The Redeemed Rose

  “All the problems of heaven and earth, though they were to confront us together and at once, would be nothing compared with the overwhelming problem of God: That He is; what He is like; and what we as moral beings must do about Him.” —A.W. Tozer Everyone knows there is a God. This is true because he reveals himself to us in nature, in our fellow human beings, and in the fact that we have a conscience. So the question is not “Is there a God?” but “Who is God and what is he like?” But why should we want to know what he is like?  Why should we study the attributes of God? There are several reasons we will briefly explore. God exists.  We cannot simply ignore the metaphorical God-shaped elephant in the room, or at least not forever. The fact that there is a God means we need to know who he is and what he is like in order to make a decision about how we will respond to his existence. And how we respond shapes and affects how and why we do everything else in our lives. As Dr....

Who is God? What is he like? Is he even knowable? And if so, why should we want to know him? These are all important questions to ask and each deserves a fair consideration. In this series of articles we will look at these questions and more, but for now we will only deal with one: Is God truly knowable?  Some have argued that it is not possible to know God, if he exists at all. Many who do acknowledge there is a higher power say it would be impossible to know a being who is so lofty and far off from us. Others espouse that even if we can know some things about this deity, it is not possible to know him personally.  The problem with this agnostic view is that God has willed to make himself known. It may be difficult, improbable, or even impossible to know a God who did not desire to be known. But God does desire to be known and he decrees to make it so. How do we know this? Because he reveals himself to us. Contrary to the deistic view of God, he did not set up the world, send...

Everybody loves a good mystery! The extravagant characters, the plot twists, the suspense! A true page turner that gets our hearts pumping and leaves us wondering how it will all turn out in the end is a literary delight. If we are looking for an excellent mystery, we have to look no further than the pages of Scripture.     In the book of Ephesians, Paul tells us there is a great mystery in a very commonplace sacrament . . . marriage.   Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, tha...

  In 2014, Keith and Kristyn Getty released a song entitled  My Worth is Not in What I Own . It examined the gauntlet of things we might look to to find our value, such as skills, achievements, and wisdom. (If you haven’t heard this song, I highly recommend listening to it.) As a mom of seven, my days and my identity can become easily wrapped up in my little blue-eyed blessings. So I began to wonder, “Where do moms look to find their worth?” As moms, we tend to beat ourselves up and suffer from “mom guilt”. We wear so many hats (chef, nurse, teacher, Uber driver, etc.), we can easily become overwhelmed and disillusioned. There is so much to accomplish every day and we are spread so thin that we wonder if our tiny efforts are really making a difference. Does what we’re doing actually matter? Similarly, with all of the “mom advice” out there and the comparisons we measure ourselves up against on social media, it can be easy to feel like we fall woefully short. So where does our ...

I remember coming in from recess on a hot spring day, sweaty neck and dirty knees, standing in line with a bunch of other matted-haired children for the drinking fountain. Hinging down and titling my neck at my turn, I couldn’t wait for that cool stream of relief to roll down my throat. To my dismay, all that escaped from the fountain was a paltry trickle. I could barely absorb enough to dampen my spongey tongue, so I walked away, unquenched and unsatisfied.  There is another story about a water fountain, found in the Bible. The prophet Moses had just led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. As they journeyed through the wilderness, God’s chosen people naturally became thirsty, but there was no water to be found. They griped and grumbled and grit their teeth at God. Then God spoke to Moses and provided a solution. He commanded Moses to strike a rock with his staff, promising that water would come out. Moses obeyed and the people were no longer parched.  I have read or h...

  What is holding you back? We all have things we want to achieve, goals we want to reach, or areas in which we want to grow. In the Old Testament, the Israelites wanted to take possession of the long awaited land God had promised them as their inheritance. But there was something holding them back.  Their sin.  After wandering the wilderness for forty years due to their sin, the Israelites were finally poised to take possession of the land of Canaan. They had just miraculously taken the city of Jericho, and were gunning to take the next city of Ai. They didn’t think it would be too hard; after all, they had just witnessed a fortified city’s walls fall completely flat! So they only sent a few thousand men to go up against roughly 12,000. Nothing is impossible for the Lord! But they quickly came running with their tails tucked between their legs and thirty-six men dead! What on earth had happened? Their leader, Joshua, fell on his face before the Lord in lament! Why wasn’t...

  Hopeless – “having no expectation of good or success, not susceptible to remedy or cure, and incapable of redemption or improvement (Merriam-Webster).”  We feel it as despair or that dark hole of existence we think we will never be able to climb out of. As of late, it seems to be a common theme for many people. We feel hopeless about politics and pandemics. We feel hopeless that our situation will ever change or that our prayers will be answered.  The apostle Paul found himself in a hopeless situation. As he was sailing to Rome under soldier-guard, their ship struggled along due to poor weather. It wasn’t long before they were caught in a violent storm. The crew, beginning to fear the worst, threw the cargo and the ship’s gear overboard. As the storm raged on, they gave up all hope of survival if they stayed on the boat. Despite Paul’s assurance that there would be no loss of life, only of the ship, the sailors still sought to sneak away on the life boat, But Paul spoke...