Tag Archives: JACOB

Wrestling With God

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In Paul’s letter to the fellow believers in Rome he ask a rhetorical question,“Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’”  I have seen this verse used time and again to prove God is Sovereign of the evil and the good.  That it’s all planed out from beginning to end including those merely playing the villans role.  Thank God the bible is full of actual stories that contradict this idea of God as puppet master.

Choice it seems is built into the biblical narrative from the very first story told of Adam and Eve.  As Dr. Michael Lodahl put so well in his book (The Story of God) “Scripture Testifies of God not only as the Creator of all things but also the One who has lovingly, compassionately, and freely entered into covenantal relation with the creation.”

Paul’s question rhetorical question is actually taken from the book of Isaiah and not as some might think from the mind of Augustine and Calvin.

Isaiah 29:16

You turn things upside down,

as if the potter were thought to be like the clay!

Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it,

“You did not make me”?

Can the pot say to the potter,

“You know nothing”?

But let us answer Paul’s rhetorical question with one big affirmative Yes!

Wrestle With God just like Job did over Gratuitous Evil.

Wrestle With God  just like Abraham who argued with God over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Wrestle With God just like Moses did over his Identity at the burning bush, or as Moses defended others in the face of God’s judgment.

Wrestle With God just like Jacob did over the course of your life and refuse to let go.

Wrestle with God in the Garden as Jesus did, until the Leap of Faith is Required.

Wrestle With God

In Faith

and  Doubt

In Victory

and Defeat

In Love

and Fear

In hope

and Despair

Wrestle with God until He touches you

and gives you a New Name,

but know this most of the time the God you are really wrestling with,

is the god of your own understanding.

ANZAHOLYMAN

Faith Alone

A Heretics Thoughts, Christ, FAITH ALONE, JESUS, LAW, Love, Street Theology, Teaching for the TRENCHES, , , ,

Paul teaches in his letter to Galatia that the Christian life rests on faith and faith alone.  Not scripture, doctrine or right theology but faith alone and that faith is to be placed in a resurrected Savior who dwells heaven with God The Father.

This faith is completely existential which causes the awareness of a relationship with the Living Father God who sent His son for the purpose of restoring relationship.

In order for you to get the radical nature of what Paul is teaching he uses an example from the old testament. Not Moses who gave the Law and the first four books of the Tanach. As a Matter of Fact He choices an example that wrote zero pages in the bible, not one word or even one letter much less a coma.

Paul chooses Abraham a man who existed before there was such a thing as a Bible or any of the Physical trappings of religion.  He picks a man who responds to a voice he hears which leads him on a journey of a life time.  Abraham does not have a name or any information about the nature of this God who is the great I AM.

So he leaves what he knows and follows this voice by faith and faith alone, that this Voices promises are true.  His faith over time is proved to be well placed in this Being who will be know as the God of Abraham Issac and Jacob.

He is taught one thing and that one thing is that He needs a God who meets Him more than halfway, or there is no chance of Him finishing this journey of faith. God tell us through the Apostle Paul that God considers this relationship based on faith, the grounds for Abraham being approved before God.

No Confessions, Just Faith

No Doctrines, Just Faith

No Churches, Just Faith

No Theology, Just Faith

This Faith in God’s faithfulness is called gospel, which is fully manifested in Jesus Christ. So Paul says all you need is Jesus, that word of God that came to Abraham in voice but has come to us in person, and all you need is to believe and it is that simple.  You see Jesus has come through the ages to many people in any different ways and it is all Gospel.  Anyone who is anybody who has cried to God, I want to know you help me has crossed paths with the Gospel of Father God.

Long before

Prophets

Moses

Physical Jesus

Apostles

Calvin

Popes

Luther

Mary Baker Eddy

Jerry Falwell

Chuck  Smith

There was Jesus (The Word) long before the material world began, savior of a world He would help in create along The Father side.

All the Father has given Jesus he shall never lose, all kingdom and worlds without end, His ability to save that which is lost is His mission and desire.

BECAUSE IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE FATHERS DESIRE TO SEEK AND SAVE THAT WHICH IS LOST!!!  THIS FAITH ALONE YOU SEE IS IN FACT GOD’S FAITH TO REACH OUT TO THAT HE LOVES WITH ALL HIS BEING.

ANZAHOLYMAN