G.A.M.E.

In one day, Adam could go from enjoying fellowship with God to fearing Him and hiding from His presence. I believe the second thing that changed in their relationship, contributing to Adam’s fear, was the way Adam perceived God. Before, Adam saw God as a loving father, now he believes God to be a wrathful judge. God, who was once loving, has now become harsh, demanding, exacting, and vengeful; at least from Adam’s point of view. Adam knew God to be a God of justice, but now that he had sinned, he presumed upon God’s character that God was now angry and wrathful towards him. Adam took what he knew about God and drew the wrong conclusion about God’s character. Adam’s failure to properly deduce the character of God is similar to the worthless servant in the parable of the talents.

"And the one also who had received the one talent came up and said, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed. And I was afraid , and went away and hid your talent in the ground. See, you have what is yours.’" (Matthew 25:24-25)

The servant, based on knowing that his master’s purpose was to reap where he did not sow and gather where he did not scatter, perceived his master to be harsh, fierce, and severe, but was this an accurate representation of his master. Jesus applied this parable to us, as the servants, and to the Father, as the master. It is true that God intends to reap where He has not sown and to gather where He has not scattered, for that is the very reason He has left us behind to finish His work, but does that make Him hard and austere? The truth is that God is loving, merciful, and kind, even to the weak and lowly, but far too often, like Adam and like this servant, we take what we know about God and end up misjudging His motives, His nature, and His feelings towards us.
One of the primary reasons we misjudge God is because our expectations of who He really is is based upon, and formed by, our experience. We know God is our Father and so we expect Him to be like our earthly fathers. For some, that leads to a positive image of God, and for others, a negative image. We know God is Lord over all, so we expect Him to be like other authority figures in our lives. We know God is love so we see Him through the different relationships we have had in the past. In all of these, we project onto God’s nature our experiences, both good and bad, and often end up with a wrong conclusion of what God is really like.

So what is the real nature of God? Here in lies the first truth we can gather from the story of the garden. God asks Adam this questions, "Where are you?", and where was Adam? He was hiding. But where was God? He was drawing near to be with Adam. As I read this passage, I am amazed that, knowing full well the extent of Adam’s sin, God still chose to come and draw near to him, that He might have fellowship with him. After all, God could have chosen several other courses of action following Adam’s sin. He could have simply killed Adam and started all over again. After all, He had warned him that if he ate of the tree he would die, or God could have just written him of, forsaken him, and found something else do watch over in His universe. Adam had sinned and he deserved to spend eternity living in his sin. Yet, when faced with the news of Adam’s sin, God chose neither of these approaches. Knowing full well that Adam had disobeyed Him, God still desired to be with him, to fellowship with him, and to set on course a plan that would one day free Adam and his race from the bondage to sin.
What does this mean for you and me? It means that no matter where you are right now, God wants to be with you. Even in the deepest darkest corners of you sin, God still wants to be with you. No matter how far away we are from God, He still chooses to draw near us and ask us, "Where are you"? The choice is ours. Will we stay in the shame and darkness of our sin or will we by faith turn to Him and let Him restore us and reconcile us back to Himself? Will we hear His voice and realize that, though He is a God of justice, He is also full of mercy, grace, and forgiveness? Will we let our fears of God keep us from daring to approach Him again, or will we once again, by faith, enter back into His presence? Consider the admonition of Paul,

"Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water." (Heb 10:19, 22-23 NKJV)

So where are you in relationship to the Father right now? No matter where you are, God wants to be with you. Won’t you turn towards Him, and with great boldness, return to His presence and His love and care for you? God is waiting, its your move…

  Romans 14:1 (MSG) 
Welcome with open arms fellow believers who don’t see things the way you do. And don’t jump all over them every time they do or say something you don’t agree with—even when it seems that they are strong on opinions but weak in the faith department. Remember, they have their own history to deal with. Treat them gently.

Receive ye—Associate with him; receive him into your religious fellowship; but when there, let all religious altercations be avoided.

What are you doing to avoid religious altercations with fellow believers?

In contrast to my experience, one of the young men I mentored through a local Exodus ministry was practically punished for his struggle. He had never acted on his desires, never wanted to embrace a homosexual identity, but when he confided in his youth pastor he was taken out of the worship band, removed from leadership and told to stay away from children. I shudder to think how they might have dealt with a gay-identified student.

Our ability to redeem the sexual generation will lie in our willingness to live and love with the same kind of daring Jesus did when he dared to speak to — and touch — the lepers, Samaritans and sexual sinners of his day. Unlike the religious folks around Him, I don’t think Jesus identified people by their disease, nationality or sin; He looked beyond all that and saw the beautiful potential of what God created, and He called it out by treating them like they were worthwhile.

Looking back on my troubled, lonely teen years, I believe that’s what I was looking for all along. I believe it’s the cure that a shallow, sin-saturated new generation is crying out for.

Our youth have hearts that need pursuing. If we don’t go after them, there are other people out there who will.

After brazenly demanding a day in court with God to vindicate him before his friends, God gives him his day and Job falls dreadfully short of what it takes to make such demands from God.
But, in spite of his miserable short-comings, the God of all creation is ready to dispense grace.
IV. Job’s Renewal (42)
The only appropriate response Job could give to God after such a withering rebuke was to put his hand over his mouth and repent. That is exactly what he does.
1) Job’s Repentance - Job recognizes his foolishness in light of who God is. Thus he confesses his reckless accusations that questioned the character of the living God. He had not understood, but now he truly saw (5).
2) Job’s Reconciliation - Job is declared to be God’s servant. He now stands as a priest for his 3 friends whom God declares acted in folly against Job.
3) Job’s Restoration - After his repentance, Job is restored to his former time of blessing. In fact, God gave him twice of what he owned before. The family who had forsaken him returned and ate food with him, implying they had a restored fellowship with Job. Moreover, they comforted him and consoled him as to all the adversity he had suffered. Then lastly, God restored to Job a new family of children, 7 sons and 3 daughters.
He then died a blessed man, old and full of days.
Through out the book, it is apparent Job bemoaned the calamitous situation brought upon him by God. It is not sinful to bemoan calamity brought on by God. It is only human to grieve over horrendous circumstances that befall a person. What is sinful, however, is charging God with folly, or lack of wisdom, or that He is malicious in character. Such would be foolish on our part, for we know not what God is doing. What is perceived as foolish and unwise and malicious, is really the holy purposes of a wise and good God working things out on behalf of those whom He has set His love.

Loneliness brings me to a place of submission and surrender. The weight of a lonely heart is too great a burden for me to bear. I struggle, strain, and grit my teeth to carry the load, but it becomes too much. I’m forced to lay it at God’s feet and let him carry it. Surrendering our desires for intimacy to God isn’t the same as stifling those desires. When we surrender our desires for romance to Christ, we admit we aren’t in control of this area of our lives nor do we want to be. We heed his call to patience. We wait for his best. When we kneel before our Father with uplifted hands, we have his promise that when we ask for bread, he won’t give us a stone.

And ultimately, loneliness isn’t a single problem; it’s a human problem. God meets our need for community and connection in this life in a variety of ways: marriage, family, Christian fellowship. But our lonely moments also remind us that this world is not our true home. It’s good to remember that now and then.

James 3:17-18 (NASB)
But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy. And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

Are we going to be peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy to those of us who are lonely?