Irresistible Invitation by Maxie Dunham - Day 4

Irresistible Invitation

Day 4: The Picture of God

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father…”
(James 1:17)


A divinity student was having a difficult time describing his relationship with God, so his counselor asked the young man to draw a picture to illustrate God. The student said he couldn’t draws very well, so he would take it home and bring it back when the class met again the following week.

It happened to be around Christmastime, and when the seminary student returned he brought an artists drawing of a scene from Charles Dickens’ story A Christmas Carol.  In the picture, the angry, demanding Ebenezer Scrooge sat behind his desk pen in hand, his debt-credit ledger before him. In front of Scrooge, standing in terror, was his clerk, Bob Cratchit. Pointing to Scrooge, the young man said, “That’s God.” Pointing to Cratchit, he said, “That’s me.”

Here was a young man getting A’s in theology, describing God as a skinflint Scrooge and himself as a cowering Cratchit in God’s presence. But let’s not be too hard on the young man. In all of us, there is probably some difference in the way we talk about God, in our mental and philosophical concepts of God and how we feel deep down about God. Another way to say it is that the God of our minds may not be the same as the God of our feelings.

The verse from James which began today’s reading, in other translations says “every endowment and every perfect gift, “ or “every generous act of giving “ comes form the Father. The ultimate example of God’s extravagant love is the gift of his son. During this study, we’ll focus on Jesus, as he provides the perfect picture of God.

James gives us another interesting image of god: “Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.” (James 1:16-18)

These words of James say two things about the nature of God. First, God is defined as “the Father of lights.” This is a reminder that God is the creator of the universe. Second, the text declares that with God is no variation or “change.” The Moffatt translation says that there is “no shadow of turning.” Turning is what casts shadows: it is because the earth is turning that the sun goes down and shadows of evening are spread out. But with God there is no shadow of turning.

Now I want to put these truths about the nature of God together and out of them sound three affirmations: One, God never lets us down; two, God never lets us off; and three God never lets us go.

God Never Lets Us Down

God is the Father, James says and the love of God the Father never lets us down. Listen to Jesus as the authorized spokesman of God, and look at what Jesus did as the life of God, and you can’t deny that instead of letting folks down Jesus was always lifting them up.

There may be times when it seems that God lets us down. We pray for healing, and it doesn’t come. We pray for a job and it goes to the other candidate. We ask to be delivered from some crippling circumstances, but nothing seems to change. We seek a detour around the rounds with a cross at the end of it, but find all of the roads are closed. Sometimes it does seem as if God lets us down. It even seemed so to his own son once, “My God, my God, “ he cried from the cross, “why have you forsaken me?” ( Matt. 27:46 kjv)

Isn’t it true that the reason we think God let us down is actually our own self-centeredness? WE put ourselves at the center of the universe and expect God to regard us as such, to make it his chief business to look after us. We consider God our personal nursemaid, if you will, who has nothing else to do but to watch our interests and save us from trouble. Whenever we mash our finger or have a flat tire, the cry goes up that God has let us down.

That is to misunderstand God. God never promises to save anybody from trouble, not even his own son. We are not the center of the universe. God is the center. His eternal purpose, not our personal desire is the big thing.

Though God never promises to save anybody from trouble, he does promise to save us in trouble. God never allows temptation, trial, or suffering to come upon us for which he does not provide a way of escape or strength to withstand. That is a promise you can count on, and it will not let you down.

Toyohiko Kagawa was a great Christian activist and social reformer in Japan in the early twentieth century. When he was threatened with blindness and lay for months in the dark with a terrible pain in his eyes doctors told him his health and sight were gone. He responded “ as I lay forsaken in this dark room, God still gives light. At the center of things there is a heart. On yonder side of darkness there is light. To me all tings are vocal. Oh wonder words of love! God in every inanimate thing speaks to me! Thus even in the darkness I feel no sense of loneliness…In the darkness I meet God face to face…I am being born of God…I am constantly praising God for the joy of moments lived in him.”

What an amazing witness to God’s everlasting faithfulness. Kagawa was able to testify to the truth: God never lets us down.

God never lets us off

James called God the “Father of lights.” Light suggests openness and judgment. Under God’s light, everything is illumined. We can’t be sentimental about it. God is not a soft sentimental “yes” man, who winks at sin and says it doesn’t matter. When you look at God through the person of Christ, you know that along with the tenderness of God comes also the terror of God. It is not that God finds any pleasure in punishing sin. It is just that there is something in God called holiness and that holiness sets up law which says that right is right and wrong is wrong and wrong must be punished. Not even God can repeal the law.

Paul understood this divine law as we read in his letter to the Galatians: “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. (6:7) Do you want to know what that means? Again Redhead explains it so clearly;

“It means that hangovers always come on the morning after. It means that the man who sows his wild oats will have his outcome tax to pay. It means that punishment is tied to sin like the burned spot to the blaze. It means that if a man eats salt herren, not even the grace of God can keep him from getting thirsty. It means that not even God can give a man a pass that will let him through the gates of sin without paying the price. It means that while God is always compassionate toward the sinner, He is never complacent about the sin. It means that while God is a Father whose love never lets us down, He is also a Father whose love can not let us off.”

God never lets us Go

“God never lets us off” is a word of warning for people who would play fact and loose with sin, deluding themselves with the falsehood that they can get away with it. Know this: God is a father whose love never lets us go. That is a word of hope for those who think they are past hope.

Here is the greatest word that can be spoken about love; it keeps on loving in spite of everything. It takes no account of the wrongs done against it. No matter how often its offers are spurned, no matter how often its favors are refused, no matter how poignantly it is wounded, or how far away the loved one wanders, love always holds no, never gives up, never lets go.

When you look at God through Christ, this is the one thing you see standing out above all others. You remember when our Lord was criticized by self-righteous Pharisees for associating with people like publicans and sinners, who were considered outcasts; he answered them by telling three little stories. A woman lost a piece of money – a poor woman who couldn’t afford to lose even a penny – so she wet through the house moving chairs and tables, taking out the rug and sweeping out every dark corner, looking for the coin. God is like that woman.

A shepherd had a hundred sheep, and when one strayed and was lost, the shepherd left the flock and went out on the mountains wild and high, seeking until he found it. God is like that shepherd.
A father had a son. The son showed himself ungrateful for his father’s favor, turned his back on his father, went out to a far country and threw his life away. But that father always kept his candle burning in the window and always kept watch, too. One day, there was a speck down the road. Gradually it got larger, came nearer. Down the stairs, through the open door, out through the gate –when he was yet a great way off, his father ran to meet him, embrace and kissed him. God, says Jesus, is like that father.

Some things to ponder

If you were asked to draw a picture of God, what would it look like?
Of the three affirmations you just read – God never lets us down. God never lets us off, and God never lets us go – which one challenges you the most? Why?
Think of a time in your life when you experienced a consequence of sin. How did that affect your relationship to God?

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