Leviticus 16:29-18:30
Mark 7:24-8:10
Psalm 41:1-13
Proverbs 10:15,16
Today's reading Leviticus outlines some of God's guidelines for marriage and sexual relations. One may wonder why does God have all these rules and laws regarding this subject? Why does God care? Is God trying to make us live boring lives?
The reason for all these commands is God wants all areas of our lives to be holy like He is holy. He wants our relationships and marriages to be a reflection of His perfect love. The only way for this to be successful is for God to be the center of all relationships.
I was reminded of a book on marriage call Strangers, Lovers, Friends written by Urban Steinmetz (Travis's grandfather). I wanted to share a chapter from his book because I think he simply and clearly explains why we can never hope to make relationships work without the help of a perfect loving God.
Get Yourself a Loving God (from Strangers, Lovers, Friends)
Even among Christians, the gods that we worship come in all shapes and sizes. Often we mistakenly call these gods God and try to use a phony imitation to build a life on.
Much of our Christian world is engaged in the business of telling us about either god or God. Fathers and mothers are usually the first, and they probably teach us what lives with us the longest. Politicians tell us about god as election day approaches. More than 200 different varieties of preachers preach god, and sometimes God. Church schools beat us, bribe us, coax us, threaten us, and love us with an almighty.
The trouble with all these gods is that their press agents are people. Usually these people are sincere and honest. But many of them have not been loved enough. Instead, many of them have been hurt too often by too many people. So they cannot see Love clearly.
People who have been punished often in their lives tend to teach us about a punishing god. People who are afraid to come close to a loving and friendly God tell us about a dim and distant one who can only be approached on our knees. People who are insecure give us an insecure god, forever in need of praises, glories and hosannas. Church builders give us a church-building god, while those who worry about budgets present us with a god who first responds to dollars given. From people in high places we get gods who approve of high places and tell us that we must reverence the high office and not the person who fills it. Bookkeeping types give us bookkeeping gods who chart and graph our good and bad, while church organizations frequently offer us a god who is really an obedient second lieutenant, cheerfully endorsing and cosigning any orders that the great commanders of those organizations decree.
Our world, too, offers us a whole variety of gods, although our society doesn't call them that. But when we are asked to devote our entire lives to gathering money or power, to our profession, to education, even to the church, or to marriage, then we are being coerced to follow false gods. Our God is a jealous God, and he wants our lives committed first to him.
The incessant din of all these gods beats at our head for 20 years or more, and then we marry. Very shortly we discover that no one could possibly live with and continue to love the strange and complicated human being we all seem to marry without the help of that real God who sees things much more clearly than we do.
Unfortunately, that is also when we discover that we have no dependable and loving and real God at all. Instead, four of us enter nearly every Christian marriage: one man and one woman, but both bringing along their own separate and distinct and highly unlikely gods.
Sometimes a couple divorces these useless gods quite early in the marriage. More often, leftovers of these gods hang on, and are themselves the cause of endless, useless bickering. But sometimes - slowly, thoughtfully, prayerfully - God is substituted for these ungodly gods. Then the couple is on its way toward a genuine, mature and beautiful love. Now there are three people in the union totally committed to the same business - the business of creating love. And one of these people is mature enough, and wise enough, and caring enough to see through the hurt feelings and the unfeeling relatives and the disgusting habits to the real, loving people underneath.
Because God has been a close, personal and dependable friend for the past 20 years of my life, I have spent a great deal of time trying to tell others about him. Usually I have failed, even with my own children. Now I am facing the reason for that failure.
God doesn't really need another press agent who loudly shouts, "Follow God the Urb Steinmetz way." Too many people are already shouting, "Here is God," and "There is God," and confusing all of us. I am sure, now, that my friend doesn't want me to add to the confusion.
The truth of the matter is that each one of us has to find God individually. That is not as hard as it sounds. All that we need to do is sincerely face ourselves and admit that none of us is capable of loving alone. Then we can turn to God in honest confusion and say to him: "God, I am confused. I have heard so many different things about you that I don't know who you are or what you want from me. But I do know that I need you."
It may not even be important to know who God is. I do not think it is important to me. What is important is that I know that he is my friend, and that I can go to him any day at any hour of the day and he will listen to me, help me.
