Why Do Good Things Happen to Bad People? - Proverbs 14:26 (Part 4)

Proverbs 14:26 (Part 4)
Those who fear the LORD are secure; He will be a place of refuge for their children.

Once again we are working our way through some necessary foundations to help us answer the question, “If God is in control of all things, why do bad things happen?” 

In our own human logic we can and do understand when bad things happen to bad people (at least they are bad in our eyes), but all sorts of emotions and questions rise up in our heads when people we view as good or innocent have bad things happening in their lives. The hundred thousand or so who perished in the Asian tsunami could not have all been bad, right? All of the people who died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks weren’t bad people, right? What about the recent earthquakes that have rocked our world? Not too long ago a pastor was shot to death by his wife - was he a bad person? And are his children bad, because they are now without a father and have a mother in prison? Were all the students and faculty at Virginia Tech bad people? We could go on all day with examples that challenge our human sense of justice. 

The last two times together we have very briefly looked at God’s perfect mercy, God’s perfect justice, and God’s providence. So for the space we have today, let’s look at mankind. Let’s try to see just how “innocent” even the best we can offer, truly is. 

Most, if not all, people on this earth have a off-center view of themselves. We all generally think we are pretty good people. Even when we do wrong, we can easily justify our actions in our own minds. If I lie to someone, there was a good reason for it. If I lash out at someone because of their improper actions (improper in my mind anyway), “I was doing them a favor by setting them straight.” If I am uncaring and unsympathetic toward someone who is hurting, “They just don’t understand how much pressure I am under and how little time I have for these things - they just need to grow up and get over it.” If I refuse to give my money to the church or to the needy, “I have to take care of my own financial issues before I can take care of anyone else’s.” There is always an excuse or a reason for our actions - if there weren’t we would have an huge problem to face.

I call it a huge problem because people who can always justify their own actions are people who will not admit to their sinfulness. And those who will not admit there is sin in their life have no need for a Savior. If, in essence, all their wrong actions, wrong words, and wrong thoughts can be justified - meaning they aren’t sinful - then there is nothing that needs forgiveness. This is a huge problem indeed. Most say that in the end, as long as all the good they have done outweighs all the bad they have done, they’ll be okay in the eyes of God. They think there is some set of heavenly scales at the gates of heaven, and in their minds it won’t even be that close - the good will definitely outweigh the bad because of our distorted thinking about ourselves.

Even if there were such a scale (and there definitely is not), I doubt that anyone would pass the test, Because even our wrong thoughts and wrong motives are sin. Jesus makes it clear in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) that our sinful thoughts are just as bad as actually committing the offence. But even though there is not a heavenly scale there is a heavenly standard.

Romans 3:23 says - “For all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” God’s standard is NO SIN - absolutely NONE! Even one sin in your lifetime will put you in the “bad” category, if you want to continue thinking in human terms of good and bad. And if that news wasn’t disturbing enough, the first phrase of Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death.” And this doesn’t simply mean physical death, this means eternal spiritual death - this means hell. So if you want to know what we deserve… 

But praise God, He doesn’t end Romans 6:23 there! It continues, “but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” Because of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord, instead of eternal spiritual death in hell because of our sins, we can have eternal spiritual life in heaven! 

I still haven’t fully made my point on this issue, so again, hang in there with me - we will keep plugging away until we get a somewhat satisfying answer to our question – next time.

How Does God Do That? - Proverbs 14:26

Proverbs 14:26 (Part 3)
Those who fear the LORD are secure; He will be a place of refuge for their children.

We are working our way through answering the question, “If God controls all things, why does He allow bad things to happen?” This is not a question that can be taken lightly, nor can it be answered in one short devotion. In some aspects, the answer can be very complicated, while in other aspects, it is really quite simple. What I am trying to do is to hopefully make the complicated simpler. But to do this we need to spend some time laying a base - which I began last time by briefly looking at God’s perfect mercy and His perfect justice. Let’s spend our time today looking at the providence of God.

The Random House dictionary defines providence as: (1) the foreseeing care and guidance of God or nature; (2) God; or, (3) care exercised in providing for the future. The providence of God then deals with His infinite ability to foresee all future events and somehow weave all of those events to each person’s care or benefit. If you spend too much time contemplating that in your mind, you better keep the aspirin handy.

