Absolutely Essential – Checking Your Love Motor

Some things are essential, crucial, and some are not. Your car will still drive with a broken window or windshield wipers that have a mind of their own. It will still get you from point A to point B without a heater or a working air conditioner, but if your motor seizes you are not going anywhere. The same is true of our bodies, we can manage without some parts, but if you’re your heart stops – sayonara.

When it comes to living life to its fullest, the way God designed us and wants us to live, the most essential, crucial, and indispensable part is love. It is so essential that God commands it, and Jesus affirms its foremost importance, “One of the teachers of religious law was standing there listening to the debate. He realized that Jesus had answered well, so he asked, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
 Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The LORD our God is the one and only LORD.  And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these” Mark 12:28-31 (NLT2).

The Apostle Paul trying to correct numerous problems among the Christians in Corinth (Non-Christian thinking, personality cults, suing each other, doctrinal heresies, etc.) pinpoints the lack of, or complete absence of genuine Christlike love as their number one problem, and tells them that Christians without love are bankrupt and destitute, no matter how spiritual they claim to be. “If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing” 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (NLT2). – Ouch!

God’s word, the Bible, identifies sin as the core problem plaguing mankind (Romans 3:23), and sin invariably corrupts love, perverts love, twists love, kills love, and diminishes our capacity to love. Sin turns love into something manipulative, self-centered, selective, optional, and commercial. Sin misdirects our God-given ability to love from its two most important objects, God and others, to things that are of incomparable lesser and temporal value. Misplaced and lack of love devalues both God and people, it inflames our desires/lusts, and it inflates our pride, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” 1 John 2:15-17 (ESV).

How much wrong went down in the world in the time you’ve been reading this pastors-note? Too much! May God help you and me to continually remember that, “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of God’s law” Romans 13:10 (ESV, italics mine).

No one knows more about love than God, than Jesus Christ, “God is love” 1 John 4:8. So, if I want to learn how to love that is the very best starting point. In the school of God’s love, two things are essential: 1. Embracing Jesus Christ, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins… Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God” 1 John 4:10, 15 (ESV); 2. Living by God’s commandments, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome” 1 John 5:2-3 (ESV).

Whenever I point out the absolute essential of loving like Jesus, that loving God and loving people are the two highest values in God’s kingdom, the “Yes but …” raise their hands, even in my own mind. Too often that is the sinner in me afraid of going radical, trying to tone it down. Too often it is the stranglehold of my opinions and politics unwilling to surrender. Too often I retreat into reducing this love thing to a mental exercise. But, I am always glad when I let God’s love captivate me, move my legs, extend my hands, disperse my belongings, and stretch my wired-for-love soul.

            To God be all Glory. Love you, Pastor Hans

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You Must Be Saved – By Jesus

 “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name (Jesus) under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.” Acts 4:12 (NASB, parenthesis mine)

That’s not what they wanted to hear, the Jewish ruling council who had Peter and John arrested the previous day. In their minds, the best thing that could happen was for the whole Jesus thing to away. If anyone needed saving it surely wasn’t them, they had their act together, contributed to society, stood for public morality, believed in God, prayed, and taught their children about God. No, if anyone needed saving it was these two uneducated and deluded followers of Jesus and their kind. If anyone needed saving it was the toothless tweaking drug addict down by the liquor store, or those damn Samaritans and heathens up north, those foreigners who shouldn’t be here in the first place, and those corrupt, Rome-sympathizing tax collectors. “The audacity! How dare they suggest that we are wrong, corrupt, and in need of saving.”

In the end, they tried to intimidate Peter and John and released them but not without threatening them and officially banning them from preaching Jesus’ name and the message that goes with it. Obviously, it didn’t work because, thankfully, Jesus’ name and the truth that we can only be saved by believing in His name is still being proclaimed two thousand years later. Not for lack of trying, however, in short order, they arrested them again and this time had them beaten before releasing them, and not long after executed Stephen for nothing more than preaching Jesus. They were far more corrupt, sinful, and lost than they would ever admit. Oh, how they needed saving.

They totally missed it, the good news that through Jesus they could be saved from God’s deserved judgment, death, and eternal damnation as well as the opportunity God gave them to repent, believe in, and call on Jesus’ name when Peter told them both the truth and pointed out their need.

