Every class I teach is started with a 3-5 minute devotional where we discuss a verse from the Bible. I am discovering that it is amazing what can be explained using stick men!!! Here is one of the verses from this week accompanied by my explanation. Then, as I thought more about this verse I had a couple of epiphanies.
“Because of Christ and our
faith in him, we can now come fearlessly into God's presence, assured of his
glad welcome.” Ephesians 3:12
The Stick-men Gospel:
God is described in the Bible as being a consuming fire.
Sin can not exist in His presence, instead it is destroyed. Just like turning on a light bulb destroys darkness. That means that we can't come into Gods presence because we have sin in us and simply being in God's presence would destroy us.
He doesn't want us to die, He loves us, so He put us into quarantine, away from His presence - because He loves us and doesn't want us to die.
Then He came up with a plan to bring us back into His world. He sent Jesus to our world as a human. Jesus lived a perfect sinless life and died an obedient death paying the price for our sins in the process.
Then because Jesus was sinless He was one Human who could go into Gods presence without being destroyed.
When we accept Jesus as our God and Saviour He adopts us as little brothers and sisters and takes responsibility for our sins. However He's already paid for those sins so there can be no more punishment for them - Double Jeopardy.
This means that He can take us into God's presence with Him and there is nothing to fear, we won't be destroyed.
And God welcomes us with open arms and joy!!!!
Epiphany 1:
God Loves Me!!
Yes, I know, the Bible says this over and over again. But somehow I had this idea of God as a reserved being who quietly says "Cat, I love you," and then gives you one of those lean-in hugs where you lightly touch each others shoulders and air-kiss in the vicinity of each others checks. Then you wave goodbye and go and take care of yourself, trying not too bother Him to much, until it's time to touch-base again.
Instead God wants to shout "I love You!!" and sweep us up in a huge bear hug and not let go!! No reserve there. And He doesn't want to let us go off to take care of ourselves, He wants to nestle us into His lap and give us everything we need and more besides. Showering us with good things. (Of course His definition of good is not always the same as mine, but I already know that He has the better definition and even when it seems like what He is giving me is a curse rather than a blessing I know that He can be trusted - like the three Young Men in Babylon I am learning to be able to say "My God is able and willing to save me, but even if He doesn't I will still serve/love/trust Him.")
Epiphany 2:
God must feel so devastated by our rejection of Him.
Imagine if you had a condition that instantly destroyed anything you touched. You can't hug your most loved person all you can do is watch them from afar and hanker. That's God's problem!
If we come into His presence we will instantly die because of the sin in us. Not because He want's to kill us but simply because sin can't exist in God's presence and if the sin is in us then we can't exist there either. So God is caught. He loves us most desperately but He can't have us.
So He came up with a plan to remove the sin from us. It involved the death of His Son. The Son who also loves us more than His own life, the Son who also is forced to watch us from afar. The Son who gave up His divinity and was born as a human baby, who became one of us. The Son who endured the torture of life in this world of sin, of death on a wooden cross and of separation from His Father so that they could both have future where they can be with us (me) for eternity.
Now there is a way that we can come to God, a way for us to be engulfed in that bear hug, to be held and never let go and we ignore it, reject it and despise it. We take a pass on the greatest love we can ever experience for a handful of meagre excuses; fear of giving up control to a being who is all powerful, all loving and all knowing. Covetously clutching after our own perception of wealth when our potential lover created the universe and owns the cattle on a thousand hills.
Poor God!!!
Epiphany 3:
When I allow sin back into my life it separates me from the lover of my soul, God.
I am learning that I need to obey God - not because it is the right thing to do but because I don't want to be separated from my saviour. Every time I sin God has to step away from me again - to protect me from Himself. And then He has to wait. Wait for me to gather the courage to crawl back to Jesus and ask for forgiveness - except that crawling is not required God is desperately waiting for us to come to Him, To engulf me once again in His love and care.
In Conclusion:
I know in whom I have believed, He is revealing Himself to me more and more everyday and I know that I want to be surrendered to His care forever.
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