God Can

God can rescue, God can save.

He can do exactly what he likes with his creation.

It is up to Him.

He made us, we are his creatures, in his image, but fallen.

He has chosen to save us. He decided on a rescue plan. He didn’t have to. He could have destroyed us all in Eden, before the generations happened.

We are not beyond his ability to destroy us all now.

Yet he loves us with a deep and faithful love.

He is slow to anger, and abounding in this steadfast, faithful love.

His nature and desire and plan is to rescue us, but he does this his way, on his terms.

We are simply witnesses to his action of redeeming the lost. We are of those he has rescued and continue to struggle with the living out the truth of his deep love for us.

There is a parallel world, for want of a better term, a world that lives in the now with only occasional reference to our true identity. In the west, there is the regular Christmas and Easter salute to an ever less relevant Saviour named Jesus.

That he is to reappear in power and glory, all nations, all peoples, all creatures bowing by necessity to his utter moral glory and confessing his greatness, is hardly a consideration in this parallel world. Instead, we have societies, somehow existing and functioning in the here and now, with self-determined goals, plans, projects and morality.

Economy, environment, equity and success are the call of the west, with ever a judging eye on ourselves and our neighbours, looking down on anyone and anything that does not hold to its common and morally acceptable goals.

Within this parallel world, each citizen has a role and expectation which does not necessarily include allegiance to God, does not necessarily allow time or give worth to religious practice.

So a struggle is there by necessity, for people of faith.

That God allows this bubble of humanity to persist and function as though he does not exist, is notable. It is commonly interpreted as his weakness, lack of relevance or simple non-existence.

Possibly like the wisp of steam from a long dead volcano, that no-one ever expects to erupt.

So confident is society regarding this irrelevance, that appeals are made, by those of us aching for change, apoeals to try and convince people to return to faith, appeals aided by the skill of orators and musicians, yet often with minimal result. Appeals with added bonuses such as the promises of wealth or acceptance, given by people manicured to radiate positiveness, to sweeten the message.

Conferences are held to train people in the calling of others into faith, and there are quiet moanings regarding the slow demise of the church in western society.

But God can save and he can rescue, he has  every resource at his bidding and he will choose to save or not to save, to open eyes or close them, as he sees fit. It is a sign of His judgement on such a self-confident, self- determining society, that he remains remote and absent from the life of that society.

Yet we as a society are restless and full of insecurity, which we believe we are responsible and able to correct. Global warming, currently is  our mutual albatross, our weight of guilt that we must atone for, and as the zealous blow the trumpets of reform, woe to those who are neutral or unmoved. The future demise of our globe is on their shoulders.

Existential guilt must have its object, currently it is climate change.

And guilt itself is an abandoned topic, people do not acknowledge this state or emotion, though most anger and depression are side effects of consciences in turmoil.

But when God chooses, his love will allow a flooding of the Holy Spirit to engulf our world, and nations will transform, expressing their new found gift of repentance and faith in multitudes gathering to honour God’s word and each other, to confess our sins and tear our robes in recognition of our deliberate and terrible back-turning on the unquestionable truth of the coming of our Saviour and Lord; Jesus, the Messiah.

There is only one name under heaven by which all men, all people, can be saved, none other but the name of Jesus.