Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Our Future, God's Past
I'm not one to be pedantic about semantics. I hear Christians raising high alarm over small issues. I decided a long time ago to major on the majors, not the minors. A good preacher does not give valuable time in the pulpit to inconsequential subjects. That's like a lion chasing a mouse. However, there is one point that, although small, contains great importance. It's to do with the "tense" of our statements. If we have received a thing before we have received it, then from that point we refer to it as something that has already taken place in the past tense. In Romans 4:17 Paul quotes the Genesis record of God speaing to Abraham. The Lord says,"I have made you the Father of many nations". Now this statement was well before Abraham and Sarah had even conceived.
They were both "well stricken in years" and well past the age of child bearing. However, we are told that Abraham believed God. He could easily have said to God; "You haven't made me a father of anything yet. You might be going to, but as it stands right now I'm not aware that I'm anyone's father." God was speaking in the past tense. Again let me state that faith is a time rebel. It doesn't live in today. It makes tomorrow's dream today's realities. God lives beyond time. He can see the beginning and the end all at once. He is the beginning and the end. The Alpha and the Omega. The first and the last. Time is a creation of God. One day there will be no more time. It will pass away. God is the end of time. From God's perspective, your future is HIs past. He already knows the beginning from the end. He is fully aware of all the things that will happen in your life in the future. He knows all the things He will do for you in the future. However, as far as He is concerned, He has already done it. It's history to God. So He can say, "I have done such and such." It may be beyond our current circumstances and be difficult to conceive of such thing ever happening. But this was exactly the case in Abraham's world. He believed what God said to him and began to relate to his wife and himself in this way. He could easily see himself as the father of a multitude because God had said that He had already done it.
Phil Pringle, FAITH
joanne speaks.
12:14 PM
