06/02/23 Daily Devotion – Answering our human dilemma!

“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.” Acts 17:24–25 (NIV84)

Many apologists consider Paul’s approach to defending the Christian faith before the Greek philosophers in this section of Scripture to be flawless. He found the open door to share the God of the Bible in the most inoffensive way. He began with their unknown god and gradually defined that god as the One True God. In these verses, Paul, with care and precision, described our God in stark contrast to the gods of the Greeks. The gods of the Greeks were glorified humans with incredible powers but also inherent human flaws. Ultimately the Greek gods needed humanity for their own definition and identity. In contrast, Paul presented the God of the Bible as the Creator of all things who is Lord of both heaven and earth and does not need humanity to define Him. He concluded by emphasizing that humanity, in fact, needs God for its own definition and identity.

Today we live in a society that deifies itself. It has become a weak, confused, convoluted mess. We’ve made people the measure of all things while becoming ever more concerned that we haven’t set the bar high enough. If people are the measure, isn’t the next logical question, “which person?” Do we set as our standard Bill Gates or Hugh Hefner, Adolf Hitler or Mahatma Gandhi? You see my point? Saying that a man or woman is the measure leaves us in quite a predicament. Like Paul, we need to introduce the God of the Scriptures, who is not weak but is strong! He is not confused but is certain and true! He doesn’t need us, but we desperately need Him. We need to introduce to our society a God who loves us; who knows our pain and suffering because He became one of us; who works on our behalf to redeem, restore and reconcile us. Our society is suffering and our God is the answer. Let’s start presenting our Christian faith as an ideology that provides answers and solutions to the things that plague us.

Peace!

Pastor Tom

www.firmlyrooted.church

Let the world see Jesus in you!

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