Losing the top
This week's goodness is on Romans 1:18-23:
Most of us reading this have experienced God as being real at some point or another in our lives. From the world around us, we got some sense that there was a higher power, that there was a created order to the universe on some level, and that this creator was watching. God built that understanding into the universe. The dangerous thing is what happens when we decide not to see it.
We suppress the truth by our wickedness. Instead of asking "Is it possible that God doesn't want us to live like this?" or "Could this thing I don't like really be part of God's plan?" we focus on the things around us. We pretend that all that exists in the world is our job, or our family, or our friends, or the latest thing we want to buy. If we're really advanced, we look to ways of explaining the world that don't even acknowledge God. "Maybe we're all just flows of energy and matter is an illusion." "Maybe our actions are predetermined by the laws of physics." "Maybe everything I think or do can be explained by brain chemistry and psychology."
We have no excuse. We have seen God. People have witnessed God's existence from before the beginning of recorded history. Even now the world is full of stories of God's supernatural interventions in people's lives. How can we deny him? We're like children who retreat to the treehouse our father built for us, pull up the rope ladder, stick our fingers in our ears, and pretend he doesn't exist and that we're kings and princes of our own world. He's calling us, but we hide, and suppress, and turn our gaze away because the game of pretend is so captivating. "What if I didn't have to answer to anyone?" "What if I could control everything just by learning enough math and science?" "What if everything was OK, as long as I didn't get caught?"
People know God exists, but they refuse to glorify him or thank him. We succeed at something he helped us with, and we brush him off and say "I was awesome." He rescues us from certain doom, and we're like "Wow, I'm lucky to have escaped. I must have been in the right place at the right time." We create an parallel world in our minds, in which God doesn't exist and we must find alternate explanations for everything.
Paul says that our thinking becomes futile and our foolish hearts get darkened. If someone doesn't understand something like gravity, how good are they going to be at solving life's problems? They may do pretty well for awhile, until they try to lift their car out of a ditch or drive across a washed out bridge. But we assume that a life that doesn't acknowledge God's power is going to be less fraught with problems than someone who doesn't understand gravity. How dim is someone who doesn't get gravity? How much dimmer is someone who doesn't get God?
The society we live in believes that there is no God. We're swept up in the current of this mode of thinking. We have to make an active effort to find the truth. If we catch a glimpse of God answering our prayers, stop and give thanks. Attribute glory to where glory is due. Don't become dim and wicked. Don't lose sight of God for all of the things he's created. He is the top, not us.
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
Most of us reading this have experienced God as being real at some point or another in our lives. From the world around us, we got some sense that there was a higher power, that there was a created order to the universe on some level, and that this creator was watching. God built that understanding into the universe. The dangerous thing is what happens when we decide not to see it.
We suppress the truth by our wickedness. Instead of asking "Is it possible that God doesn't want us to live like this?" or "Could this thing I don't like really be part of God's plan?" we focus on the things around us. We pretend that all that exists in the world is our job, or our family, or our friends, or the latest thing we want to buy. If we're really advanced, we look to ways of explaining the world that don't even acknowledge God. "Maybe we're all just flows of energy and matter is an illusion." "Maybe our actions are predetermined by the laws of physics." "Maybe everything I think or do can be explained by brain chemistry and psychology."
We have no excuse. We have seen God. People have witnessed God's existence from before the beginning of recorded history. Even now the world is full of stories of God's supernatural interventions in people's lives. How can we deny him? We're like children who retreat to the treehouse our father built for us, pull up the rope ladder, stick our fingers in our ears, and pretend he doesn't exist and that we're kings and princes of our own world. He's calling us, but we hide, and suppress, and turn our gaze away because the game of pretend is so captivating. "What if I didn't have to answer to anyone?" "What if I could control everything just by learning enough math and science?" "What if everything was OK, as long as I didn't get caught?"
People know God exists, but they refuse to glorify him or thank him. We succeed at something he helped us with, and we brush him off and say "I was awesome." He rescues us from certain doom, and we're like "Wow, I'm lucky to have escaped. I must have been in the right place at the right time." We create an parallel world in our minds, in which God doesn't exist and we must find alternate explanations for everything.
Paul says that our thinking becomes futile and our foolish hearts get darkened. If someone doesn't understand something like gravity, how good are they going to be at solving life's problems? They may do pretty well for awhile, until they try to lift their car out of a ditch or drive across a washed out bridge. But we assume that a life that doesn't acknowledge God's power is going to be less fraught with problems than someone who doesn't understand gravity. How dim is someone who doesn't get gravity? How much dimmer is someone who doesn't get God?
The society we live in believes that there is no God. We're swept up in the current of this mode of thinking. We have to make an active effort to find the truth. If we catch a glimpse of God answering our prayers, stop and give thanks. Attribute glory to where glory is due. Don't become dim and wicked. Don't lose sight of God for all of the things he's created. He is the top, not us.
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