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ED BANGHART

declaring God's Glory
It's what you are created for.

     My 5 year-old granddaughter, Hannah, asked my wife one day, "Did God make God?" That's a profound question for such a young philosopher! Do you know how hard it is to answer that question to a 5-year old ("Well, Hannah, God created everything, but God Himself is uncreated and eternal, without beginning or end."). Hannah accepted that explanation, and I don't think  she lost any sleep over it. But it reminded me of a truth that is so easy to forget and yet is so important to remember:

    The purpose of all creation is to declare and display
                                  the glory of God.

                 God created all things for His glory.

      All of creation exists to showcase the glory of God. Man, the crowning achievement of God's creation, has been set apart to make known the glory of God and to "proclaim the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light" (1 Peter 2:9).

      The psalmist, while contemplating the vastness of our universe, pens the words, "The heavens declare the glory of God..." (Psalm 19:1). When you look up at the night sky and consider the billions of stars in our galaxy and the billions of galaxies in our universe, the sheer immensity of the space-time universe we inhabit is mind-numbing. 

​      THINK ABOUT IT: we share the celestial cosmos with countless galaxies, stars and planets, supernovas, black holes, meteors, comets, and who knows what else. 

      The heavens don't just declare the glory of God, they shout it out with a deafening sound!


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     How much more should we, His people, declare and display His glory. It is the reason we exist.

Consider the following scriptures:


​"Ascribe to the Lord the GLORY due His name" 
(1 Chronicles 16:29).


"There is only one God, the Father, who created everything, and we EXIST for Him" (1 Corinthians 8:6, NLT).

"Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but  to your name be the GLORY" (Psalm 115:1).

     Everything that God does is for the sake of His great name, and to the praise of His glorious grace so that He might be our All in All--for all things are FROM Him, and THROUGH Him and TO Him (Romans 11:36:1; 1 Cor.15:28).

He is the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last,          the Beginning and the End and Everything in between.

     History is HIS STORY--the unfolding of God's eternal purpose in this present evil age. It's not about our glory, our name, our honor or our greatness. It's not about me; it's not about you; it's all about God! 

     An astronomer once quipped, "When scientists discover the center of our universe, a lot of people are going to be very disappointed that it isn't them!"

      The Bible is essentially a story about God, not a story about us. A key theme of the scriptures is the redemption of fallen mankind, however, the ultimate value of salvation is not to be seen in what we are saved FROM ; it's value is in what we are saved FOR!

Steven C. Hawthorne points out that, "The rationale for mission is the colossal worthiness of God...Since God is supreme, every creature should bow down in subjection" (Perspectives: The Story of His Glory, pg 50).

      In American culture, we have trivialized the God of transcendent glory and pushed Him out to the periphery of our lives. 

Donald W. McCullough proposes that we "Visit a church on Sunday morning and you will likely find a congregation comfortably relating to a manageable deity who fits nicely within precise doctrinal positions or who lends almighty support to social crusades...but reverence and awe have been replaced by a yawn of familiarity" (The Trivialization of God, pg 13).

God has set us apart as His people to make known His glory. His eternal purpose is to bring many sons to glory, who would share His life, His nature, His purpose and His glory.

Declaring and displaying the glory of God--it's what you were created for!

The Truth About Truth

1/23/2019

8 Comments

 
"My Beautiful Theory was Mugged by a Gang of Ugly Facts."

Welcome to my new blog...well, it's sort of new. It keeps popping up unexpectedly under different aliases. But no more wacky and whimsical acronyms, such as Pew-U   (Pastor Ed's Weekly Update) and SPIT (Strategic Planning   & Implementation Training).

In these mostly never-before-published blogs, I will be sharing my thoughts and reflections about faith and life  (and whatever else percolates up from the murky depths of my subconscious).
​
I want to invite you to join me on a zigzag journey in the upside-down world of grace--a journey of lessons learned and opportunities lost, of undeserved blessings and inexplicable suffering, of failures redeemed and hopes restored. But first, an important caveat:

WARNING: The Surgeon General has determined that this blogsite may be hazardous to your cherished ideas about life, faith and God. Theological certainties can burst like fragile soap bubbles at the touch of reality.​
TRUTH IS LIKE THAT. Its clear light penetrates the subterfuges of darkness we try to hide within. Lies and deception are woven into the fabric of our society. And  only those who love the truth can embrace its liberating power and walk as children of light in this world. 

Blaise Pascal the noted French mathematician, physicist and philosopher said: "Truth is so obscured nowadays and lies so well established that, unless we love the truth we shall never recognize it."

I've been a follower of Jesus Christ for over 50 years, and I am still learning how to navigate the mystifying realm we call faith. The more I grow in my understanding of the ways of God, the more I realize that my ways are not God's ways, and God's reasons are often beyond reason.

Usually, those who have all the "right" answers, have rarely gone beyond a surface exploration of the issues. Once they have found the "answer," they stop looking. Don't stop looking! Don't settle for a faith that doesn't require faith.

