God will Restore Nature

 God loves music. He invented music. God also loves you. He planned you before the creation of the world.

God wants everything in creation to shine like beautiful art and sing like lovely music.

We see this marvellous beauty in nature. The poets and artists of the Romantic period celebrated this beauty.

This beauty can still be seen, but we also see how we humans are spoiling nature. In the middle of the Pacific Ocean there is a huge pile of rubbish. Dolphins eat plastic bags and choke on them.

God has given us beautiful poppies and we have made effective painkillers from them. The best painkiller for dying cancer patients is heroin, but unfortunately this very good medicine is tragically abused.

God created us as sexual beings, not just to produce children, but to have love, companionship, pleasure and joy, but what do we see in the world? Porn addiction, human trafficking, rape and forced prostitution.

God has made us different. Who can run or dance like the black Africans? But we have so misunderstood our differences that cruel hatred and racism is ruining humanity.

God created us as spiritual beings to live eternally with Him in His own image, but we have corrupted our spirituality. We see cruel religion and witchcraft everywhere.

God is watching all this and He is suffering.

Creation itself is suffering because we humans have failed as stewards of nature.

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Gen 1:27–28 NIV

That was in the beginning, but many years later the apostle Paul wrote.

For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope

that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Rom 8:20–22 NIV 

Many today see how our planet is corrupted. Our existence is threatened. They want to save our planet through political action. Without God, that would be the only way.

They understand that the fate of the planet is inextricably linked to humanity, but they do not understand that without God our humanity and our existence has no future.

Nature is corrupt because we humans are corrupt. God did not make us this way. We have corrupted God's creation. Only with God can we find the way out.

You must not despise yourself.

 God does not despise you. You must not despise yourself.

God does not despise people. He even sees wicked people as his lost children.

He longs to restore them and bring them home.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Jn 3:16 NKJV

Humanity is God's masterpiece, but we see that we are not glorious beings. Imagine a masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci badly damaged by fire and flood, but not completely destroyed. It looks dirty and shabby, but it is still a masterpiece.

You are also a human being, but not just any old specimen of humanity.

And the people around you who have not yet believed are also special beyond measure, even if they are badly damaged, because they were also created in the image of God.

We need to change the way we think and the way we talk about ourselves and about other people.

With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness.

Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be.
Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? Jas 3:9–11 NIV

God doesn't like everything about you and me, but he is working day and night to restore us.
He is not pleased with everything in our lives, but he loves his children, and that is what we are when we belong to Jesus by trusting him.

If you belong to Jesus by faith, God not only loves you, but He is pleased with what He has done in your life.

God has created you with a special purpose. No one else on earth is like you.  

Your life is a gift from God, and also an assignment from God.

What is your special purpose in life? God wants to show you your calling in life and show you the path you should take.

Are Men and Women Equal?

In the Old Testament all the priests were men. There were only kings in Israel. 

When Abraham looked for a wife for his son, Rebecca had to leave her home and her family and come under the authority of Abraham and her husband Isaac.

Ancient Greek men believed women were a curse. A married woman was the personal property of her husband.

A Canadian woman married an Arab man. When she tried to leave her husband, she was not allowed to leave Saudi Arabia because according to their law, she was the personal property  of her husband. 

In Bible days, women were often little better than slaves. A Roman man was the owner of his family and he could divorce his woman and kill his children or slaves.

In the Roman Empire female babies were often simply allowed to die. 

A father would order his wife to abandon her newborn daughter on a hillside. The abandoned babies either died of hunger or cold or they were harvested by pimps and raised to be prostitutes. That was normal for those days and a wife dared not disobey her husband.

In the New Testament Jesus only chose men as his apostles.

How should we understand all this? Is it the will of God that men should always have authority over women?

In Bible times it was mostly so, as it still is in some parts of the world.
The Law of Moses allowed a man to divorce his wife if he just gave her a written letter of divorce. It was unthinkable for a woman to divorce her husband.

When Jesus spoke against easy divorce for men, the Pharisees appealed to the authority of Moses and the Scriptures.They asked Jesus why Moses allowed a man to legally divorce his wife.

For the religious Jews, the Law of Moses was the perfect expression of the Will of God.

Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. Matthew 19:8 (NIV) 

For Jesus, the Law of Moses was holy and true. It was given to Moses by God. But there was a higher law, the perfect plan of God at creation, before Adam and Eve fell into sin.

"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' 

and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? Matthew 19:4-5 (NIV) 

We are so familiar with these words, that we don’t realise how radical they are.

In Bible days a man married couple would live with their extended family, almost always the husband’s parents, as it still is the case in traditional societies in India, Africa and many other places. 

But Adam, whose only parent was God, prophesied the perfect will of God, that a man would leave his family and be united to his wife. Unheard of! This is not traditional patriarchy at all! 

After the Fall of Adam and Eve, God planned to restore humanity to His original design. This was to take place step by step and we have still not reached the end of the story. 

• The call of Abraham was one step. 
• The shaping of the chosen Hebrew people was another and giving of the Law was yet another but the Law of Moses was only one stage in God’s plan, not the blueprint for the final consummation.

What was God’s original design before sin came into the picture?

Genesis 1:26-27 (NIV) 26  Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." 

27  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 

God gave the man and woman authority to rule over the earth. He gave the man no authority over the woman and the woman no authority over the man.

God’s guiding principle from the very beginning was partnership.

THE POWER OF WORDS

In the beginning God spoke, and it happened.
“Let there be light!” and the light appeared.

God speaks. It is in His eternal nature. He is not a silent God.
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets... Heb 1:1 (ESV)
Then God sent His Son into the world to show us what He is like. When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, God became flesh and blood.
...but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. Heb 1:2 (ESV)
The eternal Father sent His eternal Son to represent Him on earth to act for Him.
So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. Jn 5:19 (ESV)
And the Father also sent Jesus to speak for Him.
Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Jn 14:10 (ESV)  
We have a wonderful record of the words of Jesus in the Bible, which we rightly consider to the Word of God in book form. It is in the very nature of God to speak. He did not stop speaking when the Bible was published. The Spirit of Jesus who inspired the Bible also speaks through the Bible as we hear it and read it today.
The words of God give life.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. Jn 5:25 (ESV)
When Jesus spoke to the lifeless body of Lazarus in the tomb, the stinking corpse stood up and Lazarus walked out alive. Even today, there are believing Christians who have spoken to dead bodies and they have returned to life.
Death is the great enemy of humankind, but there is an even more terrible curse upon us, spiritual death. If you don’t know Jesus personally, you are separated from God and as good as dead for ever and ever.
We can only be truly alive by receiving the words of Jesus and getting to know the eternal ONE whose words give life.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. Jn 10:27-28 (ESV)
How spiritually alive are you? This question is a good test.
Do you know what God is saying to you now? Do you frequently receive direct communication from the Spirit of Jesus?
In the time of Jesus, each sheep was in constant personal contact with the shepherd. Where the shepherd walked, the sheep followed. When the shepherd called, the sheep heard and responded.
This reminds me of a lovely song.
“I heard the Lord, call my name. Listen close you’ll hear the same. Take it and we are glory bound.”
But take care not to confuse the VOICE of God with the words of Christians who water down the truth.
The Bible says we are saved by grace and not by our works. That is true. But often the wonderful word GRACE is watered down. We think it means mercy, and it does mean mercy.
But grace means much more. The grace of God is also the creative power of God.

Jesus saved an adulterous woman from execution by stoning. Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.” Jn 8:10-11 (ESV)
This was not only mercy but powerful grace. The words of Jesus imparted inspiration and divine power to change her life.