I am a person who is often afraid and often confused, and I think you are, too. I can't even imagine going through life without a friend who is never confused and never afraid, and who always loves me. I think it is silly to try to meet and love my wife, or my children, or a neighbor, or any other human being without that friend at my side to advise me.
So how do you find God? I guess I believe now that you don't find God. Instead, you approach him many times a day as a little child approaches his father and mother. You approach him in any way that you are comfortable with and tell him that you need him and that you want to do what he wants you to do and that you want to be his friend.
Even among Christians, the gods that we worship come in all shapes and sizes. Often we mistakenly call these gods God and try to use a phony imitation to build a life on.
Much of our Christian world is engaged in the business of telling us about either god or God. Fathers and mothers are usually the first, and they probably teach us what lives with us the longest. Politicians tell us about god as election day approaches. More than 200 different varieties of preachers preach god, and sometimes God. Church schools beat us, bribe us, coax us, threaten us, and love us with an almighty.
The trouble with all these gods is that their press agents are people. Usually these people are sincere and honest. But many of them have not been loved enough. Instead, many of them have been hurt too often by too many people. So they cannot see Love clearly.
People who have been punished often in their lives tend to teach us about a punishing god. People who are afraid to come close to a loving and friendly God tell us about a dim and distant one who can only be approached on our knees. People who are insecure give us an insecure god, forever in need of praises, glories and hosannas. Church builders give us a church-building god, while those who worry about budgets present us with a god who first responds to dollars given. From people in high places we get gods who approve of high places and tell us that we must reverence the high office and not the person who fills it. Bookkeeping types give us bookkeeping gods who chart and graph our good and bad, while church organizations frequently offer us a god who is really an obedient second lieutenant, cheerfully endorsing and cosigning any orders that the great commanders of those organizations decree.
Our world, too, offers us a whole variety of gods, although our society doesn't call them that. But when we are asked to devote our entire lives to gathering money or power, to our profession, to education, even to the church, or to marriage, then we are being coerced to follow false gods. Our God is a jealous God, and he wants our lives committed first to him.
The incessant din of all these gods beats at our head for 20 years or more, and then we marry. Very shortly we discover that no one could possibly live with and continue to love the strange and complicated human being we all seem to marry without the help of that real God who sees things much more clearly than we do.
Unfortunately, that is also when we discover that we have no dependable and loving and real God at all. Instead, four of us enter nearly every Christian marriage: one man and one woman, but both bringing along their own separate and distinct and highly unlikely gods.
Sometimes a couple divorces these useless gods quite early in the marriage. More often, leftovers of these gods hang on, and are themselves the cause of endless, useless bickering. But sometimes - slowly, thoughtfully, prayerfully - God is substituted for these ungodly gods. Then the couple is on its way toward a genuine, mature and beautiful love. Now there are three people in the union totally committed to the same business - the business of creating love. And one of these people is mature enough, and wise enough, and caring enough to see through the hurt feelings and the unfeeling relatives and the disgusting habits to the real, loving people underneath.
Because God has been a close, personal and dependable friend for the past 20 years of my life, I have spent a great deal of time trying to tell others about him. Usually I have failed, even with my own children. Now I am facing the reason for that failure.
God doesn't really need another press agent who loudly shouts, "Follow God the Urb Steinmetz way." Too many people are already shouting, "Here is God," and "There is God," and confusing all of us. I am sure, now, that my friend doesn't want me to add to the confusion.
The truth of the matter is that each one of us has to find God individually. That is not as hard as it sounds. All that we need to do is sincerely face ourselves and admit that none of us is capable of loving alone. Then we can turn to God in honest confusion and say to him: "God, I am confused. I have heard so many different things about you that I don't know who you are or what you want from me. But I do know that I need you."
It may not even be important to know who God is. I do not think it is important to me. What is important is that I know that he is my friend, and that I can go to him any day at any hour of the day and he will listen to me, help me.
I am a person who is often afraid and often confused, and I think you are, too. I can't even imagine going through life without a friend who is never confused and never afraid, and who always loves me. I think it is silly to try to meet and love my wife, or my children, or a neighbor, or any other human being without that friend at my side to advise me.
So how do you find God? I guess I believe now that you don't find God. Instead, you approach him many times a day as a little child approaches his father and mother. You approach him in any way that you are comfortable with and tell him that you need him and that you want to do what he wants you to do and that you want to be his friend.
And then God finds you.
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