The whole history of mankind since the fall is about men restoring God to his rightfull place in their lives.
I think it’s amazing that God doesn’t force himself upon us, like human leaders force those that are beneath them to obey.
God is not like that. He wants a loving relationship with us and this can never be attained through force.
God is good to all people also to those who will never believe in Him and acknowledge Him as God.
He loves us equally and gives us all the gift of life.
The rain is for all. The sun shines for all.
We can all enjoy his beautiful creation and the pleasure of having loving relationships with others.
The pleasure of having pets.
You name it, why don’t you make a list of all the good things in you life. (don’t forget having warm water, heating, or water at all…)
There might be more then you realised!
Don’t forget the blessing of having two working hands even if your legs don’t work, or perhaps it’s the other way around. But despite disabilities and suffering we still have many things to enjoy and be thankfull for.
Try being aware of them for a while. And then for the rest of your life…if you liked the result. It might just change your life.
When men rebelled God did not stop giving them good things.
However the result of their rebellion was corruption and suffering.
It’s easy to blame God for these things but like I mentioned in “Saved from what?” we chose another god, another ruler over us when we turned away from Him.
And this one does not have our good in mind.
So how do we get restored to the place were life started for us? To a garden were everything was a delight and no suffering existed?
I believe its starts by submitting ourselves to God again. The one who is the source of our life and therefore perfecty able to restore all things.
Of course this is only possible through the sacrifice that Jesus made for us, by paying the price for our sin so that righteousness was restored. (see article “Creator’s joy”)
But even as believers who have acknowledged God, we still need to give Him his rightfull place in our lives in practicality. In ALL the parts of our life.
I think we often don’t even realise we are still sitting on the throne in so many area’s of our lives.
One of these area’s is whom we go to for finding acceptance and gaining a sense of worth.
God is the only one who defines worth and gives it to us.
When we let our sense of worth be determined by other people and by how successful we are in what we do then we basicly don’t acknowledge God in that moment but reckon ourselves to be god instead, because we let others and our own achievements determine what only God can determine.
So we gives others and ourselves the place of God.
The only way to change this, since we do need to know our worth, is by having a relationship with God and asking HIM how He sees us and feels about us.
If we don’t come to Him and let Him give us a sense of worth we are still on the throne of our lives.
And when God is not on the throne we suffer because no one can give us what only He can. It will never be enough. (see also “Identity”)
God truly is enthroned on our praises like the bible says. He rules in the area’s where we let Him rule.
He gave us the earth and life but does not enforce himself upon us.
The only way we can see an end of suffering is if we give Him the rightful place in our lives.
That’s how kind He is.
Creator's Joy 