Their rejection of Jesus and self-righteousness hardened both their minds and hearts, salvation was so near and yet so far away. It wasn’t that they didn’t think people needed saving, it just wasn’t them who needed saving. “There is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name (Jesus) under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved,” is just so narrow, so all-inclusive. No first-class cabins in the salvation ark of Jesus, the upright productive citizen is seated next to the tattooed gangbanger convict, the philanthropist has to share a cabin with the toothless drug addict in front of the liquor store we met earlier, the Never-Trumper next to MAGA-hat wearer, the illegal alien welcomed the same as the natural-born citizen, even our enemies get a sunny deck chair next to us instead of the brig.

The most humbling place in all the world is at the foot of the cross of Jesus, and realize that the sinless Son of God died there because of and for you, that without Him you have no hope of forgiveness and will forever remain in the clutches of sin and death, that the sum-total of all of your very best and noble efforts cannot save you, that you are unable to save yourself, that you need saving, “You must be saved” by Jesus!

So, are you saved? Are you going to respond to this opportunity God is granting you through a simple pastor’s note, or are you going to pass it up? If you have never been saved, read the following, then kneel and pray out loud your belief in the crucified and resurrected Jesus, acknowledge your sinfulness, and call on His name to save you.

“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved…
 For ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’” Romans 10:9-10, 13 (ESV).  

            To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans

P.S. If you knelt and asked Jesus to save you, take these next steps. Tell everyone, including me (dergermanshepherd@gmail.com). Find a Jesus-preaching, Bible-teaching church. Get Baptized. Start serving Jesus every day.

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My Brother’s Keeper – Cain and Christmas

It was a defiant, don’t bother me, leave me alone, answer. An answer rooted in guilt, in never having liked God speaking to him, in never dealing with his sins, sins that finally had spun completely out of control.

He didn’t see it, neither did he hear it; sin does have a way of rendering us blind, deaf, and foolish. God wasn’t trying to rub his nose in it, He was trying to help him, deliver him from the ever-tightening grip of sin, from his soul surrendering to the darkness reaching for it, from repeating the sin of his parents – the rejection of God.

And so, his mean-sounding answer matched what his mean hands had already done, “I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” Cain threw back in God’s face when asked, “Where is your brother Abel?” (Genesis 4:9).

“Am I my brother’s keeper?” has echoed through the ages right down to you and me.

God didn’t ask Cain to get information as to Abel’s whereabouts. God witnessed the murder; He saw where Cain dug a hole in the ground to hide his brother’s body. God’s question was for Cain’s benefit, a chance to be broken, to weep, to confess, to repent, to cry out for mercy, to be delivered from the sin he couldn’t master, the sin that had mastered and enslaved him. Cain didn’t take God’s offer, instead, he lied and hissed the defiant answer across his clenched teeth, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” He sure wasn’t, hadn’t been, but he should’ve been. He surely shouldn’t have been his brother’s murderer.

It wasn’t that Cain didn’t know or believe in God, or that he wasn’t religious. God spoke directly with him several times. What Cain didn’t like was God being adamant about holiness and righteousness, God’s rigorous demand that his sin had to be dealt with and that an offering, no matter how fancy, means nothing if the heart and actions don’t match. Cain hated that God had no regard for his offering, that God declared his religious approach empty. Empty religion, Christian or otherwise, is no help with our depravity, is of no assistance with mastering sin, has room for hate, and finds ways to justify most anything, even murder – the plot to kill Jesus, the Son of God, was hatched by the religious leaders.

“Am I my brother’s keeper?” Abel wasn’t a bad brother, Jesus called him righteous (Matthew 23:35). The only way to be called “righteous” is to do what is right, to do what is right before God. Instead of appreciating his brother’s righteousness Cain was jealous of it, hated it. That’s how sin and righteousness work. One is light and the other is darkness. Your and my sin looks a whole lot dirtier when we stand next to someone who is good, has a heart that beats for God, is Christlike. Cain’s solution was to turn down the light, to not deal with his sin and inner darkness, to not address his own unrighteousness, and instead attack and snuff out the light. According to Jesus, Cain’s lying and murder inform us about who his true spiritual father was “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies” John 8:44 (NASB).

“Am I My brother’s keeper?” A similar question is “Who is my neighbor?” Luke 10:29. A righteous person answers them very differently than Cain, or how they have been answered most often throughout history. Both questions need to be answered by each one of us if we are going to celebrate a truly meaningful Christmas and live righteous lives. Christmas, when we remember that God sent His only Son into our world filled with big and little Cains, our world sick with empty religions and philosophies, our world overflowing with lies, our world where too much blood cries out, our world lacking brother’s and sister’s keepers, our world in need of more neighbors and fewer enemies, our world needing forgiveness of and deliverance from sin.  

