God is Actively Involved

 In 1718, a Dutch writer described God as an all-powerful watchmaker who created the universe and then let it run by itself like clockwork.

William Paley (1743-1805) was an Anglican clergyman looking for good sermon illustrations. He popularised the idea of God as a watchmaker. Everything in the universe runs according to scientifically predictable laws, with no ongoing involvement of the Creator.

Science was becoming the new religion.

God was thus understood as an absent and insignificant creator.
If you believe in such a God, it makes no difference to your life.

But in the Bible, God does not appear as an absent landlord without compassion.  

God in the Bible is actively involved in this world. He intervenes again and again. 

Today, these interventions are understood as supernatural miracles or are explained away by humanistic theology. 

There are even conservative Christians who claim to be Bible-believing, but who quote Bible texts that supposedly teach that God only wanted to work miracles in ancient times.

But they still believe that God answers prayers. How do you distinguish between a miracle, which God supposedly no longer performs, and an answer to prayer, which is not supposed to be a miracle?

They then say that the greatest miracle is the salvation of a converted soul, which is true, but they then dismiss other miracles as unimportant.

This doctrine is full of contradictions.

If you pray for a job and get it, that's fine, but if your daughter is dying of cancer and is supernaturally healed, you shouldn't believe it. Really?

A conservative preacher prayed for a girl who was dying and God healed her. But that's not supposed to happen in his denomination because the age of miracles is thought to be long gone.

The preacher attended a conference where he asked a charismatic preacher for a biblical explanation. He wanted to know if he was praying correctly.

He got a completely unexpected answer:

Why don't you ask the little girl?

God is love. Jesus tells us that God is our loving Father.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

“Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?
Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?

If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! Mt 7:7–11 NIVUK84