One taste is never enough . . .

Many women crave chocolate. I’ve read that this is really a craving for the magnesium in chocolate, but most of us chocolate lovers are not going to take a magnesium supplement to find out if that is true. The trouble with chocolate is overload. I want to eat the entire package. My daughter practices good self-control by eating one a day from a small bag of small, rich chocolates. I practice self-control by not having any in the house.

There is one craving that the Bible encourages. It also is never satisfied, at least not for long . . .

“O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands.” (Psalm 63:1–4)

Tozer writes with eloquence, “To have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul’s paradox of love, scorned indeed by the too-easily-satisfied religionist, but justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart.”

God’s delights are so vast that even a rich taste is never enough. That taste only reveals that there is more, and more, and more. We have not yet seen the fullness of His power. We have not yet experienced His full glory. His love is vast but our knowledge of it is smaller first hand than the magnificent biblical descriptions. The best we can see is Jesus Christ on the cross, loving so much that He took our sin that we might have His righteousness, yet my brain hurts trying to grasp that love.

Tozer points to the filling of the Holy Spirit who sheds the love of God abroad in our hearts. Made in God’s image, we can be restored to that image (which was marred by sin) so our love can be a tiny bit like His, not only in receiving it (like a perfect chocolate) but in passing it on to others in sweet sacrifice.

Tozer’s description is practical, the daily stuff of what it means to hunger and thirst for God, finding Him and being satisfied, then craving Him even more. His love pours in — and it pours out as Tozer describes: “Each of the fruits of the Spirit is but a phase of love. Joy is love exulting; peace is love reposing; patience is love enduring; goodness is the good manners of love; kindness is love in action; faithfulness is love confiding; gentleness is love yielding; and self-control is true self-love.”

^^^^^^^^^

Lord Jesus, I understand the craving and the taste of You that satisfies for a brief time leading to more craving. I also realize there will be a day when I can dive right in, draw love from You never-ending and with eternal satisfaction. This thought and Your promises wonderfully fuel that longing for more of You.

Created in whose image??

To me, creativity is one of the most interesting subjects. Since we are made in God’s image, we have a capacity for creativity, yet how does that work out in our lives? What are the possibilities?

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26–27)

With God is Creator, our creative endeavors can be linked to godliness, be a blessing to others, and even glorify God, particularly in our stewardship of our world. However, because of humanity’s fall into sin, our creativity can also be destructive and even mock our Maker. Sin is our limitation when it comes to creativity.

I’m made in the image of God but can barely fathom this in terms of ‘how am I like Him?’ Even more of a mystery is that the Holy Spirit is part of the Godhead — how am I like the Holy Spirit?

Tozer says the Holy Spirit brings new things into being. He is “forever giving out and setting in motion, forever making ‘all things new.’ Wherever He is at work, the effects will be creative rather than conservative, though we should know that He also conserves whatever He creates.”

This phrase about conserving what He creates grabs my attention. Tozer adds, “To create and not conserve would be to waste the creative act. But the whole psychology of the Spirit is toward the creation of new things rather than toward the cautious preservation of what has been created.”

As an artist and a writer, this describes much of how I think about what I’ve created. I don’t want to throw any of it in the trash (except what obviously belongs there 😊) and at the same time I’m always drawn to create new things. The urge to design and build is so strong that I’ve had to discipline myself to do the ‘necessities’ like making meals, eating, getting enough sleep, and building relationships. I could stay in my studio all day, without outside contact, and be quite happy.

If I think of the Holy Spirit in terms of His creativity, those biblical descriptions of what He does become fascinating. He puts energy into His work. Books are written on this, so I list only a few: convicting the world of sin, pointing us to Christ, giving us new life, living in believers, setting us free from the power of sin, giving us assurance and comfort, opening our eyes and teaching us about spiritual things, forming Christ in us, enabling obedience, producing spiritual fruit, and praying on our behalf.

