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blueaugust
06-08-2008, 10:45 AM
I just noticed that this part of the forum is "sleeping"... Here's a post from my blog site (http://pinoyapostolic.wordpress.com), for your eyes only (and everybody out there), with hopes to liven up the place... Constructive criticisms are welcome, while the destructive ones will be prayed for. :boxing

God in Action

Genesis 1:1-2 -

1 IN THE beginning God (prepared, formed, fashioned, and) created the heavens and the earth.

2 The earth was without form and an empty waste, and darkness was upon the face of the very great deep. The Spirit of God was moving (hovering, brooding) over the face of the waters.

- The Amplified Bible (http://www.lockman.org/amplified/copyright.php)

I understood these first two verses of the Bible as our first glimpse of God from eternity past. A God that is creating (v.1) and a God that is moving (v.2) It is very clear that the Bible introduces God in an active state. Although some may assert that God has no part in this existence that we are today, or that His part was only in a passive mode, I have put my trust in these two verses. The words “created” and “moving” certainly pictures a God in action. God is in an active presence when everything came into being. It means that He has an active part in it.

The active presence of God implies some thoughts that’s worth considering…

First is the implication that God must have a purpose when he started creating. If God is God, then everything he does must have a reason. This is being consistent to His nature as God. I cannot imagine a God who started doing something without thinking why He did it. Even if the only reason for Him to create me was only to see something good, as that was the only implicit reason I can glean and understand from Genesis 1, it would still be a valid purpose that I can accept for the thirty six years that I have been existing.

As Roy B. Zuck puts it in his book titled A Biblical Theology of the Old Testament, “…God has a purpose for all He does and that purpose, granting it’s divine origination, must be non-contradictory, self-consistent, systematic, and knowable. This is not to say that all God’s purposes are intelligible to human beings or even are communicated to them but that those purposes incumbent on them must be so.”

Second is that for God to take an active role in creation implies that He was determined in His purpose. The thought that it was God who initiated the act of creation without any outward influence is an indication of how He was determined. And to say that God is determined has a staggering weight on how we should understand it. Look at when God was determined to cleanse the earth during Noah’s time. Try to hear the whimpering voice of Pharaoh’s firstborn as death slowly engulfs his breath because God was determined to let Israel His people go. Or to be more positive, feel how condemnation melted from the hearts of the scribes and Pharisees because Jesus’ words reveal His determination to forgive and save that woman from the oppression and shame of adultery. I believe that there’s no power up in heaven, nor on this earth, neither in hell, that can hinder nor stop anything that God is determined to act upon.

Here are some verses from the Old Testament that described God’s determination…

Numbers 23:19 (KJV) -

God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?

Isaiah 55:11 (KJV) -

So shall my word be that goeth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it

Last is the implication that if God acted on something, He will finished it whatever purpose He has for it. In God’s eyes, everything has to be at least good before He will take some rest. Rephrasing that statement, the very least thing that God can do before stopping from an act is to be sure that it is good. And to think that it only took God an evening and a morning to produce something that is good. That which was started in Genesis, which continued to unfold in history, though somewhat gloomy and dim in the book of Revelation, will have an end that is more brighter than it’s beginning.

Never doubt His purpose for you. Never doubt His power to accomplish that purpose.

This is His promise. This is God in action.

Falla39
06-09-2008, 10:04 PM
I just noticed that this part of the forum is "sleeping"... Here's a post from my blog site (http://pinoyapostolic.wordpress.com), for your eyes only (and everybody out there), with hopes to liven up the place... Constructive criticisms are welcome, while the destructive ones will be prayed for. :boxing

God in Action

Genesis 1:1-2 -

1 IN THE beginning God (prepared, formed, fashioned, and) created the heavens and the earth.

2 The earth was without form and an empty waste, and darkness was upon the face of the very great deep. The Spirit of God was moving (hovering, brooding) over the face of the waters.

- The Amplified Bible (http://www.lockman.org/amplified/copyright.php)

I understood these first two verses of the Bible as our first glimpse of God from eternity past. A God that is creating (v.1) and a God that is moving (v.2) It is very clear that the Bible introduces God in an active state. Although some may assert that God has no part in this existence that we are today, or that His part was only in a passive mode, I have put my trust in these two verses. The words “created” and “moving” certainly pictures a God in action. God is in an active presence when everything came into being. It means that He has an active part in it.

