Extreme can mean “going to the highest degree or pressure” and “going beyond what is reasonable, moderate or normal”. So if we take some time and consider it, we do not want an “un-extreme” God. We do not want a God who acts like us, is leisure or lacks the ability to deal with dangerous or life-threatening events. We are dying in our sin. I need an extreme Savior.
Most of us are uncomfortable with both the kindness of God and the violence of God. We love that God calls us to love, but shiver when that same love is disciplining us. “How can God love me if He is also punishing me”?
The ideas of suffering, punishment, judgment and total obedience are notions that we avoid in our present American culture. We have so many unhealed wounds and scars from parents, teachers, leaders and government that we train one another to “rebel a little” so that our independence is not lost.
God is extreme in that He alone is Lord and He leads, instructs and acts in ways that require our submission to Him. The fact that we struggle even talking about total submission is evidence that we are more interested in our own rights than in the divine right of God.
Why did God die on a cross? (I guess if we have a high value of our self we are worth is)
Why was the Lord God Almighty in the still small voice? (Why the paradox)
Why did He appear to Moses in the burning bush that did not burn up? (Why not just burn, why un-burning. Is He showing off)
Why was God overly dramatic in the Red Sea crossing and army destroying, waiting until the last second? (was it really necessary for such a spectacle)
Why did Jesus use the already hurting man with the withered hand to pick a fight with the Pharisees? (stand on your own Jesus, don’t drag some hurt guy into it)
Why is God a “My way or NO WAY!” God? (that sound a lot like my “bad dad”. Is God a mean, angry, hurtful “bad dad”?)
The hard answer that we all must deal with is that we do not get to choose what God is like. We get to choose to follow God or not. But any idea of making God in our image is going to result in not having the God of Heaven. We will have the God of our mind.
I can tell you that I have come to love the God who is extreme. I will also say it is not easy. I hurt when His love seems extremely unloving to me. Yet I have dome to trust Him. My relationship with God has proven to me He is good, even when it seems embarrassing, belittling, hostel, full of neglect, painful, resentful and just un-necessary.
No comments:
Post a Comment