The Spirit of God does these and more in the lives of every person who believes in Jesus Christ (millions) and even some of it in the hearts of those who do not believe (billions). He is busy! Not only that, each act of creativity is unique and suited to the situation involved. One small example: two of us read a Bible verse and He speaks to us according to our need (rhema) in two different ways, yet both applications are just right.

The creativity of the Holy Spirit brings life, hope, love, peace and a host of other blessings. To think that I have been made in His image blows me out of the water! I am humbled and magnified, feel small and yet feel vital and important. To be open to the work and power of the Holy Spirit just in my creative life gives me a sense of awe. He is here, ready to enable, ready to teach, ready to give me all that I need to do all that He wants me to do.

^^^^^^^^^

Jesus, I am blessed to know that one day I will be like You. Today, I am also blessed to realize I’m also created like the Holy Spirit and one day, when sin is finally eradicated, I will be like Him also, for that is how You created me. This understanding is giving me goose bumps, and an increased desire to yield myself to all that You want for me and from me. Wow, what a God You are!

Starting over with new motivation

Genesis 1–2, Hebrews 11:3

The first verse of the Bible declares that, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Although I do believe that God created from nothing, the Hebrew word bara˒ does not mean to “make something out of nothing.” It means to begin or originate a sequence of events.

In beginning this sequence, God created some interesting “scientific” rules that have shaped events right up to this day. For instance, the Second Law of Thermodynamics states: any system that is left alone will decay. Yet our earth contains life-forms that are highly organized and complex, even before we humans started meddling with them.

To me, this is a puzzle. How can order exist alongside that Second Law of Thermodynamics without some organizing force to keep the world from falling into chaos? The Bible does little to satisfy my scientific curiosity, perhaps because it is “by faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible” (Hebrews 11:3).

Genesis also says that God created humans in His image. This unique creative act gave us not only physical life but also personhood — our capacity to think, to feel, to evaluate, to love, to choose, to be self-aware individuals. That is an incredible honor, never mind that He adds a command that we are to rule the earth!

This gives me worth and value as an individual. As an image-bearer, I am too significant to let others degrade me, or allow temptations harm me.

Yet this is not all about me. To be given dominion is not about a “right to use” this world to satisfy my own needs. It is an “obligation to guard and protect” it. This applies to me and to every person. Not a few protesters correctly rally against current abuses such as strip mining and pollution.

Genesis is clear that every person shares the image-likeness of God. This is reason to treat others with respect, even those whose views are not mine. I must remember that for all of us, that image is distorted by sin, hence our polarities exist, never mind all our fears and prejudices.

Genesis also reminds me that God’s love calls for a response. I hear it every day, and suppose that others also hear Him. To answer His call means dropping our tendency to put people in categories, and fitting our view of ourselves and of others into God’s estimation rather than focus on ‘me and mine.’

Before reading and thinking about this, I was considering new beginnings for a new year. I want to “starting over” and abandon old and sinful habits for new habits that please God. However, God knows, just as most people realize, that New Year resolutions seldom last for more than a few weeks. I need a consistent motivation to eat better, exercise more, chatter less, and keep up with whatever other ‘self-improvement’ schemes I can add to my to-do list.

God offers that consistent motivation in Genesis. Instead of working hard to be an acceptable person, by the fact of creation I know that He already loves and accepts me. The rest of Scripture affirms that whether I am over-weight, flabby, or too talkative, I am still loved. And His unconditional love has a powerful effect: it turns my focus off “being a better person so I will be loved” and puts it on “loving other people because I am more loved that I can even imagine.”

Some think that the creation/evolution debate about origins hasn’t much to do with today’s life. We are told to value ourselves for what we look like, achieve, how we fit into this world, the causes we stand for, and so on. That works for a little while, but eventually I fall short of perfection in all areas and easily hate myself for being so inadequate.

However, when my worth is in my origin as a created and unconditionally loved child of God, then I have to feel sorry for those who insist humans merely ‘happened’ and are now only evolved hominids with less hair and shorter arms!