Let me try to illustrate this in another way to help us truly appreciate how awesome and miraculous this is. I enjoy putting jigsaw puzzles together. My grandmother started my brother and me on puzzles at an early age, so we were working the big 1,000 piece puzzles before most are even dealing with the 50 piece puzzles. I’ve seen puzzles where all the inside pieces are the same shape so you can’t always tell if you have the right piece in the right place or not. In recent years I have seen 1,000 piece puzzles that are two-sided. You don’t know if you even have the right side when you are trying to piece things together (the person who dreamed these up needs intensive psychiatric help). But if you have the picture on the outside of the box, even these more challenging puzzles can be handled fairly easily if you have a knack for jigsaw puzzles. But imagine a puzzle with a billion pieces, and each piece of the puzzle has a million different sides to it, and the picture on the box changes every second - even this illustration is not enough in describing the extent of what is involved in God’s providence.

God takes the endless combinations of the events that happen in the lives of the billions of people on this planet and He throws in the natural events of nature (which He also controls) and works each situation to His plans and His purposes. At the same time, God allows each of us the freedom of choice - try and figure that one out.

Joseph was sold into slavery as a young teenager by his brothers, spent 14 years in a prison for a crime he didn’t commit, had no hope of ever seeing his family again, all for the express purpose of preserving the lives of his family some thirty to forty years later, and thus preserving the nation of Israel. God’s providence saw the events of the future (a severe famine that would wipe out many people in the land) and by allowing Joseph to be sold into slavery, by allowing him to develop the needed contacts with key people through his time in prison, he eventually was elevated to second in command in the kingdom of Egypt. Through these events, he would save the lives of his father and brothers, even though Joseph had no clue of this purpose until the thirty or forty years had passed. Joseph finally understood God’s providence when he said to his brothers, “God turned into good what you meant for evil.”

And that is the point of God’s providence. We may not see the reason or the point of the events happening in our lives or the events happening in the world at the time, but God is still in control and He is still at work. For those of us who know Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, the Apostle Paul has this to say concerning God’s providence, “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them” (Romans 8:28). All things work together for our good, not just what is good in our eyes.

Well, we’re out of space again. What a great and awesome God we serve! We will make some more progress in our quest next time.

Why Does God Allow Tragedy? - Proverbs 14:26

Proverbs 14:26 (Part 2)
Those who fear the LORD are secure; He will be a place of refuge for their children.

Hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, roadside bombs, child molestations, rape, murder, war… Hundreds of thousands of people fall victim to “natural” disasters and the evils perpetrated by mankind every year. If you watch any television or listen to the radio or read the newspaper, they are filled with stories of violence, death and disaster. It usually seems so senseless. The Christian and the non-Christian alike will at times raise their eyes heavenward and ask the question, “Why would God allow this to happen?”

God is in control of all things. Absolutely nothing happens on this earth or in the heavenly places that God does not have control of. He never sleeps or slumbers and His eyes see all things that are now happening because God is everywhere (omnipresent). He knows everything that is going to happen in the future, and that everything will happen according to His plans and purposes (omniscience). He controls all things past, present, and future because of His unlimited and awesome power (omnipotence). These facts about God then beg the question, “If God is indeed all of these things (and He is), why does He allow ‘innocent’ people to fall prey to natural disasters and the evils of mankind”

This question has plagued most everyone else who believes in God throughout the ages. I will tell you up front, there is no cut and dried answer in Scripture for this question. There is no specific verse we can turn to and then be able to say, “Okay I get it - it all makes sense now.” But there are verses that help us somewhat understand why these events take place, even though they may still leave questions in your mind. This will have to be a continuing series to disseminate the necessary information for us to begin developing our understanding; so I will definitely not get through all of this today.

The place we must begin is looking at the character of God - and this will be a very brief look (entire books have been written, numbering hundreds and hundreds of pages, in an attempt to describe the character of God - just as He is infinite, so is His character). I will make a feeble attempt to simply describe just a few of God’s characteristics that more prominently come into play concerning the topic at hand. We have already spoken briefly concerning His omnipresence, His omniscience, and His omnipotence. Let’s look at His mercy and His justice.

Mercy and justice seem to be on the opposite ends of the spectrum. As humans, we at times will cry out for God’s mercy and at other times we will cry out for God’s justice. But we are imperfect and sinful creatures, so we selfishly want God’s mercy when we have done something wrong, and we selfishly want God’s justice when something wrong has been done to us. It all depends on which side of the equation we are on whether we want mercy or justice.

