Human Responsibility and God’s Sovereignty in Divine Tension
Good Morning Friends,
Reading scripture can make one’s head spin leaning toward one theological perspective then another. Now, certain Scriptures are very beautiful with the idea that the Christian life is simply a matter of leaving it all to God. But there are other scriptures that show the Christian life requires diligent and continued discipline, which if we are not careful to maintain, leads to our ruin. Both make sense in a reasoning way. I suppose I could chalk there coexistence up to the mystery of God and the reality we can no longer keep God in a box no more than Jesus could be kept in the tomb. Still today we explore this thought of new creation a little deeper here in our life at the corner of Human Responsibility and God’s Sovereignty in Divine Tension.
Scripture: ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’
Matthew 11.28-30 (NRSV)
Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
Philippians 2: 12-13 (NRSV)
For to this end we toil and struggle, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Saviour of all people, especially of those who believe.
1 Timothy 4:10 (NRSV)
When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
Leviticus 19:33-34 (NRSV)
Message: Friends, God’s love knows no borders. But there is always tension when we have yet to move beyond our differences. Here the tension can be like suffering and we not know if our dark night of the soul can become good. In this tension I think, it is helpful to remember that God sees himself as a visitor, as a guest in our midst. We are all strangers in a strange land. Here scripture cuts both ways. We stand at the border at first polarized and then we begin to bend to the burden as God plays a glissando on our heart strings. It seems these opposites are of God and only when the love of God takes possession of us and becomes incarnate in us are these divine conflicts held in perfect creative tension…God’s pure and perfect note against our sine wave oscillating between fear and love…constantly in a state of becoming as a changing vessel filled with divine conflict and seeking the transformation of the cross. Friends, here were are to have the mind of Christ while still working out our salvation with fear and trembling. This is the nature of divine tension. The beautiful truth is that the Christian life is to be as a natural new creation taking chaos and ordering it… cultivating it for a great harvest of purposeful peace.
Pray we learn to accept the reality of divine tension. Pray we keep retuning our prayers of praise and petition until the perfect tension of harmony is discovered. Pray our prayers make things happen. Pray we stop identifying with the conflict and embrace a larger reality. Pray we abide in God’s love. Pray in this tension we discover a tranquility about it … a prayer filled command…that spills over in our listen to God, and overflows with evidence of Christ in our living. Pray we realize that in this we cannot hide…we must abide. Pray we find joy in the tension of being exposed in the light….in the tension of breaking free of the shadows to live in the light of revealed truth… Pray we realize we are meant to be dynamic in the struggle. Pray we realize that Jesus wants to care for us…Jesus desires to comfort us, but God wills this happen through a radical concept…the tension of conviction combined with Christian love. Pray we grow in the tension and balance between duty and devotion…faith and reason… enlightened by the words and works of Christ.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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