The Potter and the Clay: God Has All Authority

After He had risen from the dead, Jesus approached His disciples and said to them: ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.’ Mathew 28:18
All authority. One of the most difficult aspects of our faith is accepting this truth. God has all authority . . . to run His creation as He sees fit, to make decisions according to His design and will, to take what already belongs to Him. Many good believers refuse to accept this. During good times they praise God, worship in church, and do good works. But when the bad times come, the truly life-altering times, these very same people refuse to accept this truth, that God has the authority, the right to do as He has done.
Our unwillingness to accept this truth is a roadblock to the development of our faith. When we choose to question God, the bonds of our relationship become strained. We cannot grow closer to God if we are questioning His actions, and in this we fail to increase in knowledge of God (Colossians 1:10). When this happens we cannot be productive servants to the kingdom. How can we lead others to trust and obedience and the joy of the Lord when we are questioning His will? It is understandable when a Christian wonders ‘Why’. It is not sinful to ask God why. But it is harmful.

This is where a humble servants’ heart comes into play in our faith. To hold a grudge against God, to resent Him and question Him for allowing terrible things to happen is to make war on Him. Romans 5:1 tells us: ‘Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Clearly then we show that we do not have peace with God when we question His decisions.
We would be wise to ask these questions: Doesn’t the creator of the universe have the right to decide how He runs things in His creation? Who am I to reply against God? Does not the potter have power over the clay? (Romans chapter 9).
It requires a deep level of Christian maturity to accept the fact that God knows what He is doing, even in the hard times, even when it makes no sense to us. Job understood this when he said ‘The Lord gives, the Lord takes, blessed be the name of the Lord’. This degree of Christian maturity does not come easy, and indeed is rarely seen these days.
My grandfather, the humblest and most righteous man I have ever had the privilege of knowing, suffered through numerous physical ailments in addition to a descent into Alzheimer’s during the final years of his life. This made no sense to our limited human understanding. Why would a good God allow His faithful servant to suffer? What did it accomplish?
Maybe it was a process that prepared us to be able to help others later through similar struggles. Maybe grandpa touched someone’s life in that place and turned their heart to God when nothing else had worked through that person’s long life. We don’t know. But instead of making war on God, instead of questioning His wisdom, we, by His grace, choose to accept that He knew what He was doing. And so, by grace, we have peace with God. Philippians 2:29 offers this hard truth: ‘For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him but also to suffer for His sake.’ Remember that suffering produces in us perseverance, and perseverance, character, and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God is being poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us’ (Romans 5:4-5).   
There is no future in waging war on God. The creator of the universe has His reasons, and we can either question this divine being or we can take comfort in believing that He doesn’t think like us (Isaiah 55:9), that He has a plan and a reason for everything that He causes or allows to happen, even when it remains a complete and agonizing mystery to us. For great is His love for His people. When we question Him, we are saying ‘I think I know a better way for You to run Your creation’. This sort of arrogance puts up roadblocks between us, and can lead us astray, into the dark hopeless thought patterns of unbelievers.

God has the right. Let us accept this difficult truth and grow in knowledge of God, so that we might find comfort, joy, and peace in His divine design, for if these things be in us, we will be ready and able to share the Light of this world with others.

President Trump and the Citizen Christian

In these days of insta-shaming, where everyone has a networked mouthpiece to deliver their diatribes, we are constantly assaulted by hateful opinions and faulty assumptions. How is the Christian to respond to such malevolence, especially when leveled against his/her president?
It can be confusing, and downright scary. But there is hope. But there is comfort.

2 Corinthians 13:11 provides this beautiful exhortation: ‘—Be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.’
America is tearing itself apart by allowing itself to be dictated to by the hateful tales of those who love not each other but dissension. Romans 16:17--18 urges us to: ‘—note those who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you have learned, and avoid them. For those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly, and smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple.’

It is clear that a minority has decided it should have the right to dictate the fate of America. Hatred feeds hatred. Social media, spurred and encouraged by mainstream media, has decided to declare war on our President. I take offense at this. Whenever anyone in the world verbally bashes my president, they attack my nation, the land that I love. Not only is it damaging the perception of us as a united people in the eyes of the world, it also smacks of un-American sentimentality.

If people don’t agree with his policies, so be it. But boycotts of his very existence are not doing anything good for America. Does it not seem strange that a small minority has the largest voice? A majority of American voters elected our president. Where are the voices of these voters? Have the haters driven them to silence? Have they cowed the majority into a tragic case of social laryngitis for fear of being attacked simply for voicing support for our President?

In our Declaration of Independence we find this wise and relevant passage that gives us insight into the ironic hate-filled fervor of protestors: ‘—and accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.’

For sixteen years our once great nation was beleaguered by such ‘government’, in this case from those corrupt officials from within our own government—the bureaucrats. Through long years of abuses of power and thieving of authority to which they had no right, those in our government twisted the Constitution and vied to take for themselves what was not conducive to a healthy America. They did not represent our best interests, but rather sought their own interests.
Right now protestors are proving the relevance of these passages. They have grown accustomed to suffering under the tyranny of a bureaucracy; and now that we have a president who is trying to abolish this abusive variation of our once great government they don’t know how to respond. They are afraid. They fear it might backfire. They fear it might upset the status quo.

But we voted for a man we believed could help ‘throw off such government’. We elected a business man because we were tired of suffering under the agenda of abusive politico. And already, unlike those who came before, unlike politicians, this president is working to fulfill the promises he made to us, and for which we elected him. However misguided or extreme his positions and actions may be at times, it is clear that our president is deeply concerned for the safety of ‘we the people’.

We don’t need any more protests, which do nothing but sow the seeds of dissension. We need to show the world a united front. We need to show them that we stand behind our president, whom we elected. Because these rifts in our nation are openings, invitations for anti-American infiltrators to come in and hatch their nefarious agendas among our hateful protestors. God knows we don’t need another Citizen Genet. What we need are Christian citizens, who live, act, and breathe love.
1 Corinthians 13:4 tells us this timely fact: ‘Love does not parade itself, is not puffed up, does not behave rudely, is not provoked, thinks no evil . . .’