Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Jesus is perfect theology



Chapter 9 of “Face to Face with God” might be more uncomfortable than any previous chapter.   Bill Johnson has a section called “Perfect Theology,” for those of you following along, where he talks about how Jesus is perfect theology because He did the will of God. Johnson says “How many people came to Jesus for healing and left sick? None.” I can hear your objections. I am sure we all have experienced praying for God to heal someone dear to us, and the healing was so slow and labored it did not seem to have God’s hand at all. Or, our loved one passed away.   I don’t know why God chooses to heal some people by taking them home. It is hard for the survivors. But not for the healed.
            If you can even begin to digest this (even if you don’t agree, or need to shake your fists in the air at God), Johnson then takes us further. He asks “Why did Jesus raise the dead? Because not everyone dies in God’s timing. We cannot have the Father choosing to do one thing and Jesus contradicting it with a miracle. Not everything that happens is God’s will. God gets blamed for so much in the name of His sovereignty… Yes, God can use tragedy for His glory. But God’s ability to rule over bad circumstances was never meant to be evidence that those circumstances were His will.”
            Again, I am not saying that you have to agree with him. As I’ve said before, no one on earth can definitively claim to know God’s will.  But I don’t believe that God intended for the children in the Newton tragedy to die any more than he intended for the Holocaust to happen. I don’t know what to do with these ideas. I do know that I am more aware of how I need to rely on the Holy Spirit and Scripture as I wrestle with these questions. I do know that when we seek Him, we will find Him.
Beth Kropf 

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