Scientists have discovered that the farther they penetrate the vast reaches of outer space or the infinitesimal realms of atomic sub-particles, the more mysterious reality becomes and the more questions they have. If the mystery of our physical universe causes a profound sense of wonder and awe, how much more the reality of the spiritual world.

Let me share with you some observations regarding truth.
First of all, truth is not determined by what you or I think of it or believe about it.

TRUTH IS TRUE. It is genuinely, factually and authoritatively true. Truth is inviolable and uncompromising. whether we know the truth or not, whether we understand the truth or not, whether we believe the truth or not--the truth remains the truth.

Winston Churchill, speaking of the unchanging nature of truth, stated: "The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, and ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is."

If we say that something is true, we mean that it conforms to the reality of what is. And when you argue with reality, you lose every time.

The gospel writers tell us that, when Jesus taught, "The crowds were amazed at His teaching: for he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law" (Matthew 7:28-29). Why did Jesus' words carry such authority that it amazed those who heard Him? The Greek word translated "authority" is the word "exousia," which literally translates as "to be out (from)," and conveys the idea that Jesus' authority was "out from himself," i.e., His authority was not a delegated authority derived from others. It was an inherent authority.

The teaching of Jesus was the sharp, clear, clarion call of truth. All his words were true because truth was the essence of his very nature. The psalmist declares of God, "All your words are true" (Psalm 119:160).

The writer of Hebrews expounds on the unchanging nature of God and truth: "Because God wanted the unchanging nature of God and truth: "Because God wanted the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that, by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie..." (Heb. 6:16-18).

The author says that our hope and assurance of becoming heirs of the promises of God are based on two unchangeable things: (1) God's PROMISE, which is absolutely trustworthy because God cannot lie, and (2) God's OATH, by which God reinforces the certainty of his promise, so that "we may be greatly encouraged."

Let me share with you a story that's been around for some time. It's one that I have often used to illustrate the unchanging nature of truth.

     The captain of the ship looked into the dark night and saw faint lights in the distance. Immediately, he told his signalman to send a message: "Alter your course 10 degrees south." Promptly a return message was received: "Alter your course 10 degrees north."

     The captain, angered that his command had been ignored, sent a second message: "Alter your course 10 degrees south--I am the captain!" Soon another message   was received: "Alter your course 10 degrees north--I am a seaman third class."

     Immediately the captain sent a third message: "Alter   your course 10 degrees south--this is a battleship!" Then  the reply came :"Alter your course 10 degrees north--this   is a lighthouse." (Citation: Paul Aiello,Jr.,  Leadership, Vol.4, no.2).
Never argue with a lighthouse. You will lose every time!

But, before you start making dogmatic assertions in papal tones, read on.

Another observation that I want to point out regarding truth is the DUAL-NATURE of truth: truth always has two sides. Truth is like bologna: no matter how thin you slice it, it always has two sides. Or, as Aesop once said: "Every truth has two sides. It is well to look at both before we commit ourselves to either."

In fact--just to make the truth about the truth even more complex and confusing--sometimes two contradictory pictures of reality can both be true! And both false!!

Let me illustrate: for thousands of years, philosophers and scientists alike have debated about the fundamental nature of light. Sometimes light behaves like a wave. But other times, light acts like a stream of particles. So Which is it? Waves? Particles? Or, something else completely?

In 1921, Albert Einstein won the Nobel Peace Prize in physics for his answers to these questions. He called his discovery "The Photoelectric Effect," and he summed it up this way: "We have two contradictory pictures of reality; separately, neither of them fully explains the phenomena of light, but together they do."

Closely-related to the dual nature of truth, but distinctly-different from it, is the TWO-DIMENSIONAL aspect of truth: the eternal/spiritual dimension and the material/temporal dimension. What happens in the spiritual dimension can profoundly affect what happens in the material dimension, and vice-versa. What may be true in one dimension, may  not be true in another dimension. Consider the example of Abraham:

"Against all hope Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations...without weakening in his faith he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead--since he was about a hundred years old--and that Sarah's womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, But was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised" (Romans 4:18-21).

Abraham was able to look at the physical reality ("as good as dead") without wavering in faith because he looked beyond the physical reality to greater reality--the spiritual reality. Faith is not denying reality, it is seeing a greater reality.

The apostle Paul makes this two-dimensional aspect of truth even more clearly in his second letter to the Corinthians:

"Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:17-18).

Oscar Wilde was right when he said: "The truth is rarely pure and never simple."

Although truth is objective, our perception of truth is entirely subjective. The fact of the matter is that we see things not as THEY are, but as WE are. When you think  about it, our viewpoints are shaped by countless variables: personality, background, personal experiences, culture, upbringing, needs gender, etc. We see life through a series of filters. The truth is that we are all hopelessly biased.

