The Perfecting Church

When we respond to the love of the Father with rebellion or religion, there’s a word for that — individualism. Individualism (rebellion/religion) is a result of the fall; it says we don’t need you Lord God we can do it on our own. We can do life on our own terms fulfilling our own desires. But resurrection life/to be born again through faith in Christ says the opposite. Resurrection life says, we need you Lord God and we have found there’s truly no life outside of the feast and celebration of your love.

We can be in relationship with the lover of our souls, the redeemer of our lives and not know what really means to be His child -- living functionally as orphans. Our response to the Father's love often falls into one of two categories.  We can rebel against His love, wanting what we can get from Him rather than actually wanting Him or we respond religiously to His love just performing in hopes He'll be indebted to give us what we want.  Sometimes, in response to the extravagant love of the covenant making Father, we just put on church clothes. 

This passage is titled the prodigal son. Prodigal is defined as having or giving something on a lavish scale or a person who spends in an extravagant way.  Author and theologian Tim Keller wrote a book renaming this parable The Prodigal God because there’s no one more extravagant and lavish in this parable than God the Father. This parable is ultimately about Him, His extravagant love and the ways His children respond.  Never having encountered a love like God’s, we all respond one of three ways — we rebel, we become religious or we are resurrected.  But none of us goes untouched by the love of the Prodigal God.

We can’t truly grasp what it means to be adopted and restored to the family of God without realizing all that was lost in the garden. Desiring to be gods to themselves — autonomous, independent, with freedom of choice — Adam and Eve rejected the Fatherhood of God. They concluded dependence on themselves was more desirable than dependence on God and Fatherhood was lost. This is the legacy inherited by us all.

Some of the top movies of the last decade are based on superheroes with superpowers — Iron Man, Captain America, Black Panther, Spiderman, Avengers are among the highest grossing movies of all time. We have an obsession with superheroes, superpowers and capes.  Hollywood, and the comics these movies are based upon, show us every superhero has unique powers and a unique part to play in the flourishing of humanity and keeping evil at bay.  We too have a unique role in the flourishing of humanity and keeping evil at bay — we all have a cape.

We will never know a voice, like the voice of God. He alone is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. No one knows us, keeps us and has thoughts towards us like Him. We must prioritize His voice, His words, His thoughts over every other. There is no voice like the voice of God. 

God speaks in sign language.  He uses signs to warn, caution, direct and to confirm.  Signs speak even when we aren’t listening, so we can’t say we weren’t told.  But when we decide we want to hear from God, signs speak so loudly it’s as if we’ve entered another world. A world where God speaks through sign language.

One of the most frequently used languages in all of scripture is the language of God given dreams, visions, thoughts and ideas.  Not only is God still using this means of communication, He promised in the last days He would use them even more.  We must reverence the language of dreams and visions that God might move us beyond the boundaries we’ve set for ourselves and others, into His perfect will.  

One of the key features that marks out a Christian as a child of God is the ability to hear the voice of God. Although the capacity to hear God is given to us, spiritual deafness can and does still happen for numerous reasons. The key reason for not hearing God is due to not cultivating a walk and relationship with God. We must renew our walk daily so that we can learn to hear God clearly.

Exodus 15:1-22

There are times in our lives when God doesn’t make sense. Some would argue, that’s exactly why they don’t follow God. No matter the camp we are in, those who openly reject or those who subtly resist — more often than not our reasons are the same. We want God to make it make sense before we give Him a whole hearted yes.