This is a portion of some very clutch notes in my doctrine of man class…
God is not bound by man, but God has actually bound himself to do so. That is part of his condescension. It is not that man ontologically has some upper hand in demanding God some reward, but it is God doing the binding. The Imago Dei (image of God) is the covenantal relationship of promise. God is not bound by man to give the reward to Man, but God is bound by Himself to give the reward.
When I read this, I’m amazed by God’s grace because His grace becomes even more profound. In light of this understanding of God’s condescension (His coming down to help us), we typically first think of Christ. Born as a baby, crucified on our behalf. However, God’s grace is apparent from the very beginning. Creating man in His image was already an act of grace. Being in a loving relationship, again, grace. Creation itself, grace. I cannot nor do I really desire to articulate it much better than this, but I only communicate this in broad strokes so that the mind is challenged to give God more reverence, don’t put Him in your box. How can a finite being place an infinite God in their minds?
Practically, when I look at this passage and then imagine how the rest of my day will pan out, I cannot help but admit how wretched I am. God is so great, and my personal God, however I already see myself grumbling about the day ahead of me. I look at the week ahead and I just want to roll around in bed and veto life. But such a perspective spits in the face of God. Who God is and how I live in light of understanding Him does not go hand in hand. I owe God worship, gratefulness, and thanksgiving for all of my life, but instead I’m focused on the day/week ahead, the difficulties of life, the list goes on and on. Ultimately, my default focus is myself and when I lose sight of God, everything seems to pile up. Sometimes it gets hard to even look ahead as far as a week, it becomes a battle just make it to the next day, getting by the next hour.
I suppose such a state of mind only goes to show how much I, you, we, humanity as a whole, likes to think we’re pretty self-sufficient, but life teaches us otherwise. We are in no way sovereign, and with the number of future contingencies that are the result of decisions made by us and those around us, how can we ever come to create or control life in order to obtain some fleeting sense of peace? Any peace we come to by the work of our own hands is actually feigned and counterfeit. I think we know this, but we dupe ourselves into thinking we can rest for now, for we deserve it, because we’ve earned it. But it only takes a moment until everything is ruined and we fall back to square one, a frenzied and self-righteous anger because all that we’ve worked for is gone. The truth remains, we’re not in control, it is beyond our ability, but we still live our lives thinking otherwise.
How many times do I go through this lesson? How many times do I cognitively consent to the notes in my class but don’t live in proper reflection of it? Proper reflection requires living it out in faith, which requires humility. It requires me to stop doing the aforementioned scrambling for peace, but it’s hard to sit on my hands. I feel like I’m capable of doing something, so why not, right? Well, maybe I shouldn’t because it never turns out how I’ve got it imagined in my mind, that is, when I take matters into my own hands. A humbling truth I eventually should admit to. So, looking at the flip side, God, I know deep in my heart I can trust Him, but practically doing it takes a whole lot more. It requires a 100% believing heart, not the skeptical one that is prevalent in this day and age that asks for the results and statistics. 100% believing, pure, child-like faith.
Goodness. Sounds difficult, but before a God such as the one I know, it is the only thing that really makes sense. Whenever I’m not putting 100% in God, I’m putting the difference into something or someone else, but if God is who He claims to be, then why the reluctance to commit? It’s called sin, pride, or deceit, ignorance, denial, etc etc.
It’s a shame that I always come to Him later, after trying things out on my own, instead of coming to Him first. I known I’m wretched because I’m prone to wander even in light of His grace! It’s frustrating, really. However, at the same time, I know I shouldn’t get hung up on that since that’s not the point. God knows my propensity to try to be self-sufficient (and sin) and since He knows how the story ends (self-induced failure) that’s the reason why He’s come. That’s why He’s become a personal God, that’s why Christ was sent and crucified, that’s why the Spirit was given. God, who created us, already knows how incomplete, deficient, and sinful we are without Him, so He has come for that very purpose. To right our wrongs and to take care of all the ugliness we put out. He has come for this purpose, and much much more.
In the end, I guess I’m just highlighting the difference in belief and faith. I see belief as something that you believe in, but the domain of belief is first intellectual before anything else. Faith would be action-driven belief. Faith is belief that is so strong that it influences the way you live. Faith makes your belief manifest in your everyday life. Strong belief, or faith, is someone who hears and acts. Enough with the head-nodding silence. I want to live in proper response of who my God is.