Our world still desperately needs the light of Christ, it needs the Jesus light to shine through you and me. “The people who live in darkness have seen a great light – Jesus, and for those living in the shadowland of Cain, sin, and death, light has dawned” Matthew 4:16 (HCSB, italics mine). Thank you, God.

Have a most meaningful and God-glorifying Advent and Christmas season.

Love you, Pastor Hans

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From Sin and Death to Salvation and Life

Before you start reading this pastor’s note, find a Bible and read Genesis Chapter 3. – Done? Good. Now read away.

“Daddy will fix it!” was the oft-repeated refrain when our children were young and something broke. I tried my best and did fix a lot of things, but the day when Daddy couldn’t fix it inevitably arrived way ahead of schedule. There’s just no way to fix the upside-down parakeet, a bloated goldfish, a shriveled-up hermit crab, or a rigor-mortised puppy by the front door.

“What in the world made you do that?” “Why did you bite your brother?” Do you know where your sister’s favorite toy went?” “Is that your name carved into the toilet seat? Any idea how it got there?” “You NEVER, EVER talk to your Mother like that?” “Is that really the truth, what actually happened?” As much as Susie and I tried, we couldn’t prevent any of these from happening.

At the end of the first two chapters of God’s written word, the Bible, the world is a pristine, “very good,” whole, and uncorrupted place, including Adam and Eve. And then, it all shatters in chapter three. You and I are both living in the aftermath and with the consequences of what is called “the fall,” when sin invaded mankind and became an inherited trait, “When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned” Romans 5:12 (NLT2). Since then, everyone, including you and me, has been included in God’s verdict of, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” Romans 3:23 (NASB).

Between the beautiful chapters of Genesis 1-2 and Revelation 21:10-22, there are 1185 chapters of brokenness, of human depravity, of fallen, sinful, rebellious, and lost mankind, stretching over all of humanities past, present, and future until God’s final judgment of everyone who has ever lived, including you and me.

You and I have our own book, the complete unredacted record of the story of our lives, every decision, act, thought, motive, and even careless word (Matthew 12:36). It verifies God’s verdict that not just some have sinned, but that “all have sinned and fall short of God’s glorious standard,” that you and I are descendants of sinful Adam and Eve, sinners in our own right, condemned to die.

We haven’t been able to fix it. We can’t, we are as impotent as the dad who was just handed a small fishbowl with a little fish belly sticking up, “You are dead in your trespasses and sins” Ephesians 2:1 (NASB, italics mine).

In the aftermath of eating the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil Adam and Eve have an immediate sense of guilt and shame, followed by trying to cover their shame, hiding from God, playing dumb, lying, pointing fingers and blaming others (including God and the devil), a stubborn refusal to repent before God and to plead for His mercy. Do these in any way describe you and the way you are dealing with your sin and God? Indeed, you are a descendant of Adam and Eve.

If you and I can’t fix it, who can? Only God, only Christ! Ephesians 2:1, which I quoted above, actually reads, “You were (not are) dead in your trespasses and sins.” What brought about the change? What moved those Ephesians from you are to you were dead in your trespasses and sins?  To answer that, let’s have God’s word speak for itself, “Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins. You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil—the commander of the powers in the unseen world. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else.
 But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!) For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus. So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus.
 God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago” Ephesians 2:1-10 (NLT2)

Have you been saved and made alive by faith in Christ, or are you still dead in your sin?

To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans

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Trees Undervaluing Good – Overestimating Evil – Underestimating God

Trees – I have admired, photographed, felled, bucked, trimmed, burned, planted, pruned, carved, climbed, and picked fruit off them. Maybe you have as well?

Trees – Have you stopped and paused for their daily, soul-refreshing dance in the low morning and evening sun as they are putting on their annual Autumn Extravaganza, spilling buckets of color over entire forests and landscapes, in backyards and orchards, along trails, city streets, and roadsides.

Trees – Food, fuel, shade, building material, tools, furniture, baskets, toys, … They are an incredible part of God’s good creation and provision. Then God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them”; and it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good…
  Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so. God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. Genesis 1:11-12, 29-31 (NASB)

Trees – They are mentioned sixteen times trees in the first three chapters of Genesis, the Bible book of Beginnings, eight times about two specific trees, and six of those about the tree “of the knowledge of good and evil.” The LORD God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed. Out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…
 Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” Genesis 1:8-9, 29-30 2:8-9, 15-17 (NASB)

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the one tree that was off limits. The tree that has terribly affected all of mankind, all of creation, and all human history. The tree by which Adam and Eve sinned, and sin infected all of us.

