"What is God Saying?"

He tends to veer away from saying things that our ears itch to hear, because those are things we tend to over-emphasize and that tend to foster our pride. Rather, he tends to say things that we have forgotten, that we overlook, that we ignore or that we deliberately stop our ears to.

Therefore, in any situation, God's word will appear to go against what most people in that situation would expect him to say. God's word will be a corrective - though sometimes it will also be an encouragement.

God's word never panders to human pride; by this, above all, you may know it. But neither does God's word crush the human spirit; rather, it inspires and enlivens to greater things.

So, what is God saying today?

To whom? To what human situation?

First of all, what is God saying to his own people, today?

I believe that God is saying something like the following (clickable summary, followed by the detail). Since it is normal in charismatic churches to hear "The Lord says, 'I ....'", I will use the first person stance here.

• Remember: The main mandate I gave humankind is shepherd my Creation, to be my representatives within in.
• Remember: In this shepherding, you are to be like me.
• Distressingly, you have turned away from me, and you fail in this mandate.
• You are trapped and cannot turn back to full good, neither individually nor as humanity.
• That is why I have stepped in to save you.
• But it was not only human beings I came to save.
• Beware: When I speak, my word is not just academic; it is for people, for a response.

• Remember: The main mandate I gave humankind is shepherd my Creation, to be my representatives within in.
  • Your shepherding is designed to be a joy and fulfilment to you, and you are designed for it.

• Remember: In this shepherding, you are to be like me.
  • In this sense you human beings are my representatives.
  • I am love. Love looks after the object of love, rather after itself.
    • (Remember, how I have always given myself for you and for all humankind and for all creation. I have set the example myself, when I came to live among you.)
  • So you also should be love; love towards the things you look after for me.
    • So your stewardship is to be primarily to be for the sake of the things you look after, not primarily for your own sake, for your own convenience and pleasure.
      • In this kind of stewardship (for the sake of the things looked after) you are being like me.
      • Unfortunately, most of you, my people, tend to assume that the stewardship you have from me is for your own sake and pleasure. That is utterly wrong.
      • The word I used in the Hebrew language was 'radah', which is used only a dozen times in the Old Testament. Some English versions translate it as 'have dominion'.
      • Notice, that is not the same as 'dominate'.
      • It means 'to set in order'.
      • There are two kinds of 'radah'. In Ezekiel 34 I berated the shepherds of the House of Israel for the wrong type of 'radah'; they were supposed to look after my sheep, but they saw that as an opportunity to look after themselves, and did not tend the sick or strengthen the weak. They were focused entirely on themselves, thinking they had my favour. How wrong they were.
      • In your looking after my Creation, likewise, you must 'set it in order' in such a way that it is for its own sake, rather than primarily for yours. You are called to develop it and open up its potential, for its own sake and fulfilment, not for your own.
      • (Though, in doing so, you will find your own joy and fulfilment; that is the way I have made you.)

• Distressingly, you have turned away from me, and you fail in this mandate.
  • All humanity has failed, and will keep on failing, in this.
    • You human beings that are setting the world's agenda, that is, the West, think of my Creation as merely resources for your own use. You plunder it and destroy it.
    • I will require at your hand the species you have driven to extinction and the areas you have denuded and the waters you have polluted.
  • But, especially, you, my people, have failed in this.
    • You have your own version of the wrong attitude to my Creation.
    • You think, and long have thought, that because I love you with a special love, all I am interested in is you yourselves.
    • You think my relationship with you is as found in one of your teenage couples: eyes only for each other, oblivious of anything else around.
    • No! My love is much more mature than that.
      • My love is not exclusive; it includes all I have made.
      • And so must yours.
      • If you really love me, you will also love the things I love.
      • And treat them with proper 'radah'.
    • You, my people, must be "transformed", as my apostle said, "by the renewal of your minds".
      • Note: renewal of your minds, rather than of your spirits.
      • To place 'spirit' above 'mind' is not of me; it is of Greek paganism that misunderstands my plans and Creation.
      • Your mind, in this case, is not just your reasoning capacity and memory; it is your world-view, your outlook, your basic assumptions - the things you take for granted, the things you never question.
      • It is those things that must be 'transformed' in you, O my people.
        • You, my people, are infected in these deep parts of your minds in the same way as most other Western human beings are today: by pagan Greek thought.
        • Thought it was great in its own way (because it is I who have given to all humankind the capacity for thought), it was, and is, fundamentally flawed.
        • It splits my Creation into two parts (what some call 'dualism').
        • And most human thinking down to the present day is infected with dualism.
        • The dualism that infects most Westerners splits 'nature' from 'freedom', 'fact' from 'value'.
        • The dualism that infects you, my people, is an older one: it splits 'secular' from 'sacred' (or, in the jargon, 'nature' from 'grace').
        • This leads you to assume that all I want of you is to focus on me - the teenage style of obsessive love - and worship me. Because, you think, the 'sacred' things are of infinitely more value than the 'secular' things.
        • How wrong you are.
        • I value what you call the 'secular' - because I created it and named it Good.
        • I even gave myself to save it.
        • Therefore I expect you also to value it. And to give yourselves for it.
        • If you are truly my people.

