what does God look like?

Here is one of the promised questions people often ask......

What does God look like?
Simple answer is we don't know.

In Exodus God showed himself as fire and as smoke.
In other books of the Bible He has been in the wind or an earthquake.
In Revelations there are all sorts of fantastic descriptions, but there is also loads of picture language there which I do not even try to understand and would not take literally.

We know Man was created in God's image so that gives some ground for the pictures of God as a human being.

We know Jesus (who is one part of the God-head) did not have a problem coming to Earth as a man. Jesus was born in to a Jewish family in Israel, so he would have had MiddleEastern skintone and Jewish looks. He would not have been blue eyes and blond hair, but I can understand those painters who portrayed him in a way they could relate to. Same as in Africa you will find pictures of a black Jesus.

The Holy Spirit (another part of the God-head) was seen as a dove at Jesus' baptism.
The Holy Spirit was also seen as tongues of fire at Pentecost.

But... God is omnipresent, so if He is everywhere all the time then He probably is not limited to a shape or form we can recognise and put a label on and say "That's God".

Personally I don't have a problem with not knowing what God looks like, some of the attempts to portray him tend to attract more mockery than worship anyway.

God is Almighty, Eternal, Omnipresent, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Awesome...... If we can fit Him into a box He is not God anymore.

WWJD?

It is popular to wear WWJD wristbands, which are supposed to provoke us to think "what would Jesus do?" and then act accordingly.

But Jesus did not live in the UK in the 21st Century, so we can't in practice limit our behaviour to exactly what we read in the Bible. Jesus lived when there was no such thing as electricity or cars or computers or telephones or even books or buttons. The popular quoted answer to this is to "live according to the spirit of the teaching we find in the Bible".

So, how do you get on with these........

• What would you do if you found £10 in the street
• How much work time do you spend doing personal (or non work related) things
• When there is a naff job to be done, do you do it or delegate it?
• Do you always drive according to the speed limit?
  
• Do you ever jump a red light? Or speed up to get through an amber light?
• Do you always tell the whole truth and the absolute truth in every situation?
  

And...... do you have any scriptures to back up your answers????

What do you really want?

I want to lose some weight, but I also WANT some chocolate. I know the two don't go together, and it is because I have had the chocolate too often that I have the problem that I now weigh 10 stone and not 8 any more.

It's often like that in life, what we WANT in the short term is not compatible with what we REALLY want in the long term.

My REAL BIG VISION is loving Jesus, exploring the fullness of being a celibate, building the church. In the short term I find myself very often behaving like a spoiled kid, I want to go to bed early, I want to stop in bed late, I want to hide myself away with a book, I want to go shopping, I want to..... Basically there are millions of things I could do which are not at all wrong in themselves, but they fill up my life and God only gets the leftovers.

Someone asked us two questions in a meeting recently:

• What do you want from God?
• What does God want from you?

That's the key to it really.

What I want from God is the fullness of what he has promised us. And what he wants from me is my love and devotion. It's a two-way thing, and God isn't the one letting the side down.

What is a hypocrite

Christians are often accused of being hypocrites

This is what the dictionary calls a hypocrite

hypocrisy noun (hypocrisies)
1 the act of pretending to have feelings, beliefs or principles which one does not actually have.
2 the act of concealing one's true character.

This is some of what Jesus said about hypocricy

So that all kind of means that a hypocrite is someone who does not practice what they preach, someone who is all talk but no action.

BUT is it the same as someone who has high ideals yet struggles to keep them? This is what the apostle Paul said about struggling with sin:

SO what is the difference between an honest struggle and hypocrisy?
I think I find my answer in songs like this:

Lord I did it again,
It all ends up the same.
Slipped, tripped, stripped of the kingly robe you gave me.

But I turn to you for forgiveness
Asking Father display your mercy
I stretch out my hand
And get up and make a stand

To see Jesus reign in my life
To always walk on the path of your truth
To fight to the end even when it gets dark
To trust in you...
©NCCC

I think the difference comes in our honesty before God and before other people. A hypocrite believes they are OK, they are living by their own rules and do not let the guard down to let anyone see what they are really like.

When we are honest about our shortcomings we allow God in to forgive us and people around us to support us. If one man has a map and another has a torch, are they not better off working together than pretending they are OK on their own in the dark? The information on the map is not invalid because you cannot see to read it, but you have to be humble enough to admit you need help.

I don't think God is made smaller by our failings- it points to his immense grace and patience and love that he helps us along the path and does not jsut blast us off the planet as incompetant failures.

That is why I think hypocrisy is wrong- because it makes ourselves bigger than we are and in self-sufficiency turns its back on God.

Why bother to be righteous?

Why bother to be righteous? Why bother to do the right thing if no-one else does, if they all get away with it, if no-one notices wether you do or not?

At work I am pretty much my own boss, and so long as the orders go out and the invoices get written and paid no-one really checks up on what I am doing. Sometimes I find it hard to be righteous in things like time keeping or making sure I do the jobs I would rather shove to one side. But I do believe righteousness is important.

We often sing "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness" and that is straight out of the Bible. It also says (Matt 5 v 6) "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness..." , and (v10) "Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness..." If Jesus strarted off His ministry talking about righteousness then it must be important.

When Mary annointed the feet of Jesus with perfume Judas got angry and said it was a waste of money. In brackets we are told he was used to stealing money from the common purse, and it was because he was so greedy that her extravagant generosity annoyed him. Some people say it was this unrighteousness that led to greater greed for money until he was prepared to betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. I don't know how far I want to push that theory, but I think it is definately the case that a "little thing" so often leads to a bigger thing and then our consciences get dull and we end up in all sorts of predicaments we would never have dreamed of.

But more than that, I want to try to live righteous because I love Jesus, and I do not want to upset Him.

Psalm 73 is one of my favourites 'cos it talks about keeping pure when everyone else seems to be getting away with it. It is a Psalm I read at a time when I was struggling with keeping my promises in the face of others who had gone back on theirs and didn't seem any worse off as a result.
Psalm 73