Why did God plant it in the first place if they couldn’t eat its fruit? Why plant a tree they had to continually say no to? Why did God plant it when He knew satan could and would use it as a source of temptation? Why plant it when the stakes were so high and the consequences so dire and far-reaching?

It was a very good command, “from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die,” because knowing evil is overrated, and only God can handle the knowledge of evil without being corrupted by it, we surely can’t. They knew good, that’s all they knew, what could knowing evil possibly add to that? – nothing. I wish I knew less evil, were more like a little child whose sin nature hasn’t blossomed yet. It doesn’t take long for evil that is unleashed in the mind (knowledge) to work itself into our hearts, onto our lips, and take hold of our feet and hands (experiential knowledge), and from there extent itself into the lives of others.

That tree was a daily reminder that some things are better left in the hands of God. We are created in the image of God but not to be God, we are not qualified to occupy His throne, no one is, and when we try it always ends in disaster and death.

That tree asked a daily question, “Do you trust God?” even when He says, “No” or “Don’t.” So, do you? Do trust in God’s wisdom and goodness, and that He both knows what He is talking about and means what He says?

Heeding God’s good command to bypass that tree was a declaration of trust, an act of faith, a choice for good and life. But we know it didn’t take long for Adam and Eve to ignore the command not to eat of that tree (Genesis 3), to be duped into thinking that knowing evil and playing God was worth risking all the good God had blessed and surrounded them with, and to be deceived into thinking that God’s declared consequences to their actions somehow did not apply to them.

You and I are familiar with the knowledge of good and evil. For one, the taste for sin has been an inherited trait ever since Adam and Eve ate off that tree. For another, we are also guilty of continuing to snack and gorge ourselves on the fruit of that tree, falling to the same deception to mistrust and underestimate God, and that there is some way for us to be God.  

The command regarding the tree of the knowledge of good and evil still stands – “Don’t eat from it.”

 To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans

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Jesus on Gender, Sex, and Marriage

Jesus on Gender, Sex, and Marriage

There was only one crowd-pleasing answer, and Jesus didn’t comply. Instead, He gave the most narrow view of the unpopular answer, and He accused the questioners of hard hearts out of synch with God.  Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?”
 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?  So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?”
 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.
 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery” Matthew 19:3-9 (ESV).

Even Jesus’ disciples thought this was far too high of a bar, they responded, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry” Matthew 19:10 (ESV). But Jesus didn’t budge.

The questioning Pharisees pointed out what the Mosaic law permitted (Deuteronomy 24:1-4), but Jesus corrected them and insisted that to find the right answer they needed to go back to God’s original design regarding marriage, and quoted from Genesis 1 and 2, pointing out God’s creative prerogative (“in the beginning it what not so”), and His design for gender, sex, and marriage.

Before looking at the details of Jesus’ answers there is something else we need to remember. Jesus wasn’t merely relying on the written text of Scripture, although that in itself carries enough authority, He was actually there when man and woman were created. He is the one who formed Adam from the dust of the ground, and He is the one who formed Eve out of the side of Adam’s flesh, “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him” Colossians 1:16 (ESV).If there ever was someone who can speak with full authority regarding gender, sex, and marriage, it’s Jesus – our Creator.

In taking the Pharisees and us back to the creation accounts Jesus highlights:

• God created us not with fluid or self-assigning but distinct and fixed male and female genders, and each gender is complete in bearing His image.
• God provided Adam with a fully corresponding and equal partner and placed sex within the context of marriage.
• God designed and defined marriage as a lifelong union of one man and one woman.
• God designed marriage not only to be a private union but also to be a social and societal construct.
• God’s design and definitions are not the problem, the depravity and hardness of our hearts are. It is our sinfulness that is the deviation and needs to be dealt with rather than attacking and altering God’s design.

How do you think Jesus’ poll numbers fared after giving that answer? How many thumbs-up notices did He get? And how many agreed with the disciples that what Jesus just said was a way too tough and unrealistic standard? But Jesus didn’t budge, He agreed and acknowledged that this was indeed challenging, narrow, and tough (19:10).

There is something else we need to see and remember. What God/Jesus created was “very good,” “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” Genesis 1:31 (ESV).

• Creating mankind as distinctly male and female – very good.
• Placing sexual union within marriage – very good.
• Designating and defining marriage as a life-long union of one man and one woman – very good.
• Not budging on what is good, beneficial, right, and holy for each one of us, and for every age, culture, and society– very good.

Our best life is always found in being aligned with our Creator/Christ, expressed in faith and obedience, including gender, sex, and marriage.

