Seeing God in Wonder
2021-09-17 19:58
Scriptures
Luke 8:22-39
Intro
Here, we see 2 different responses to the same reactions they have when Jesus does something unexpected.
Beauty is being able to look at something/someone and be captivated all over again. There’s always something to point out. There’s always something to notice. There’s always something to love when you see beauty.
Point 1
Jesus doesn’t force you to obey Him
Notice, he commands the winds and water to obey. Yet, even after rebuking his disciples for their lack of faith, he chooses to leave them in fear and amazement. WHAT A GOD! For He desires relationship with sinful man more than the endless oceans and highest mountains.
He doesn’t make us a robot.
There is an option to disobey.
Point 2
Know God for who He says He is
The disciples in that moment woke up Jesus because their view of Him had been of great Rabbi. “You said to go to other side of the lake, but we’re about to drown because of your dumb idea!” They woke him up because they panicked that their great Rabbi’s idea was to their detriment.
But Jesus shows them that He is God of nature. “Even the winds and the water, they obey him.”
For the people who lost their pigs, they couldn’t see God taking the most valuable thing to Him. “I was chill with Jesus until he took the most precious thing away from me - that wasn’t him.”
Point 3
We draw nearer to things we find beautiful
The people who lost their pigs only saw Jesus taking away their main source of econoomy.
They couldn’t see that Jesus took it away because he had something far better to offer. Riches in heaven.
We want to be around beautiful people. We want to go to beautiful vacation spots. We love socializing with beautiful personalities.
That’s one reason why I love Taiwan. It may smell like underground parking lots everywhere, have more pollution, and higher population density. But the people I know and the community is so beautiful.
And you see the disciples stay with Jesus, not the crowds.
Conclusion
You can examine your hearts by reflecting on how you read Scripture. Is God just a sum all the idealized positive attributes in the world? Or is he beautiful to you?
Does God fascinate you? A house church can’t convince you God’s beautiful. It’s YOUR eyes that sees beauty, not a teaching, not a pastor. It’s your perception.
The modern scientist has lost God amid the wonders of His world; we Christians are in real danger of losing God amid the wonders of His Word. We have almost forgotten that God is a Person and, as such, can be cultivated as any person can. It is inherent in personality to be able to know other personalities, but full knowledge of one personality by another cannot be achieved in one encounter. It is only after long and loving mental intercourse that the full possibilities of both can be explored. All social intercourse between human beings is a response of personality to personality, grading upward from the most casual brush between man and man to the fullest, most intimate communion of which the human soul is capable. Religion, so far as it is genuine, is in essence the response of created personalities to the Creating Personality, God. “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”
Discussion
What beautiful vacation spots or locations always captivate you whenever you think about it?
What have been / are the “pigs” in your life? The things that really hurt when/if God takes them away?
How does knowing God has beauty change the way you see Him?