Contemplative. If one word could define a person, this is me. My mom recalls my first grade teacher (also her first grade teacher) informing her that I routinely stared out the window of her classroom. She thought I was daydreaming, but when she asked a direct question of me, I promptly gave the correct response. Overthinking things, double and triple checking carefully, led to my fascination with numbers and a degree in accounting. There’s something magical about a balanced spreadsheet and seeing patterns emerge organically just makes me smile, so I had to laugh when I did a little research into our Leap Years
I’m not the only one who likes things well-ordered and predictable. If we can put a label on it, we can understand and control it, right? When we’re sick, we want a definitive diagnosis and treatment. If we’re traveling, we expect our trip to proceed exactly as mapped out- no delays or exceptions. Only One Sovereign has that kind of power.
“Look at the splendor of your skies, your creative genius glowing in the heavens. When I gaze at your moon and your stars, mounted like jewels in their settings, I know you are the fascinating artist who fashioned it all!
But I have to ask this question: Why would you bother with puny, mortal man or care about human beings?
Yet what honor you have given to men, created only a little lower than Elohim (Creator-God), crowned with glory and magnificence.
You have delegated to them rulership over all you have made, with everything under their authority, placing earth itself under the feet of your image-bearers.
All the created order and every living thing of the earth, sky, and sea— the wildest beasts and all that move in the paths of the sea — everything is in submission to Adam’s sons.
Yahweh, our Sovereign God, your glory streams from the heavens above, filling the earth with the majesty of your name! People everywhere see your splendor!”
Psalms 8:3-9 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/psa.8.3-9.TPT
It didn’t take very long for “everything under submission to Adam’s sons” to go to our heads. “They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.” (Romans 1:25 NIV) It’s almost as if Paul despised the words as they crossed his lips and wanted Tertius, to whom he dictated this letter and all who would read it, including you and me, (Romans 16:22) to know that God alone is worthy of worship and praise, and forgetting this simple truth has dire consequences.
“It’s news I’m most proud to proclaim, this extraordinary Message of God’s powerful plan to rescue everyone who trusts him, starting with Jews and then right on to everyone else!
God’s way of putting people right shows up in the acts of faith, confirming what Scripture has said all along: “The person in right standing before God by trusting him really lives.”
But God’s angry displeasure erupts as acts of human mistrust and wrongdoing and lying accumulate, as people try to put a shroud over truth.
But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is!
By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse.
What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn’t treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives.
They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life.
They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand.
So God said, in effect, “If that’s what you want, that’s what you get.”
It wasn’t long before they were living in a pigpen, smeared with filth, filthy inside and out. And all this because they traded the true God for a fake god, and worshiped the god they made instead of the God who made them—the God we bless, the God who blesses us.
Oh, yes! Worse followed.
Refusing to know God, they soon didn’t know how to be human either—women didn’t know how to be women, men didn’t know how to be men. Sexually confused, they abused and defiled one another, women with women, men with men—all lust, no love.
And then they paid for it, oh, how they paid for it—emptied of God and love, godless and loveless wretches.
Since they didn’t bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them and let them run loose.
And then all hell broke loose: rampant evil, grabbing and grasping, vicious backstabbing. They made life hell on earth with their envy, wanton killing, bickering, and cheating.
Look at them: mean-spirited, venomous, fork-tongued God-bashers.
Bullies, swaggerers, insufferable windbags! They keep inventing new ways of wrecking lives.
They ditch their parents when they get in the way.
Stupid, slimy, cruel, cold-blooded. And it’s not as if they don’t know better. They know perfectly well they’re spitting in God’s face. And they don’t care—worse, they hand out prizes to those who do the worst things best!”
Romans 1:16-32 MSG
https://bible.com/bible/97/rom.1.16-32.MSG
“So we must pay the most careful attention to what we have heard. Then we will not drift away from it.
Even the message God spoke through angels had to be obeyed.
Every time people broke the Law, they were punished.
Every time they didn’t obey, they were punished.
Then how will we escape if we don’t pay attention to God’s great salvation?
The Lord first announced this salvation.
Those who heard him gave us the message about it.
God showed that this message is true by signs and wonders.
