Know-it-all Syndrome

Genesis 3

How does it make you feel when a “know-it-all” enters a conversation? The person that always has something to say about everything and their something is always right. These people are pretty frustrating and not a lot of fun to be around, huh?

Now, what would it be like to REALLY know everything and to have made everything, and have someone tell you that they “know better”? God experiences that with all of humanity! Here we have the Creator of the universe, the Designer of all that is and we tell Him He doesn’t know as much as He thinks He does. That is what sin is – telling our Designer and Creator that we know how to live this life better than He does.

This insanity started with Adam and Eve and has moved on to all of humanity. It is this self-sufficient attitude that separates us from right relationship with our Designer. God desires for us to live life according to His design because it is best. When we choose our own way, we stiff-arm the Designer and Creator of the universe and reject the only possible way to our best.

In what way(s) are you saying, “My way!” to your Designer and Creator? Do you understand the madness of such a move? Are you trying to hide from God out of embarrassment for what and who you have become? You can’t hide from Him. God sees everything, including your thoughts, heart, motivations … everything. Stop the insanity and run to Him for mercy!

“Creator God, I surrender all to you. I want to live life the way you have designed for it to be lived. Help me to know what that means as I live out my days.”

© Chuck Coward 2008

Seeing From the Beginning

Genesis 1&2

Where you start can greatly determine where you finish. To understand life, as we know it, we must understand (stand under) the beginning of “life” (see note). How we view the life we live and the people with whom we live, work and play is determined by where we start. The common starting point for the Christian conversation has become Genesis 3 – the fall of humanity – which makes a very big impact upon how we live with each other. But the fall, though true, was not the beginning. The story of how the journey began provides us with some very important realities. Here are a few.

1. God created all that is, (1:1-27)
2. God is a relational God, (1:26)
3. God’s image was the pattern for humanity, (1:26-27)
4. God said all He made is very good, (1:31)
5. God breathed life (His Spirit) into humanity, and (2:7)
6. God calls us to be life multipliers and protectors. (1:28)

Critical to our understanding “us” is that God created us. How long ago or how long creation really took is not the point here. That God is the originator of all that is matters most. Humanity was made in His image; like Him in creativity, like Him in relationship, like Him in goodness, like Him as bearers and breathers of life. The “very good” life you were created for is to be in life-giving, creative, relationship with God, fellow humanity, and the rest of all that God created.

So, what do you believe about how the universe came into being? When you see people around you everyday, how do you see them? What effect does that view have upon your attitude and actions toward them? “God, help me view, with new eyes, you, this world you made, and the people who fill the earth. Help me to better understand you, your heart and your vision as the creative, relational, life-giver that you are.”

NOTE: Life ultimately has no beginning or ending, because God, who is life, always has been.

© Chuck Coward 2008

Soda Bottle Principle

Redemption – it is a word that is used to speak of some very foundational moorings of the Christian faith. But, do we really understand what it means? When we hear or use the word it is most often to speak of Jesus paying the penalty of sin. While that is a partial description of the gift of redemption, it is not the full portrait.

There once was a time when soda predominately came in glass bottles. Because of the expense that the companies went to in producing these bottles, they held a value. That value was considered a deposit upon every bottle that was made. When a bottle was emptied it could be returned to a store and money received for the bottle. The reason the store would pay the deposit for the empty, dirty bottle was because the bottles’ original designer paid the store for them. Why? So that the designer of that bottle could bring it back and restore it to its original design and purpose – clean it, refill it, seal it, and send it back out to bless the world. This process of buying back and restoring to original design and purpose was called redemption.

Our redeeming God is active with humanity in the same way. What Jesus has done for us by paying our penalty and rising from the dead is to buy us back and restore us to original design and purpose – cleaning, filling, sealing by the Spirit and sending out to bless the world. God’s original design was very good. He liked it a lot; so much so that he did not recycle things by destroying them in order to make something else. God is redeeming what He made. That includes you. It includes a world of people around you.

© Chuck Coward 2008