But God is perfect in every way. This includes His mercy and His justice; He is perfectly merciful and at the same time He is perfectly just. Humanly speaking this is impossible for us to wrap our finite brains around. I can understand mercy when I am the one who receives mercy, and I can understand justice when I am the one who is avenged of the wrong done to me, but I cannot understand how both qualities can be in play at the same time. But God can and does understand; which leads us to what we call the providence of God.

Hang in there with me, we still have a lot of groundwork to lay, in order to attempt to answer our initial question (Why does God allow tragedy?) but we are out of my self-allotted space for today. We’ll pick this up again next time.

From The Beginning

So I'm very new at this whole blogging thing. I plan on posting some of my lyrics on here and also some devotionals as well.

I guess first I'd like to tell you a little bit about myself, kinda of like my testimony.

Well, I'm 19 years old. I'm a freshman in a small Distinctively Christian University, in Tennessee. My home town is in the beautiful state of North Carolina. I have lived there for about 17 years. I attended 3 private Christians schools throughout my life. I attended Gospel Light Christian School for the majority 3n-5k then 3rd-8th, then my junior and senior year. Genesee Christian Elementary is where I went for my 1st and 2nd grade year. Then the wonderful Kerwin Baptist Christian School my 9th and 10th grade year. I graduated with a class of 43. I attended several churches as well (going to church is a big thing in my life). I attended Bethany Baptist when i was a very young baby, Cornerstone Baptist in my lower elementary years, Gospel Light Baptist for most of my elementary and jr high years, Kerwin through my highs school years, and I am now attending Green Street Baptist while I am at home and Highland Park Baptist while I am in school.

I was adopted when I was a baby. I don't remember or really know my birth mother. I have a loving mom and dad who have gave me everything I could ever ask for. I have many brothers and sisters. That in itself is rather hard to explain. I'll give you the main. I have 3 biological siblings and 3 adopted siblings. There are 15 children (well now mostly grown) in a family that I call my brothers and sisters, which basically are. There are 4 guys and 3 girls outside of my family who aren't really siblings but we call each other our family. Family is a BIG deal with me! You hurt my family, you have me to deal with. I honestly if need be, I will fight to the death to for my family! I love them so much!!

I have many interests which I'm not going to get into.... I'm your basic southern girl partial tomboy. If that made any sense.

OK so the major part of my testimony. As I've kinda mentioned before I've grown up in a Christian home, gone to a Christian school all my life, and have been in church since the day I was born! i made many professions of faith when I was younger, and I mean MANY! I knew all the Bible stories and memorized almost all the Bible verses. When I was maybe about 5 years old I made my first profession, to be honest.. I don't remember it at all! As I got older I always thought that since I lived the Christian life, I was a Christian myself. Yes, I lived right, I obeyed and did as I was told most of the time and I wasn't mean or harsh to anyone really. When I was in 5th grade my grandfather died. Since that time a huge change had happened. Not totally noticeable to others but to some it was. I started getting involved in different things not BAD things but just things that started changing my life. As I started getting older, in my jr high ages I started hanging out with guys. Things weren't bad just not right. I made a reputation for myself that wasn't true. When I reached about my 9th grade year things went down hill. I started getting deeper into things. BAD things. But anywho...

Yeah, My sophomore year my school closed down (Kerwin). I was devastated. We all were. We made it the best last year we could though. We made lasting memories. That summer our youth pastor decided to take our youth group to a small lodge, Still Water Lodge, as like a final retreat. For most it would be the last time we'd ever be together.

That week was amazing! I'm gonna make it brief because I feel like I've been typing too long. We had a blast! EVERYTHING about it was great!! The first night we had 3 teens and one youth worker get saved. It was great! What was suppose to be a night of playing an amazing game called mafia... became a time of sharing testimonies and decisions! The rest of the week was great!! The last night however... 4 more teens got saved... the best part is.. I was one of them!! I received Christ as my personal Lord and Savior on July 27, 2007 at around 11pm.... If you want to know the details you can shoot me an email. I love sharing the details. I just don't have enough time right now!

But yes since then... yes I've made mistakes (honestly the biggest mistakes), But God still loves me and He has been waiting for me to come home to Him and give my ENTIRE life to Him. And that is what I did... April 17, 2010 at 8:38pm I realized that God isn't mad at me for my past. He's mad for me! He's crazy about me! He loves me so much that He's jealous for me!! Since I've surrendered my life to Him nothing has been the same! Everything is awesome!!

That's basically my testimony. Sorry it was so long!

I don't know whats to become of this blog. I hope to post devotionals, poems, stories, and songs to encourage and uplift you all. I love you guys... even though I may not know you...