Theme of the Week: The God Who Is
Bible Verse: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Deuteronomy 6:4
Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 6:1-25
Everything God makes is good—very good. As the account progresses, you discover that there is no hint in Genesis 1–2 of death or decay, of butchery, malice, hate, one-upmanship, arrogance, pride, or destruction. There is no hint of any of this. Everything is very good.
God made everything good. And that means that human beings are accountable to God. The grounding of our accountability to God is the doctrine of creation. It becomes the source of believer’s praise (Psalm 33; Revelation 4). Repeatedly it is built into the storyline.
Praise God because we are made by him and for him — and are accountable to him. It is only right and good and sensible. And within this framework, then, when people say today, “Listen, I don’t mind if you have your religion, your Jesus, and your Bible. But I am a spiritual person, too. I have my own religion. I have my own approach to the divine and spiritual. Don’t keep cramming your Jesus down my throat,” then sooner or later, although it might be the part of wisdom and discretion and care and love to back off a little and have a go another day, yet sooner or later the loving Christian is going to have to say — very gently over coffee and within the framework of trusted relationships — the Christian is going to have to say: The one thing I can’t do is back off, because God made you and therefore you owe him and you will give an account to him.
So the grounding of our accountability to God, our responsibility to him and the fact that, because he is God, he is the final judge of our reactions to him, are all laid, in principle, in the opening chapters of the book of Genesis.
Taken from The God Who is There by D.A. Carson. Baker Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group. Copyright © 2010 by D.A. Carson. Used by permission.
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