God is God

Let’s be clear about something, about who God is.  He’s not our pet, our buddy, or our Slot Machine Which Art in Vegas into which we plunk good deeds and niceness in hopes of a pay-off.   He is, Ezekiel says, Yaweh Adonai, the Lord God–and He does what He pleases.  He is a law unto Himself, accountable to no one.  His ways are not our ways; His thoughts not our thoughts.  He never explains or defends His actions because He doesn’t have to.  If He stepped on our town and crushed it to powder what man could say He owed us any different? 

We must understand, God is God.  As such, He isn’t obligated to do anything for us, any more than I’m obligated to take a rock home, paint a face on it and make it a pet.   

Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came.  And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes (Ezekiel 36:22-23, ESV). 

God owes us nothing.  Until we realize that, whatever He offers will mean nothing to us.  

For His own glory’s sake, He looks our way.  For the sake of His holy name, He will remove our stony heart and give us a real heart (cf. Ezek. 36:26).   This Supreme Being, this Holy One, wholly other than man, performs works of grace and mercy wholly unlike anything we can conceive.  Which of us would think of a new heart–not turning over a new leaf, but coming up with a new life!  Not pressing on with our moral program, but being born again.  Not a spiritual treadmill to sweat on, but the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.  These are things only a holy God could come up with.  

Thank God it is in His makeup to give!  Thank God that though the great Elohim is complete in His eternal tri-personal being, the Holy Father sent His sinless Son to die and rise again, so that through our faith in Jesus we might receive the Holy Spirit.  

Amen.