Search Results for: blog putting god in a box part 3

Ignoring God’s Promptings

Have you ever felt prompted NOT to do a certain thing but went ahead anyway? Or you felt a prompting to do something but didn’t? Afterwards you realized you should have listened to that inner voice. A while back I had such an experience. For our 40th wedding anniversary my husband bought me a beautiful ring. I wanted to wear it to a 21st birthday party. So I did. We slept overnight at our son’s place, which meant I also wore the ring to the football game the next day. Even though I felt prompted to take the ring off, … Continue reading →

Putting It Into Practice – part 2

There’s a lot about the writing life that reminds me of the Christian life. As writers not everything we write will be accepted and published. Rejection, struggle and knock backs are part of most, dare I say all, writers lives. It’s how they are handled that makes the difference. It’s like I wrote about the other day – attitude. Our attitude can cause us to give up when rejection comes or to dig our toes in and think, ‘I’ll show you.’ This sort of attitude keeps us pressing on with determination. Sometimes that’s exactly what we need to do in … Continue reading →

Is It Okay To Be Angry With God? – part 2

In my last blog we looked at the question, is it okay to be angry with God? We looked at some Old Testament characters that were angry. Today we’ll look at some people from the New Testament. When we come to the New Testament and the sisters Mary and Martha, we find, in concern for their brother when he was sick, they sent to Jesus to come and help, John 11:3. Instead of immediately rushing to their aid, even though he loved this family, Jesus delayed another two days before setting out, John 11.6. By the time Jesus arrived, Lazarus … Continue reading →

How Not to Give Advice – Part 3

What we believe affects our world view, as we saw yesterday with Eliphaz. Our world view then affects the way we give advice and the words we say. When we come to Job’s next counselor, Bildad, we see he is a traditionalist. His knowledge of God is theoretical and scholarly not experiential. He is like the person who has all the head knowledge but does not apply it or have a relationship with God. Bildad finds it hard to comprehend how a man can be just before God and have a relationship with the Almighty, Job 25:4-6. Bildad starts from … Continue reading →

How Not to Give Advice – Part 2

When you see someone suffering do you think that maybe they deserve it? Do you think that their own sin or mistakes have brought them to this point? Or think that if their faith was stronger, bad things would not happen? This book disproves these theories because God had declared Job blameless, Job 1:8, Job 2:3. When we look at the first chapters of the book of Job, we see there is a lot more going on behind the scenes than either Job or his friends are aware of, Job 1 and 2. Consequently Job’s friends don’t understand why Job … Continue reading →

Does God Want us to Be Healthy, Wealthy and Wise? – Part 2

Job was one Old Testament example of someone who, despite being godly, experienced great suffering and lost his health and wealth. Today I’m going to look at a New Testament example – that of the apostle Paul. No-one would deny Paul was a godly man greatly used by God, as he spread the gospel message to the Gentiles. But did God bless him with good health, and wealth? A look at several passages will reveal the answer to this. Could anyone say because he was God’s servant Paul got everything easy? Have a look at 2 Corinthians 11:24-33. This shows … Continue reading →

Putting God in a Box – Part 4

Over a few days we’ve looked at some people who had distorted views of God. They did not see the all powerful God of the Bible but tried to put human restrictions and limitations on God. So often we can do that too. We can expect God to do the big, miraculous things and fail to see him in the everyday, little things of life. Elijah had seen a decisive demonstration of God’s power and might at Mt Carmel, I Kings 18. Mt Carmel was a victory for Isaiah’s God against the so called gods of Baal as Israel acknowledged … Continue reading →

Putting God in a Box – Part 3

Jesus broke free of the misconceptions and ideas the Samaritan woman had as we saw in yesterday’s blog. It was just the Samaritan woman tried to put Him in a box. Even the disciples had trouble with Jesus, His teaching and the fact that He did not fit the image they had of the Messiah. Some turned from Jesus when His teaching was difficult and did not please them, John 6:66. This departure obviously affected Jesus for he turned to the twelve and asked whether they also wanted to leave him, verse 68. Peter answered, ‘Lord, to whom shall we … Continue reading →

Putting God In A Box – Part 2

In my last blog we looked at the idea of how we can try and box God in to fit with our expectations, plans and desires. In John 4 we meet a woman who was amazed when Jesus did not act as expected but broke out of rules and convention to meet her at her point of need. Jews would rather take the long way around rather than go through the Samaritan territory. Jesus did not. Verse 4 tells us ‘He had to pass through Samaria’– not because there was no there way but because Jesus knew in Samaria there … Continue reading →

A Model to Follow

After a few excursions into various other topics I’ve finally returned to Nehemiah. In Nehemiah 9:I, the people of Israel gathered together. They fasted, they separated themselves from the other nationalities and they confessed their sins to God. They also read from the book of the law and worshiped the Lord their God, verse 3. They remembered what God had done and the way God had brought them and how He had fulfilled His promises to them. It is a good model for us to follow – one of confession of our sins and remembering and praising Him for all … Continue reading →