• You are trapped and cannot turn back to full good, neither individually nor as humanity.
  • As one of my prophets put it, "All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags."
  • That is why I have to step in to save you, and all my Creation.

• That is why I have stepped in to save you.
  • I came to live among you, as the person called Jesus Christ.
  • I died at your hands.
  • I died to save you and all my Creation.
  • And I come to live in those who are willing to receive me.
  • And those that are willing to receive me become part of my own special people, on whom I set a special love ...
  • ... and to whom this word is primarily addressed.
    • Remember: "Those whom God loves he rebukes and chastens."
    • Because you are to be 'transformed' to be like me.
    • Not just in individual character ...
    • ... but also in your attitude to my Creation and in your handling of it.
    • (That is why my apostle says "transformed by the renewal of your minds" rather than "transformed by renewal of your spirits".)

• But it was not only human beings I came to save.
  • I came also to save my whole Creation.
    • (Though the type of salvation that plants and animals will enjoy is of a different kind than that which humans can enjoy)
  • As I have said: I love all I have made.
  • You have messed it up.
  • But my plan is to restore it (a renewed heaven and earth, in the end).
  • And you, my people, have an important part to play in this.
    • That is why my apostle wrote that my Creation "waits with eager longing for the sons of God to be revealed."
    • Because my 'sons' are those who bear my character, who are sufficiently like me that I can trust them to make the same decisions as I would make.
    • My sons are those who have the same attitude to my Creation as I have.
    • They display what my apostle called the fruit of the Spirit; they:
      • have Love for my Creation (giving themselves for it, as I originally intended)
      • have Joy in my Creation (rather than ignoring it)
      • are at Peace with my Creation (rather than warring against it, or seeing it as a constraint and nuisance)
      • have Patience with my Creation (and not always seeking to speed up its processes like Western agriculture has done)
      • show continual Kindness toward my Creation (rather than unthinking insensitivity or cruelty)
      • show Goodness towards my Creation (fulfilling it for its own sake, rather than treating it as a mere backdrop for human activity)
      • show Faithfulness towards my Creation (never letting it down)
      • have Self Control in handling my Creation (rather than always trying to push it to its limits for their own ends, or 'maximizing' what they think of as its potential)
    • Those sorts of people always treat my Creation aright, and with proper 'radah'.
    • And that is why my Creation recognises them and eagerly waits for them to appear and work among it.

• Beware: When I speak, my word is not just academic; it is for people, for a response.
  • If you - and I'm speaking directly to you who are reading this - think of yourself as one of my people, how do you measure up to what I have been saying?
  • Is there anything you need to repent of?
    • An attitude, perhaps?
    • A world-view?
    • A set of assumptions about my plan and your purpose in my plan?
    • Some cruel or unthinking actions that are out of step with my character?
    • An inaction that lets evil be done to the Creation I love?
  • I do love you, and that is why I am so concerned that you love my Creation too, in the way I also love it.
  • Ask of me, and I will work in you to transform you by the renewing of your mind.

Copyright (c) Andrew Basden 2009. But you may use this material subject to certain conditions.

Part of his www.abxn.org pages, that open up discussion and exploration from a Christian ('xn') perspective. Written on the Amiga with Protext. Number of visitors to these pages: .

Created: 1999. Last updated: 20 Jan 2002. 1 January 2009 .end, .nav. 18 April 2010 summary and some slight rewording.