Living God - RRT

What a theme I chose for this month! Yes I know that God is Living, I experience His presence with me constantly, but ... As I sat and tried to write something, I started and stopped and then tried again another day. And still didn’t get very far, until today. I receive lots of emails and many of them are quite funny and it was one of these that set me thinking.

The story goes that an atheist was out in the forest admiring the trees and the rivers and the scenery generally around him when he is confronted with a bear. A huge bear … like a 7 foot Grizzly! Now as atheists don't believe in God, what could he do, well he couldn’t pray now could he!

Anyway, he has a conversation with God about him ignoring God all these years and now when his life is in danger, he suddenly believes? Realising that he would be hypocritical to expect God to accept him now, he asks God to make the bear a Christian instead.
The bear then thanks God for the meal set before him and the email ends.

This got me thinking. We Christians purport to belong to the living God. We attend worship and say with our mouths that we believe in the Living God, but our day‐to‐day lives do not show that we are Christians. In Julie’s article in this issue she talks about a guy who says that He can feel the love all around at CareWorks. This is amazing that He can feel God’s love
surrounding Him. This love can only be felt from a Living God.

As Christians who want to share the saving grace of God with our friends and family, we need to take hold of the Living God and let Him live in and through us. I know that I let what is happening all around me pull me down and I don’t let the Living God shine in and through me. It is a daily challenge that I confront head on.

A friend of mine went to work in a business and decided that if they knew she was a Christian they may treat her differently from what they might otherwise do. So she decided not to use the “God talk” that she was so used to using with her Christian friends. After she had been at the place a while, one of the workers asked her what was different about her? She answered that she didn’t know. Then her workmate said, “There is something different about you, you are calm, and serene against all the odds, you’re a Christian, aren’t you? My Grandma was a Christian and she behaved just like you.”

The old song that we used to sing years ago springs to mind, “And they will know we are Christians by our love”.

Belief in the Living God is not enough, it must be evident in how we live. Serving the Living God enables us to live out His love and exhibit it to the world around ‐ to our family, friends, workmates and indeed to the people we meet where ever we go. This is our challenge to live by constantly and show the world the Living God.

James 2:18 says: But someone will say, “One person has faith and another actions.” My answer is, “Show me how anyone can have faith without actions, and I will show you my faith by my actions.” (GNB)

Living God - JS

What is the evidence of life, of God being alive? How do we know? Can we use the usual criteria - can we see, touch and feel God?

The letter to the Romans says a resounding ‘Yes’- the basic reality of God is plain enough in all that God has created. Creation reveals the eternal power and divine mystery of God (Romans 1:20). The complexity and interwoven design of nature expresses the living God. Many of us would say ‘Yes’ to that - looking out across the landscape, looking down on a panoramic view, looking back along a beach - we capture a glimpse of Living God.

Jesus enters our world and we are invited to meet God come as a man, Living God as a visible and tangible human being. To me this is an even greater mystery than what we glimpse of God in the pattern of creation. The Gospel of John leads us to encounter Jesus as God living with us. Jesus identifies himself with life in many of his sayings. One that springs to mind is “I am the way, the truth and the life.” (14:6)

Jesus goes even further, however. Not only do we encounter Living God in Jesus but also we are offered the gift of being filled with this life. “I have come that they might have life, life in all its fullness.” (10:10) As has been expressed profoundly, “The glory of God is a [person] fully alive!”

Being attentive to God living with us, opens us up to the life of God that God is breathing into us. At times in our fast paced, over stimulated, noise filled, materially crowded existence we can shut down to recognizing the reality of Living God in the small, everyday of life. Living God is in the people, the goodness, the aspirations, the activities and events, the love that we meet each day.

We have many friends at CareWorks who regularly visit us. Bruce rides his bike and comes first thing before the day gets busy. He sits in the Café with a hot cuppa made by Maurie and has a chat. He says “I can feel the love, it’s all around, in the faces of people here… Can’t you just feel it.” Over the months Bruce has been meeting God living amongst us, and I sense it has done his soul a power of good. Living God enables, empowers, enriches and enlivens us too!

Grace and peace,
Julie (Exec. Officer— CareWorks)

WISELink May 2008

The May 2008 of WISELink is now available online.

I will once again be publishing the feature article(s), please feel free to discuss the article in the comments area of each post.