Touched by an Angel

 

Article by Myra Guca - Link HERE 

I love the idea of angels! Yet, I used to resist the concept of angels just a little bit -- wanting to make sure I wasn’t worshipping something separate from God….rather, a clear expression of God. I love the image that angels are a protecting presence enfolding us, and the fact that when I think about angels my thoughts sort of lift up.

Now some people say. “Aren’t angels just good people who have died?” I don’t know! I think perhaps, they are divine ideas put in human form. It’s not too unusual that we would behold the presence of angels this way. We tend to see what we understand, and I think it is sort of natural for us to put good ideas with skin on them …so that we can feel a kind of connection, even humanness to it. It seems more benevolent, somehow to imagine God’s grace in flowing robes and lovely smiles, than to think of it just as a blinding light --though that, too, can be interpreted as an angel by some people.

In the Bible stories, angels keep cropping up, bringing messages that upset people and challenge people and change people and comfort people – sometimes all at once! But the one message they always share is, “Don’t be afraid.” Then, when we read the description, Heavenly hosts -- we’re given to understand this isn’t just a bunch of guys in white robes with harps. This was a massive display of soldiers in full and shining gear with armor and weapons ….all that would be required to fight some divine battle! Remember when Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane? He said, my Father can summon 12 legions of angels. Now, if He was going to summon legions of angels they must be pretty tough. They weren’t exactly the lovely diaphanous creatures that we like to think of. Instead, they are a little like say, the great NFL linebacker, Lawrence Taylor. If you want an angel to go before you, don’t you want somebody like that?!

I think it’s sad, in this post-modern culture where we’re so attuned to getting all the facts, that some people just dismiss what they can’t see, or touch or hear. Maybe children see angels better than we do, because they expect them. In the middle of play they might suddenly look off, just to the side where there was seemingly nothing… and smile. Did you ever see a baby do that? Of course, there’s that old saying, "They’re smiling at angels." I’m not so sure it’s just a saying.

Do you see the angels? They re all around us!

Does God look human?

 

The Old Testament records that Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Isaiah, Ezekiel and Job encountered or "saw" God. We don't know whether they "saw" Him physically or as a vision. When Moses encountered the burning bush (Exodus 3:1-22) he heard God speak but did not actually see Him.

God is a Spirit.

As humans, we cannot understand or fathom what a spirit is. Is it a bright light? A transparent shape? A soft breeze or a presence?

How would you describe a spirit?

When the Disciples asked Jesus to "show them" God, He said:

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know Him and have seen Him.”

Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?

The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing His work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. 

Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 

And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. John 14:1-14

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After comforting the Disciples Jesus asks them to trust (believe) in God and to trust in Him and re-iterates that to see Jesus is to see the Father. He, (Jesus) is in the Father and the Father is in Him.

And that's presumably how, over the generations, we have grown to imagine God in human form. The Disciples saw Jesus as a human, (Whom He was, as well as being God), so they assumed that God the Father is also a human form. As no doubt have we, in our minds, envisaged God in human form.

The Bible says that God created us in His image. This means that we possess the same qualities of love, compassion, mercy and forgiveness as God has. It does not mean He created us in His physical image. 

God offered Himself on the Cross for us by sending us His Son Jesus. The Creator became part of His Creation.

Our Christian faith does not teach that we should climb up to God for our redemption. God has come down to us, and offered Himself as sacrifice on the Cross. 

The Father is God. And Jesus is God. And the Holy Spirit is God. The Holy Trinity - three in one. 

Thy Will Be Done

 

Article by Martha Jane Orlando - Link HERE 

In this manner, therefore, pray:  Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.  Your kingdom come.  Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. ~Matthew 6:9-10

There are only two kinds of people in the end:  those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done."  All that are in Hell, choose it.  Without that self-choice there could be no Hell.  No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it.  Those who seek find.  To those who knock it is opened. ~C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce.

The Lord's Prayer.  We recite it every Sunday in church.  It's probably one of the first prayers we memorize as children.  The words, said repeatedly, are comforting and familiar to each of us.

But the problem arises when these words become nothing more than rote when saying them out loud.  We speak corporately out of habit, not taking time to reflect upon what we are actually espousing with each uttered phrase.  It is, indeed, a slippery slope for Christians, young and old.

When we pray that God's will be done, do we mean it?  Do we really believe it, or do we secretly think His will should be done only if it aligns with our hopes, our dreams, our expectations?  If that's the case, we are confining ourselves to our own lonely, isolated perspective where we deem our needs and desires to be more important than what God wills for our lives and for the lives of those we love.

Tragically, this whole misconception leaves God and His sovereignty out of the equation altogether.  That idea alone should shake us to our very core.  Because the evil one craves nothing more than to work to separate us from the God we profess to love and worship.  The devil sees that narcissistic chink in our armor as an opportunity to worm his way into our hearts and minds.

St. Paul proclaims in Romans 8:39 that nothing can separate us from God's love.  I agree.  But God created us with free will; we can choose His way or the highway at any given juncture.  As C. S. Lewis states above, all that are in Hell choose it.

As we prepare here in the States to celebrate Thanksgiving this week, I challenge all of you to take time to rediscover the Lord's Prayer.  Examine each turn of phrase.  Ask yourself if you wish for God's kingdom to reign on earth as it does in heaven, or do you prefer your own little kingdom of one to prevail?

I have no doubt you will come to the right conclusion.

Amen!