Let There Be Light, and Other Divine Commands

Think with me for a minute.

It’s pretty clear that when God gave commands in Genesis 1, those things happened.

“Let there be light!” and Bam! There’s light.

And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so.

There’s a principle illustrated here: When God gives a command, power is released in that command to accomplish what is commanded.

For years, I misunderstood this. I heard (for I had been taught) “Be holy as I am holy” as instruction for how I needed to direct my own efforts.

“God says to be holy, so you need to follow all these holy rules in order to accomplish holiness. The best you can.”

“God says, ‘Go and sin no more,’ so you need to know all the Do’s and Don’ts and make sure you follow every one carefully for the rest of your life.”

I’ve since learned that this is complete hogwash. And it’s an insult to God.

God gives me a gift, “Be holy, son; and here is the ability (and the desire) to be holy!” But I had ignored his gift and tried to come up with the same “holy” result through my own legalistic efforts.

What a nightmare.

But once I quit focusing on the list of Do’s and Don’ts and just focused on my Father, once I gave my heart freedom (gasp!) to love him, my desire for sin left, and with it, my choice to sin.

I began to experience holiness. In my life. Mine! My own!

I’ve been reflecting on this process (with substantial thanksgiving!) recently, and then in this context, “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2) came to mind.

“Transformed” means changed, in structure, in appearance, even in genetics. Literally.

So how would I even recognize it when that transforming happens to me?

“Think about Easter, Son. Where was Jesus before dawn on that first Easter?”

Jesus was in the grave. He might have been preaching in hell, but he was between death and resurrection. (Around here, we call that “dead.” As in, “Jesus was dead.”)

But Jesus went into the grave as one kind of a man, one kind of flesh-and-blood, and came out another. If nothing else, he could walk through walls, afterwards. I’ll bet there were other changes, too.

He had been transformed, after. So right then, in the grave at that first Easter weekend, Jesus was being transformed.

At that point, my mind was spinning with religious thoughts like “dying to self,” and “being hidden away, cocooned,” and “renewing my mind,” in order to “be transformed.”

Father interrupted my thoughts. “What makes you think I’m not transforming you right now, right here as we talk? As we walk together every day? This isn’t something you do, Son. This is something I do.

“And if I can transform Jesus, even while he was dead, don’t you think I can transform you while you’re not even dead? “Trust me, Son.”

I’m a grateful son. I’m thankful.

And then it hit me: that’s the secret. The sentence continues: “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Choosing to be thankful, even excited, for who he is and what he’s done and well… maybe just living thankfully, that’s the key that he works through. Or at least one of them.

What If God Really IS Moved by Love?

I've been thinking about this recently. I’m reflecting on the reality that God is motivated by love. I mean if “God is love,” then he’s moved by love, right? 

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t experience emotions, or that those emotions don’t affect him. And of course, God experiences emotion differently than we do (because he’s different than you and I are). But it’s love that moves him.

It’s love that moves him.

That is certainly more consistent with the God whom Jesus revealed than it is with a god who wants to smite. That god is a lie; satan has been selling that one for millennia. That’s the caricature that he talks about, that God is mean. “Did God really say….?”

Satan told the Norse people that God’s name (and character) was Odin. Or Thor. He told the Romans about Zeus. If you’ve ever read those stories, you know some epic lies told about the God Who Is Love, about the God who KNEW the Cross was coming, who knew He would die on it (“the lamb slain before the foundation of the world”) and yet he still created us.

I’m thinking this morning that I’ll get a better understanding of why he does what he does. I’ll understand the declarations of the Old Testament prophets (I’m in Isaiah this morning) better if I keep it in mind that He is always motivated by love.

So here’s a question for reflection on today. If you read history through the lens that God is moved by love (correctly, I might add), does that re-interpret certain things in your history? Do you see some things differently if you reflect on it with the foundation of “God was moved by love when that happened”

It’s worth remembering, of course, that it may not have been God that did whatever that was that you’re remembering. The accuser is still accusing him, particularly in front of his own children.

Knowing God

“Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, ‘This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.’

Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, as bright blue as the sky.

But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank.

When Moses went up the mountain, the cloud covered it. The glory of the LORD settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days.

On the seventh day he called to Moses from the cloud. The appearance of the Lord's glory to the Israelites was like a consuming fire on the mountaintop.”
[from Exodus 24]

A friend drew my attention to the cutting of the Mosaic Covenant, when God and the people of Israel formally entered into the covenant that the people had proposed [Deuteronomy 5:27].

I’ve always paid more attention to the proposal [Exodus 19 & 20] than the marriage [Exodus 24]. A few things speak to me here.

And it occurs to me that an excellent way to get to know someone better, is to sit down to a meal with them. I observe that both the Old Covenant [Exodus 24] and the New Covenant [Luke 22] were established with meals, and that he still invites himself in for meals with his people [Revelation 3:20].

In the Old Covenant, this was the first time they’d ever eaten with God, I think. In the New Covenant, it might have been the three thousandth time they’d eaten together (three meals a day for three years).

A little bit later, Moses gets up and heads further up the mountain into God’s presence, but it takes a full week for God to speak with him.

I reflect that the reality is that sometimes when I’m talking with God, it really does take a few days to connect well with him. But I also reflect that this is more a characteristic of Old Covenant thinking than of the New [Luke 11:13, John 10:27].

But while Mo and God were talking, it looked like a “consuming fire.” Sometimes when we meet with God, other folks can see the change in us. And sometimes the change does not comfort them, if they don’t know him like we know him.