"What is God Saying?"

God is saying what he always has said. But in any context, culture, time, situation, he will emphasize some things, and be quieter about others.

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 (n.b. II Tim. 3:16) - though sometimes it will also be an encouragement.

God's word never panders to human pride; by this, above all, you may know whether God is speaking. 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 (summary statements, clickable to 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 it.
• 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.

If it is indeed what God is saying, then I must treat it with respect. For this reason I will not do what I usually do, namely place hyperlinks in the text so readers might be encouraged look at to other material I have written. If it is what God is saying, it should stand alone without privileging what I have written. Instead, for readers that would like to think more about what is said here, I provide links at the end. This version builds on, and slightly tidies-up, the original, to which you may prefer to refer.

What is God Saying?

• Remember: The main mandate I gave humankind is shepherd my Creation, to be my representatives within it.
  • "Shepherd my creation" - more than "enjoy my creation", more even than "steward my creation".
    • "Enjoy my creation" puts the emphasis back on yourselves, encouraging pride.
    • Stewards look after things for its owner, but need feel no particular love for it. Would not angels be better stewards than humans?
    • Shepherds love their sheep. They order the sheep for the sake of the sheep rather than for their own sake. Good shepherds even lay down their lives for the sheep.

  • Your shepherding is designed to so that the 'sheep' (the rest of creation) can experience my love through you.
  • Yet even so, your shepherding is to be a joy and fulfilment to you - because 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 shepherding 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 shepherding (for the sake of the things looked after) you are being like me.
      • The word I used in the Hebrew language was 'radah', which is used only a few 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.
    • Unfortunately, most of you tend to assume that the radah you have from me is for your own sake and pleasure. That is utterly wrong.
    • 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'.
    • So you ignore what I love.
    • And if you do not actually destroy and trample the rest of creation yourselves, you acquiesce in its destruction because you like enjoying yourselves.

• 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."
  • Even you, my people, are infected in the deep parts of your minds in the same way as most other Western human beings are today: by pagan assumptions.
    • Your assumptions split my Creation into two parts (what some call 'dualism').
    • 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.

  • But you are trapped in your ways of thinking; your assumptions are too deep to be changed.
  • Unless my Holy Spirit works in you.
    • (Do you resist this? Does that show how you are trapped in your way of thinking?)
  • This is why my apostle said that you, my people, must be "transformed 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.
  • 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.

If you would like to think about this more deeply, then it is discussed in 'A New View of Theology and Practice, So We Live In New Ways', and fuller discussion of the specific parts as follows:

• "Remember: The main mandate I gave humankind is shepherd my Creation, to be my representatives within it." - See:
  • Stewards of Creation?

• "Remember: In this shepherding, you are to be like me." - See
  • the role of humankind: radah.
  • Also a look at the Hebrew word radah.
  • On the Mistaken view of 'dominion'
  • 'For Its Sake'
  • On the Love of God

• "Distressingly, you have turned away from me, and you fail in this mandate." - See
  • Fall

• "You are trapped and cannot turn back to full good, neither individually nor as humanity. " - See
  • Indirect Impacts

• "That is why I have stepped in to save you." - See
  • Rich Redemption - whole section

• "But it was not only human beings I came to save." - See
  • Christ the Centre
  • The Holy Spirit

• "Beware: When I speak, my word is not just academic; it is for people, for a response." - See
  • Representing God
  • The Responsibility of Those Who Represent God
  • The Joy of Representing God
  • Working with God

This page, "http://abxn.org/Gods.word.html" is part of Andrew Basden's abxn.org pages - pages that open up discussion and exploration from a Christian ('xn') perspective. Written on the Amiga with Protext, in the style of classic HTML.

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Copyright (c) Andrew Basden at all dates below. But you may use this material for almost any non-antagonistic purpose (including commercial) subject to certain easy conditions.

Created: 1999. Last updated: 20 Jan 2002. 1 January 2009 .end, .nav. 18 April 2010 summary and some slight rewording. 30 January 2011 expanded point 1, rearranged points 2,3,4, added explanation, gave links at end to nv/rrrr. 2 September 2012 some tidying up. 16 Nov 2024 canon, bgc, new .end,.nav to rid u-net; small.