and says, "Daddy wait, wait…he just prayed to me, so please don't sock him in the dome right now."
This belief that it's God's will to cause sickness and disease, or that He is "in control" of everything is dangerous because then where goes our message against sin? If God is in control, and he caused the twin towers to fall, we are basically saying that the Holy Spirit inspired terrorists to fly planes into buildings, behead the pilot,and kill 3000 innocent people including children. If you shook your head and said, "Yes, that was God's will", you basically just agreed with the people on those planes and should've been on there with them cheering them on shouting, "Yes! Yes! This is God's will!! Do it! Do it!!" And you should be okay with abortion, murder, rape and little children getting abducted and sold into sex slavery! This belief makes it okay to kill in the name of God! That if it's His will, it's okay to point a gun at 20 children and open fire creating a bloody massacre of the innocent.
I hope we realize that this sounds ridiculous and in this context, Buddha an Ghandi have now become more peaceful than the guy we call Dad?? No wonder why some people don't want anything to do with "Christianity"!!
ALLAH or ABBA
If death is part of God's plan, and so is sickness, then why do we go to the doctor to get healed?? Why do we beg God for more time with our family before we pass away? We might as well just suck it up and take it as God's will. I mean wouldn't we be in rebellion to God if we tried to fight his will?? Maybe because we know deep down that it’s NOT!
I believe these questions are ones that ALL of humanity from the foundation of the world has asked: Is Father actually good? Does He really care about me? Is there a higher power who UNCONDITIONALLY loves me and wants the best for me?
We quote it ALL the time in church, for I know the plans I have for you. NOT….NOT to harm you, but to prosper you! (Jeremiah 29:11) But yet most of American Christianity believes in Allah who kills instead of Abba who cares!!
The reason why it's so important to think rightly about Daddy God in this context is because if we believe He is Allah who sometimes kills, then what's the point of the resurrection? Why even lay hands on people to get them healed? Why even THINK about trying to raise the guy from the dead?!
So I challenge you to open your mind, and imagine your in that scene, are you going to let your paradigm of a father who looks more like Allah determine the outcome of the circumstance?
Or will we kill that sacred cow and dare to believe in an Abba who actually likes us, is happy, and who truly longs to give us LIFE and LIFE in ABUNDANCE?!
CONTINUE
And as you walk closer to the body, then proceed to kneel down next to it to get a much closer look, you cover your nose with your soaking wet shirt because the stench of the body is unbearable!
You reach down to the brutally beaten, bloody remains of what you think is a human and say, “Wake Up! For Death has been swallowed and certainly you shall live!!”
The what was once cold and blue corpse instantly jumps to his feet and begins to unashamedly rejoice in the love shown to him!
And you both begin to dance in the street as the crowd gathers and you begin to proclaim the victory of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ!!