He showed that it’s true by different kinds of miracles.
God also showed that this message is true by the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
God gave them out as it pleased him.
God has not put angels in charge of the world that is going to come.
We are talking about that world.
There is a place where someone has spoken about this. He said, “What are human beings that you think about them? What is a son of man that you take care of him? You made them a little lower than the angels. You placed on them a crown of glory and honor. You have put everything under their control.” (Psalm 8:4–6)
So God has put everything under his Son.
Everything is under his control.
We do not now see everything under his control. But we do see Jesus already given a crown of glory and honor.
He was made lower than the angels for a little while.
He suffered death.
By the grace of God, he tasted death for everyone.
That is why he was given his crown.
God has made everything.
He is now bringing his many sons and daughters to share in his glory.
It is only right that Jesus is the one to lead them into their salvation.
That’s because God made him perfect by his sufferings.
And Jesus, who makes people holy, and the people he makes holy belong to the same family.
So Jesus is not ashamed to call them his brothers and sisters.
He says, “I will announce your name to my brothers and sisters. I will sing your praises among those who worship you.” (Psalm 22:22)
Again he says, “I will put my trust in him.” (Isaiah 8:17) And again he says, “Here I am. Here are the children God has given me.” (Isaiah 8:18)
Those children have bodies made out of flesh and blood.
So Jesus became human like them in order to die for them.
By doing this, he could break the power of the devil.
The devil is the one who rules over the kingdom of death.
Jesus could set people free who were afraid of death.
All their lives they were held as slaves by that fear.
It is certainly Abraham’s children that he helps. He doesn’t help angels.
So he had to be made like people, fully human in every way.
Then he could serve God as a kind and faithful high priest.
And then he could pay for the sins of the people by dying for them.
He himself suffered when he was tempted.
Now he is able to help others who are being tempted.”
Hebrews 2:1-18 NIRV
https://bible.com/bible/110/heb.2.1-18.NIRV
“When anyone lives in Christ, the new creation has come. The old is gone! The new is here!
All this is from God. He brought us back to himself through Christ’s death on the cross. And he has given us the task of bringing others back to him through Christ.
God was bringing the world back to himself through Christ. He did not hold people’s sins against them.
God has trusted us with the message that people may be brought back to him.
So we are Christ’s official messengers.
It is as if God were making his appeal through us.
Here is what Christ wants us to beg you to do.
Come back to God!
Christ didn’t have any sin. But God made him become sin for us. So we can be made right with God because of what Christ has done for us.”
2 Corinthians 5:17-21 NIRV
https://bible.com/bible/110/2co.5.17-21.NIRV
“Praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord from the heavens.
Praise him in the heavens above.
Praise him, all his angels.
Praise him, all his angels in heaven.
Praise him, sun and moon.
Praise him, all you shining stars.
Praise him, you highest heavens.
Praise him, you waters above the skies.
Let all of them praise the name of the Lord, because at his command they were created.
He established them for ever and ever.
He gave them laws they will always have to obey.
Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all the deepest parts of the ocean.
Praise him, lightning and hail, snow and clouds.
Praise him, you stormy winds that obey him.
Praise him, all you mountains and hills.
Praise him, all you fruit trees and cedar trees.
Praise him, all you wild animals and cattle.
Praise him, you small creatures and flying birds.
Praise him, you kings of the earth and all nations.
Praise him, all you princes and rulers on earth.
Praise him, young men and women.
Praise him, old men and children.
Let them praise the name of the Lord.
His name alone is honored.
His glory is higher than the earth and the heavens.
He has given his people a strong king.
All his faithful people praise him for that gift.
All the people of Israel are close to his heart.
Praise the Lord.”
Psalm 148:1-14 NIRV
https://bible.com/bible/110/psa.148.1-14.NIRV
“Yahweh, our Sovereign God, your glory streams from the heavens above, filling the earth with the majesty of your name!
People everywhere see your splendor.
You have built a stronghold by the songs of children. Strength rises up with the chorus of infants. This kind of praise has power to shut Satan’s mouth.
Childlike worship will silence the madness of those who oppose you.”
Psalms 8:1-2 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/psa.8.1-2.TPT
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