Have we forgotten how to connect the dots?

 

It is troubling to live in a world that seems to have lost its understanding of cause and effect. Some of it comes from simple reasons such as doting parents shielding their misbehaving children from consequences. Some of it comes from the notion that “I can do whatever I want” without any ramifications. Yet they do have merit — they help us know what comes next.

God is the author of consequences. In the beginning He spoke and all things came into existence. His words have power and in a lesser way, so do ours. For instance, we say things, sometimes without thinking, that influence those around us.

Much can be said about God as CREATOR. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. He created humanity in His own image; male and female and put them in a perfect environment with only one command which was disobeyed. This caused the problem of sin, defined as “going our own way” rather than obeying our Creator.

Yet God was not thwarted from His plan to have humanity display the image of our Creator. Even though we create idols, He reminds us of the consequences of making up our own gods:

“What profit is an idol when its maker has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation when he makes speechless idols! (Habakkuk 2:18)

Earlier, humanity became entirely contrary to the ways of God and faced dire consequences:

So the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” (Genesis 6:7)

Hence the flood, yet throughout the time after that, He persisted and provided. If sinning humans confessed and turned to Him, He would bless them. King David knew this and asked: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10) Later on, Christ died for all sin creating a new cause/effect; all people who trust Him would receive eternal life. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Believe and be saved. This action produces consequences. So does disbelief:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. (Romans 1:18–25)

The Creator is a God of cause/effect who makes things happen:

I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, who does all these things. (Isaiah 45:5–7)

He is still in the business of creating new hearts and new life: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10) For this reason, and “assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:21–24)

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. Usually God’s creation produces in me a sense of wonder at His glory. Even more amazing is that He created me to reflect His image and recreated new life in me, the life of Christ. He wants a restored sense of cause/effect so I am not foolishly thinking I can go against His will without later wishing I had not! Any attitude that mocks how He created the way life works has consequences. I’m to pay attention to what I am doing, realizing that fitting in with His plan produces far better results.