I asked the question yesterday, “What is God doing?” That is to say, what is He up to? What are His plans? Can we even truly know His plans?
Through the Scriptures, the divine revelation, God exhibits all the facets of His character. Often times, people question His character because of events in the Scriptures. However, God is merely being true to Himself. He is a just God, motivated by His own holiness and desire for righteousness. In that, He sets the standard of the Law. In His own knowledge, He was well aware that we would fall short. So, in one beautiful moment, He repaired the broken road.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
(Ephesians 2:4-5 ESV)For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
(Romans 8:3-4 ESV)
Most would agree that the balance of humankind is good. They are good people with good intentions. There is evil in the world, no doubt, but the bulk of the human race, by their own definition is good.
On the other hand, as a Christ-follower, I understand a different paradigm. By comparison to the holiness and righteousness of a just God, I am unclean. There is a great and desperate need in me to be restored, to be remade. I am no longer comparing myself to others by their standards. I am allowing myself to be compared to the God of the Scriptures who revealed Himself as holy, righteous and just. By this definition, I am no longer good. Rather, there is nothing good in me. (See Romans 3:10-18)
God, then, because of our desperate plight, ordains for redemption, renewal and restoration. That which was broken and out of joint, he remakes and restores. He did this through the offering of His Son, Jesus through the Cross. The Cross was God’s instrument of renewal. By this, He begins His work of rebuilding a new you.
I must then realize that this is God’s work in me, not something I conjure up by sheer effort. He is doing this for His glory and for His name’s sake. That all would see He is a good King who does good. His motives are for His glory and for the furthering of His Kingdom, that more people would recognize their plight and see what God has done through the work of Christ.
It brings to mind another line in C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity,
I cannot, by direct moral effort, give myself new motives. After the first few steps in the Christian life we realise that everything which really needs to be done in our souls can be done only by God.
-sb
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