Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

• Matthew 7:11

He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,
    and its people are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,
    and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
He brings princes to naught
    and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.
No sooner are they planted,
    no sooner are they sown,
    no sooner do they take root in the ground,
than he blows on them and they wither,
    and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff.

• Isaiah 40:22-24

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

• 1 John 4:18

“Alas, Sovereign Lord,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am too young.”
But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the Lord.
Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.”

• Jeremiah 1:6-10

“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.

• Luke 18:19

All of us have become like one who is unclean,
    and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
    and like the wind our sins sweep us away.

• Isaiah 64:6

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people,

• Ephesians 1:18

“I don’t think I’m the only person who has misunderstood God’s love.  Most of us, to some degree, have a difficult time understanding, believing, or accepting God’s absolute and unlimited love for us.  The reasons we don’t receive, trust, or see His love vary from one person to the next, but we all miss out because of it. …
“If someone asked you what the greatest good on this earth is, what would you say? An epic surf session? Financial security? Health? Meaningful, trusting friendships? Intimacy with your spouse? Knowing that you belong?
“The greatest good on this earth is God Period. God’s one goal for us is Himself. …
“The best things in life are gifts from the One who steadfastly loves us. But an important question to ask ourselves is this: Are we in love with God or just His stuff?
“Imagine how awful it would feel to have your child say to you, ‘I don‘t really love you or want your love, but I would like my allowance, please.’ Conversely, what a beautiful gift it is to have the one you love look you in the eye and say, ‘I love you. Not your beauty, your money, your family, or your car. Just you.’
“Can you say that to God?
“Our love for Him always comes out of His love for us. Do you love this God who is everything, or do you just love everything He gives you? Do you really know and believe chat God loves you, individually and personally and intimately? Do you see and know Him as Abba, Father?”

• Francis Chan, crazy love

Francis Chan spends most of this chapter with why we do not love God back as much as He loves us.  When you look at the macroscopic view of God’s love, having Jupiter, Saturn, and the other large planets that absorb the space debris so that the earth stays safe…  When you look at the microscopic view of God’s love, counting the hairs on our heads, but He is even involved with cell regeneration.  God created, and also monitors, those bodily functions like our heart ticking and our lungs breathing – those things we rarely think about.

But I keep going back to my uncle’s book, Ruffin I. Rackley, God’s Physical Record of Creation.  He talks about the Higgs Boson as being called the “God Particle.”  Until they finally discovered it in the Cern Supercollider along the Franco-Swiss border, the atheist scientists mocked their Christian counterparts by saying that the Higgs Boson was as hard to find as God, and no one knows what it does.  Thus, the slur of calling it the “God Particle.”  But then in discovering the Higgs Boson, they realized what it did.  At the atomic level, it holds each nucleus of each atom together.  Without the “God Particle”, every proton in every nucleus would be repelled by the others.  We would simply disintegrate into nothingness.  Thus, God holds us together at the atomic level.

With that much love for us shown by God every nanosecond of every day, how could we ever love in kind?

But then, Rev. Chan talked about how his mother had died giving birth to him.  His relationship with his father was rocky at best.  I have written about how the doctors, when my mother was eight months pregnant with me, was told that she had to rest.  She was at risk of losing the baby if she did anything strenuous.  But I was my Dad’s idea.  She did not want me.  She went home and viciously ripped every weed out of the garden, maniacally chopping them with a hoe.  I know how she did it.  That event imprinted that technique on her for the rest of her life.  She had an obsession about weeds, and they had to die a horrible death at her hands.  But I was not miscarried, not aborted.  She slipped a disc in her back, and every time she winced in pain for the rest of her life, she remembered how I caused that disc to slip.  In Rev. Chan’s case, his existence reminded his father that his mother had died.

With a parent that has that type of remembrance and blames the child, it is hard to see a loving Father in Heaven who has a perfect love for us.  But Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount that even an evil parent, and none of us can claim to be good, will give good gifts.  Thus, our perfect parent in Heaven, will give us even better gifts.

The passage from Isaiah above is to illustrate that for us to love God, we are loving someone who we should have a normal reaction to fear.  Adam and Eve, once they had the knowledge of good and evil, hid from God because they were ashamed.  They feared God’s reaction to their nakedness.  But in 1 John 4:18, John says that God’s love drives out fear.

But does God want us?  Have you ever felt unwanted?  Surely, the God of the universe has other things to do than to take care of little ol’ me.  But in Jeremiah 1, He tells Jeremiah that he was known before he was ever in the womb.  And He wanted Jeremiah to do His Will.  He wants the same for us.

But can we do it on our own?  No, none of us are good, except God is good.  The best we can do is like filthy rags.  I had heard the meaning of the words before, but Rev. Chan makes the point that that verse, if written today, could be translated as our best effort to do something good is like soiled, used tampons.  That is what is meant by “unclean” in the verse, a woman’s menstrual cycle.  Disgusting?  Yes, but without God within us, we do good things for our own glory instead of glorifying God.  The old philosophy question: “Is there ever a totally selfless act?”  Without God in our heart, the answer is a resounding “no.”  But Jesus dying on the cross?  That is another matter.  Jesus is God, and when He died on the cross, He did so for us, giving up Himself in the process.  He rose again to illustrate that we shall all be with Him in Heaven if we trust and believe in Him.

And then, what is left?  Wow!  We jump from Mercy to Grace to Glory.  We inherit eternal life with Jesus.  We become part of the family.

Can we take that much love for granted?  Obviously, we do.  We show it each time we screw up.

And can we do as Rev. Chan says?  Can we set the inheritance aside for just a moment and look at all the love God showed us up to that point.  And love God just because He is God?

Lord, fill me with Your love.  Thank You for loving me.  Forgive me for ever taking a bit of Your love for granted.  You hold me together.  You give me what I need to keep going so that I can, in my puny way, show how much I love You.  And yet, You show me Your love for me infinitely more.  I am crushed by the lopsided display of love.  And yet, in my lowly state, You lift me up.  Praise be Your name.  In Your name I pray.  Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.