            To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans

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God and God’s Order

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” … “God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.” Genesis 1:1&31 (NASB)

You can deny the existence of God, the Creator, but doesn’t change the fact that He is and that He did. Every time you look into a night sky the chorus of the stars testify that they are the handiwork of the Almighty, Eternal, God, “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands” Psalm 19:1 (NASB). Every time you hold a baby or look into a mirror you are reminded of the fact that every person is a creation of God, “You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well” Psalm 139:13-14 (NASB).

You and I are different from any other creature in God’s good creation in that, “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” Genesis 1:27 (NASB). This includes a measure of volition no other creature shares, it forces us to make choices, beginning with how we relate to God and how we live within the order of God’s very good creation.

We are not free to live outside of God’s creation, but we are free to reject both the Creator and rebel against His order, however, never without consequences, because neither our rejection of God nor our rebellion against His order erases their existence.

• God established a cosmic order. Matter, galaxies, stars, solar systems, and the earth function according to God’s design, according to physical laws established by the Creator.

• God established a natural order. All nature and its undergirding laws are of God’s design, imagination, and will. This includes the biological gendering of humankind as “male and female.”

• God established a moral order out of His holy and morally impeccable character. What God declares good is good, what God deems evil and sinful is indeed evil and sinful. God’s moral order extends to all aspects of life, environmentally, culturally, politically, economically, interpersonally, and sexually. God’s moral order encompasses jurisprudence, governance, business, art, entertainment, science, education, and sex and marriage.

• God established a spiritual order, “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” John 4:24 (NASB). He is the singular Creator, there is just one God. We do not get to shape Him or His order to our own liking. We are free and able to worship Him, but only as He has revealed Himself and on His terms, everything else is both error and idolatry. Even the outright denial of God is idolatry because it leaves you with nothing else to worship than creation, self, or something else within the human realm and imagination.

Culturally we are at odds with most of the above, which means we are living in an increasing disharmony with our Creator, a growing rejection of God and His order, an adamant promotion and self-justification of our own order, and a shaping of God or gods to our own liking. None of these will make our world or us better, because the rejection of God and His order causes us to misplace our faith, lose our humility, give license to our depravity and impulses, place allegiance and ultimate authority into the wrong hands, and separate us from the God, the true source life, wisdom, love, and goodness. “For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, Broken cisterns That can hold no water” Jeremiah 2:13 (NASB).

We must ask ourselves, “Who or what do I worship?” “Who or what is my guiding voice?” “Whose order am I submitting to?” No one but God should occupy that chair, that throne.

To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans

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Image Bearers – Who We Are – Toward a Biblical Anthropology

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so. Genesis 1:26-30 (NASB)

Who are we? Are we more than the product of material, godless, evolutionary processes? Is a human life of greater value than a dog, an elephant, or a shrimp? What are our responsibilities and who are we responsible to? God is not silent on these important questions, and listening to and living by His answers will have a profound impact on how we will function in and manage the world God has placed us in.

• We, people, human beings, are the crowning creation of God. God not only created man (both male and female) last, but He is careful in distinguishing us from everything else He created by making us and declaring us to be in His own image. Much has been written and said about what exactly “in His own image” entails, what is certain is that every human being, every person, has a God-endowed identity, designation, value, ability, and responsibility that is fundamentally different from every other creature.

• We are part of God’s creation. We might be the pinnacle, but we are not separate. So, it is not surprising biologically we share characteristics with other creatures, have an impact on the world we live in, and are subject to natural laws and processes God created. God is the potter, we are the clay, and in His order, He has shaped some of us male and others female, God-given genders that are sexually complimentary and able to reproduce.

• We are created to live in a personal relationship with God, capable of hearing God, engaging in a conversation with God, receiving commandments and instructions from God, and being aware of our moral responsibility towards God.

• We are created to live in relationships with other people, as husband and wife, parent and child, children and parents, relatives and neighbors, and all of humanity. Everyone of us is an image bearer, has God-given value, and each of us has a God-given moral responsibility toward every other person.

• We are created to rule over and exercise dominion over God’s creation. We have God-given privilege and responsibility over the entire planet and wherever our feet tread. God charts the flight paths of every sparrow which means He is also aware of how we interact, engage with, and rule His creation. We are not the owners, but the chief stewards. The way we manage God’s creation  must account for the rights and well-being of others, but above all, it has to please Him and meet His standards of “good.” 

Both you and I will leave footprints today. Will they please and honor our Creator? Will they reflect that God is the potter and we are the clay? Will they leave a good testimony of how treated other image-bearers? Will they show that we are good stewards of God’s good creation?

            To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans

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