It's amazing that any two people could agree on anything   at all (maybe that is why Jesus said that if any two or three of us could agree on anything, He would personally show   up to see that!).

Add to the equation this fact: none of us sees ALL of reality. Even the wisest among us sees only a tiny silver of the whole. So in addition to being hopelessly biased, we are helplessly ignorant as well. Based on our tiny little silver of biased perception, we adamantly declare the most dogmatic statements with an air of absolute authority.

So, is there "real" reality? Is there "true" truth? Is there any hope of seeing things for what they really are? Or, are we left to wander endlessly in a wilderness of subjectivity?

According to the Word of God, wisdom is the ability to see life from God's perspective. David, in Psalm 36:9, gives us the key: "...in [God's] light we see light." It's only in the light of God's divine illumination that we can see the revelation of reality. It is in the light of God's Word, and in the Person of Jesus Christ, that we discover the truth about truth. As one person has astutely pointed out: "Faith is not a leap in the dark, it is a step towards the light."

Finally, let me leave with you this concluding thought about truth:

Truth IS stranger than fiction, and funnier as well.

Someone once said to me, "You're really funny." My immediate reply was, "I'm not funny. Life is funny. I'm just more aware than most people of how funny life really is." Humor is defined as the ability to perceive the ludicrous, the comical, and the absurd in human life. 

I know that animals don't have a sense of humor, and I am convinced that angels cannot appreciate a good joke. Apparently, only the race of Adam shares this aspect of the image of God--the capacity to laugh. And if you can laugh at yourself, you'll always have plenty to laugh about.

If these blogs actually help you in some way--they challenge you, they inspire you or they just expose the absolute silliness of the things we do in the name of God--then, by all means leave a comment. Or, if I've hit a sensitive nerve, let me know that too. According to Dan B. Allender, the mark of leadership is that, given enough time, a leader will manage to disappoint or offend everyone. So, if I haven't offended or disappointed you yet, just give me time.
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8 Comments
Rich Finaldi link
1/25/2019 10:06:19 pm

Pastor Ed miss you so much , hope to see you soon , I concur with all your observations of the truth . Truth is always truth but our perception of it will always change . Reality is truth but there is the duality of reality also.
“The truth is like a diamond with many facets reflections of it’s self showing us different revelations of it” - Rich Finaldi
Miss you see you soon ❤️🙏☺️

Reply
Barbara Ruglio link
1/26/2019 08:00:16 pm

Pastor Ed, thank you. This was excellent! Blog on please, please please!

Reply
Ed Banghart
1/30/2019 11:48:28 am

Thanks. I will, I will, I will.

Reply
Rich Finaldi
1/30/2019 12:11:33 pm

HAHA! :)

Neil Brohm
1/26/2019 08:16:48 pm

Thanks for preparing this blog … these types of writings help us establish a level playing field in the way we think, how we relate to each other and to God and clarify our perceptions of truth.

Looking forward to many more entries.

Reply
Lee Grzywinski
1/30/2019 06:57:18 am

Just awesome!

Reply
Maria Patti
2/23/2019 05:43:21 pm

Hello my dear bro n law!! I’ve read all the articles in your blog, so far! I love all the messages you’ve preached that I’ve watched on YouTube, and Your articles, here. Always thought provoking!! However! I disagree with one point! 😁 I do believe animals have a sense of humor!! In a playful way, responding to our interactions with them. I have no pets, as you know, but I’ve seen many adorable videos of pets playing, and shows affection with their owners. I am in awe actually of their intelligence, and responses to their owners. Videos I’ve watched had me laughing, and also wishing I had a dog or cat to have such a special relationship with. Check out some of the animal videos either on FB or YouTube. ...and that’s the truth...! (From me perspective) 😁😁😉👍🙏

Reply
Ed Banghart
3/4/2019 05:56:55 am

Maria,
Thank you for taking the time to reply to my blog. You point out that you disagree with one of the statements I made. Since I addressed a number of philosophical issues, theological issues and even scientifical issues ("scientifical" really is a word)--I was curious about what statement you took issue with.
Specifically, you disagreed with my assertion that animals do not have a sense of humor. They cannot appreciate the humor of a funny joke or a clever play on words. For instance, I cannot imagine two dogs talking and one says to the other, "Hey, Max, did you hear the one about three dogs who go into a bar--an English bloodhound, an Irish settler and a Welsh Terrier..."
I grant you that some animals may seem to have human-like emotions--playfulness, affection, joyfulness, etc. But can animals appreciate the subtle nuances and the sophisticated cognitive abilities required to appreciate humor. I think not.
Now, I am aware, from your emoticons, that your "disagreement" is light-hearted and tongue-in-cheek. However, before closing the door on the subject, let me point out one biblical exception that actually supports your feeling that animals may be more human-like than we would like to admit. Check out the Book of Numbers, chapter 22, verses 22-35. Go figure.

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    Founding Pastor of Montclair Community Church.  Internationally unknown author and speaker.

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