Author Archives: reveds

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About reveds

Occupation: Pastor, Ebenezer Presbyterian Church, Lennox, SD Education: BS - Christian Education, Sterling College; MDiv. - Princeton Theological Seminary Family: Married, with Four children. Hobbies: Running (will someday run a marathon), Sci-Fi (especially Doctor Who and Sherlock), Theater, and anything else my kids will let me do.

Longing for God

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I wanted to share something that I read this morning in “A Guide to Prayer.”  I’ve been struggling lately through a sort of prayer drought, and have been praying earnestly that God would rekindle a passion and love for Him within me.  This speaks right to my heart, and speaks for my heart:

O Christ, my life, possess me utterly.
Take me and make a little Christ of me.
If I am anything but thy Father’s son,
‘Tis something not yet the darkness won.
Oh, give me light to live with open eyes.
Oh, give me life to hope above all skies.
Give me thy spirit to haunt the Father with my cries.

‘Tis hard for us to rouse our spirits up-
It is the human creative agony,
Though but to hold the heart an empty cup,
Or tighten on the team with rigid rein.
Many will rather lie among the slain
Than creep through narrow ways the light to gain –
Than wake the will, and be born bitterly.

But we who would be born again indeed,
Must wake our souls unnumbered time a day,
And urge ourselves to life with holy greed;
Now ope our bosoms to the wind’s free play;
And now, with patience forceful, hard, lie still,
Submiss and ready to the making will,
Athirst and empty, for God’s breath to fill.

 – From Diary of an Old Soul by George MacDonald

May this speak to you and for you as well today,
SDG

Is God the author of sin?

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Q. 6. Did God create man evil and perverse like this?

A. No. On the contrary, God created man good and in his image, that is, in true righteousness and holiness, so that he might rightly know God his Creator, love him with his whole heart, and live with him in eternal blessedness, praising and glorifying him.

Q. 7. Where, then, does this corruption of human nature come from?

A. From the fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden; whereby our human life is so poisoned that we are all conceived and born in the state of sin.

Q. 8. But are we so perverted that we are altogether unable to do good and prone to do evil?

A. Yes, unless we are born again through the Spirit of God.

 Is God to blame for the problem of sin in the world today?  Couldn’t God have prevented all the sin and evil in the world by just not putting the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden in the first place?

God created us so that we might know Him, love Him, and live with Him.  But we were not pre-programmed to do so; we were given a choice.  God wants us to come to Him freely, to choose to know Him, love Him, and glorify Him.  With the choice comes the tremendous potential for good and evil.

If we are honest with ourselves, each of us knows that, like Adam and Eve, we have placed ourselves in the center of the garden; we have put ourselves in the place of God.  Instead of trusting in God to be our source of Knowledge of Good and Evil, we have taken this role upon ourselves.  We have, as Satan promised, become like God, in that we are now the center of our universe.  But since we are not God, we cannot maintain this charade; we cannot live apart from the source of life so we are cursed with death.

The Reformed Faith is not pessimistic about the state of humanity, neither is it optimistic.  It is realistic.  We believe that humanity is fallen and in desperate need of a savior.  We are so perverted that we are altogether unable to do good and prone to do evil, unless we are born again through the Spirit of God.  “Who will deliver me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom 7:24-25)

Prayer

Father God, in the light of your Word, I know who I really am.  I am a sinner, broken, in need of your forgiveness and healing.  God, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner, and grant me peace. 

For Jesus’ sake.  Amen.