The active presence of God implies some thoughts that’s worth considering…

First is the implication that God must have a purpose when he started creating. If God is God, then everything he does must have a reason. This is being consistent to His nature as God. I cannot imagine a God who started doing something without thinking why He did it. Even if the only reason for Him to create me was only to see something good, as that was the only implicit reason I can glean and understand from Genesis 1, it would still be a valid purpose that I can accept for the thirty six years that I have been existing.

As Roy B. Zuck puts it in his book titled A Biblical Theology of the Old Testament, “…God has a purpose for all He does and that purpose, granting it’s divine origination, must be non-contradictory, self-consistent, systematic, and knowable. This is not to say that all God’s purposes are intelligible to human beings or even are communicated to them but that those purposes incumbent on them must be so.”

Second is that for God to take an active role in creation implies that He was determined in His purpose. The thought that it was God who initiated the act of creation without any outward influence is an indication of how He was determined. And to say that God is determined has a staggering weight on how we should understand it. Look at when God was determined to cleanse the earth during Noah’s time. Try to hear the whimpering voice of Pharaoh’s firstborn as death slowly engulfs his breath because God was determined to let Israel His people go. Or to be more positive, feel how condemnation melted from the hearts of the scribes and Pharisees because Jesus’ words reveal His determination to forgive and save that woman from the oppression and shame of adultery. I believe that there’s no power up in heaven, nor on this earth, neither in hell, that can hinder nor stop anything that God is determined to act upon.

Here are some verses from the Old Testament that described God’s determination…

Numbers 23:19 (KJV) -

God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?

Isaiah 55:11 (KJV) -

So shall my word be that goeth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it

Last is the implication that if God acted on something, He will finished it whatever purpose He has for it. In God’s eyes, everything has to be at least good before He will take some rest. Rephrasing that statement, the very least thing that God can do before stopping from an act is to be sure that it is good. And to think that it only took God an evening and a morning to produce something that is good. That which was started in Genesis, which continued to unfold in history, though somewhat gloomy and dim in the book of Revelation, will have an end that is more brighter than it’s beginning.

Never doubt His purpose for you. Never doubt His power to accomplish that purpose.

This is His promise. This is God in action.

Brother,

I had never noticed this section but really enjoyed your article and
your blog with Sis. Marshall's testimony. Sent it to a lot of people.
Are you the Phillipino pastor? My late father was stationed in the
Phillipeans in WWII in Cebu City. Two of my brothers and I took PIMS
a few yrs. ago for Miss. Cecil Sullivan. We did this because our late
father came back after the war with such a burden for the places he
was stationed. He had such a burden for foreign missions that the
small church he pastored for over 30 yrs. was No.3 in per capita
giving in 1988. He was not well enough to go to Gen. Conf. to receive
the honor. My brother, who was assisting Dad, went in his place. Dad
passed on in 1989. He was the missionary's friend. He loved every one
of them and wanted them to feel at home in their home when they
came by.

Blessings,

Falla39

blueaugust
06-10-2008, 12:15 AM
@falla39 - Thanks for the comments. Yes, I am a Filipino pastor ministering in a province called Bataan. I also personally know the Sullivans as both of them are my teachers in the Bible College that I graduated from in Manila, Philippines. Again, thank you very much and God bless you more for partnering with the missionaries that came here in the Philippines.

Falla39
06-10-2008, 08:15 AM
@falla39 - Thanks for the comments. Yes, I am a Filipino pastor ministering in a province called Bataan. I also personally know the Sullivans as both of them are my teachers in the Bible College that I graduated from in Manila, Philippines. Again, thank you very much and God bless you more for partnering with the missionaries that came here in the Philippines.

Brother,

As an older sister, I well remember Dad, who after coming home from
the war would tell of the places he visited there in the Philippines and
asking the church he founded and pastored to pray for those there and
also in Japan where he was stationed after being there. He prayed while
there and also in Japan for those cities and peoples. You would just have
to have known my father to fully understand his burden.

Blessings,

Falla39