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Why is knowledge of God the Father important? Because when we understand that there is a holy God, then the cross takes on its true meaning. Out of that will flow true gratitude to a God who found a way to reconcile Adam's lost race.
Recent Entries
God? Who Needs Him?May 31, 2013
Self-sufficient humanism. Paul saw it coming – “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.”
Imago Dei
September 12, 2012
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
Why Can't I Pray?
August 18, 2012
The bible gives us several reasons, but according to Jeremy Taylor, a deceitful heart is at the root of prayerlessness.
It's Not Rocket Science
July 23, 2012
To keep in step with the Spirit should be our daily quest. And if we are successful at that, all of life falls into place.
Theological Steak
April 10, 2012
These words by P. T. Forsythe on the magnificence of Christ's work are to theology what Ruth's Chris is to a good steak.
Describing the Indescribable
February 11, 2012
What we have in Christ will take all eternity to describe. But for one segment of one sermon, a great preacher made a mighty attempt.
Making Sense Of It All
January 30, 2012
Where are things headed? Is there rhyme and reason to the endless cycle of summer, fall, winter and spring? Is there a plan in place, or is randomness the explanation?
Father, Son, Spirit - In That Order
July 29, 2008
"Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name......" Matthew 6:9
It's hard enough trying to get our heads around the concept of a Triune God. Just how does that work? Whole books have been written trying to enlighten the confused, and still there is a mystery here that is unexplanable by human wisdom and reason. If you try to articulate it in black and white terms, it seems to vanish morph into something distorted. Language fails miserably. Which doesn't mean its not true.
One aspect of the Trinity seems to stand out clearly, that of hierarchy. There is a "pecking order," to put it crassly. Just read the book of John and see how Jesus subordinates himself to the Father. And in the ultimate summary of God's plan expressed in 1 Corinthians 15, the final moment of history is when Jesus is made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all. (28)
Having said that, God the Father is the "ignored One" of the three. He seems to be the most detached, distant, unknowable. And in that distortion of the truth, we are the losers, bigtime. The fact is, the Father is seeking worshippers who will worship him in spirit and in truth. God is approachable because of the cross. His anger was placed on Jesus, and has been satisfied.
Reconciliation. P.T. Forsythe in THE HOLY FATHER says that "we cannot put too much into that word Father.....the soul of divine fatherhood is forgiveness by holiness. It is evangelical. It is a matter of grace meeting sin by sacrifice to holiness....." In a word, the Father has found a way to reconcile sinful man and His holiness - through the death of His Son.
He goes on to say that if we recapture this essential truth about the Father, we will once again have a passion that has been absent from our preaching. Not only that, our tenderness will find its lost solemnity, our energy will be propelled supernaturally by God's power, and our piety will regain its lost virility.
As it is, Forsythe continues, "Our piety is too weak in the face of the virile passions it should rule. The chief lack of religion today is authority; and it must find that in the cross or nowhere, in the real nature of the cross, in its relation to the holy demand of God."
It's hard enough trying to get our heads around the concept of a Triune God. Just how does that work? Whole books have been written trying to enlighten the confused, and still there is a mystery here that is unexplanable by human wisdom and reason. If you try to articulate it in black and white terms, it seems to vanish morph into something distorted. Language fails miserably. Which doesn't mean its not true.
One aspect of the Trinity seems to stand out clearly, that of hierarchy. There is a "pecking order," to put it crassly. Just read the book of John and see how Jesus subordinates himself to the Father. And in the ultimate summary of God's plan expressed in 1 Corinthians 15, the final moment of history is when Jesus is made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all. (28)
Having said that, God the Father is the "ignored One" of the three. He seems to be the most detached, distant, unknowable. And in that distortion of the truth, we are the losers, bigtime. The fact is, the Father is seeking worshippers who will worship him in spirit and in truth. God is approachable because of the cross. His anger was placed on Jesus, and has been satisfied.
Reconciliation. P.T. Forsythe in THE HOLY FATHER says that "we cannot put too much into that word Father.....the soul of divine fatherhood is forgiveness by holiness. It is evangelical. It is a matter of grace meeting sin by sacrifice to holiness....." In a word, the Father has found a way to reconcile sinful man and His holiness - through the death of His Son.
He goes on to say that if we recapture this essential truth about the Father, we will once again have a passion that has been absent from our preaching. Not only that, our tenderness will find its lost solemnity, our energy will be propelled supernaturally by God's power, and our piety will regain its lost virility.
As it is, Forsythe continues, "Our piety is too weak in the face of the virile passions it should rule. The chief lack of religion today is authority; and it must find that in the cross or nowhere, in the real nature of the cross, in its relation to the holy demand of God."
