Category: Random

Randy Alcorn, in his introduction to Mark Galli’s book God Wins, wrote about how preachers should not skip the doctrine of hell just because it seems to paint a negative picture of God:

Our job is not to be God’s public relations manager or make Him popular. The Almighty doesn’t need us to give Him a face-lift and airbrush His image. “But surely it isn’t bad to try to make God look good, is it?” The question is, look good on whose terms? God has His own terms. Our task is not to help people see God favorably but to see Him accurately…

Continue reading We Are Not God’s PR Guys

One of the questions that’s hard to address when talking to hurting people is the fact that God doesn’t exhaustively answer all our questions. The book of Job is a book containing 37 chapters worth of questions, speculations and deep pondering on the issue of suffering. The best philosophies that tackle the question of pain were explored in this lengthy book so much that one could almost expect that God was bound to explain Himself. He didn’t. Towards the end of the book, all Job got was an interesting enumeration of the wonders of creation.

The frustration of not getting exhaustive answers from God has haunted humanity for centuries on end. We want our lives to revolve around laws and principles and concepts we can wrap our heads around on. We want clear cut definitions. When we don’t get that kind of clarity, we either question God or become indifferent of Him. But is getting exhaustive answers really necessary? Does a good explanation guarantee that we will feel less pain, even if the explanation came from God? I think not. As Tullian Tchividjian wrote, information is seldom enough to heal a wounded heart.

Mark Galli, in his book God Wins, has an interesting insight about how Jesus identified with our suffering on the cross. It still doesn’t answer the question of pain but at least it’s comforting to know the grace that comes with God’s silence. Continue reading The Grace of God’s Silence

I was reading about Abraham’s lie about Sarah being his sister in Genesis 20. Three things seem to be happening here all at the same time.

First, God was building Abraham’s character through the trial God put him through.

Second, God was preserving Abraham’s marriage by not allowing Abimelech to touch Sarah.

Third, God was keeping Abimelech from sinning so He will not have to punish him.

But while God was doing all these in the background, all Abraham could see was his own fear and a cowardly sense of self preservation.

The fact that God sustains and maintains the universe and beyond without the slightest strain on His abilities should make us draw back, vulnerably in tune with our impossible smallness and fragility. How do you communicate with this God? If you don’t like how He’s wired things or you’re not amenable to what He commands, what could you possibly do about it? We are plankton shaking a microscopic fist at a killer whale.

Yet He hears us. He takes note. He is, the Bible says, mindful of us. And that should awe us (Psalm 8:4; Heb. 2:6).

Because as big and mighty as God is in light of the universe, the declaration of glory in the heavens is still not where He has most beautifully flexed His muscle. God reveals His power most fully not in the expanse of the universe but rather in His rescuing of those ants in that tiny mound in the middle of the Sahara, by being for them all they couldn’t be and taking from them what they could never be rid of. The depth, width, ferocity, and immensity of God is seen most spectacularly in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Matt Chandler, Introduction to Gospel Deeps

[Sin is] an energy, an obsession, an allergic reaction to God’s law, an irrational anti-God syndrome in our spiritual system that drives us to exalt ourselves and steels our hearts against devotion and obedience to our Maker. Pride, ingratitude, and self-gratification are its basic expressions, leading sometimes to antisocial behavior and always, even in the nicest and most honorable people, to a lack of love for God at the motivational level.

JI Packer, A Passion for Holiness 

Even though Jacob was made to wander away from his father’s house, he was still within the care and kind Providence of God. It is a comfort to know that no matter how messed up our lives are, we are never beyond the reach of God’s mercy.

—Jojo Agot