Strangely Bright? by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL012120/REL023000/REL028000
Publisher: Crossway
Published: 2020-08-25T00:00:00+00:00

5

Denying Ourselves and Sharing Our Riches

We’ve seen that God reveals himself to us in his word and in his world. General revelation and special revelation work together to give us deep and rich knowledge of God. The heavens declare the glory of God. So do the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. All of creation reveals who God is and what he is like, and it does so through a woven web of images and metaphors and pictures and analogies. Made things make invisible attributes visible. God has given us our bodily senses in order to gain knowledge of the world, and he has given us minds and hearts in order to connect our experience of the world to the God who made it. We taste and see that honey is good as a way of creating categories in our experience so that we can taste and see that the Lord is good. The Bible is the grammar textbook for the language of God in creation, and by immersing ourselves in the Bible, we’re able to rightly hear what God is saying everywhere else. Special revelation guards our interpretation of general revelation, and general revelation enriches our knowledge of special revelation.

We’ve also seen that God intentionally filled the world with all kinds of pleasures—sensible pleasures, relational pleasures, and vocational pleasures. He gives these good gifts to us both for our enjoyment and so that we can accomplish his mission in the world. With God as the supreme object of our desires and the supreme model for our desires, we are called to enjoy God in everything and everything in God. This is an integrated approach to God and his gifts. On the other hand, because of the very real dangers of idolatry and ingratitude, we also use comparative tests to remind ourselves that God is more satisfying than all of his gifts, that his steadfast love is better than life, that living is Christ and dying is gain. Jesus is always better. Practically, we live this out through rhythms of godwardness, as we anchor ourselves through personal devotions and corporate worship, and then live our lives conscious of God’s presence and nearness. We too are made things, and in all that we say and do, we must show the world what God is like.

Now I’m very aware that encouraging people to plunge headlong into the ocean of God’s gifts and deeply delight in the things of earth is dangerous. It would be easy to hear what I’ve said thus far and think that I’m preaching some kind of health, wealth, and prosperity gospel. You might take my words and use them to justify hoarding God’s gifts for yourself, rationalizing your luxurious lifestyle and expensive purchases on the grounds that you just want to enjoy God in everything (especially the finer things in life). And this kind of mistake could be deadly to your soul. The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Those who desire to be rich fall into a snare.

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