Act of God
Read Matthew 5:21-48.
This morning, in our pastor's prayer gathering, we were discussing damage from last week's storms. Vigo County had some pretty violent storms on Wednesday and again on Thursday. One person had broken his thumb when the wind whipped a cart toward him at Walmart. Others had been without power, some for several hours and others for several days. One had a tree from a neighbor's yard fall on their property and do damage. And still another had a tree fall on his car—while he was driving! In each of those instances, the insurance companies had determined that they were "acts of God." Did you know that (at least in Indiana) if a neighbor's tree falls on your property during an act of God, it's your insurance that has to pay, not theirs? But if it's sunshine and blue skies when the tree falls, it's their responsibility! One of the pastors said, "Well, of course, we only call it an act of God if it's a bad thing!"
Insurance companies are going to do what they are going to do. Most of the time, it seems, they don't even consider God in their work of adjusting, assessing and paying. But it's interesting that they even still have a category called "acts of God." My pastor friend is right—in today's world, God gets mostly blamed for bad things, not praised for good things.
Jesus indicates, though, that God really has one main act he is carrying out, and it's not pushing down trees on your house or on moving cars during a storm. Jesus sums it up in Matthew 5:48: "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." Once we commit to following Jesus and living as his disciple, God's main act is to make up more and more like Jesus, to make us perfect. That's not "perfection in action," something our humanity will not allow us to be or do. That's perfection in love, learning to love others the way Jesus loves them. As Jesus redefines the Law in the preceding verses, he's reshaping the laws and the people's conception of the law in terms of love. How we treat one another affects absolutely everything. That's God's main act—making us more like Jesus.
Can you imagine what the world would be like if people lived that way? Can you imagine what the world would be like if even Christians lived that way, if we allowed God to do his work in us fully, completely? This is the act of God: "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent" (John 6:29), and to be made perfectly like him.
This morning, in our pastor's prayer gathering, we were discussing damage from last week's storms. Vigo County had some pretty violent storms on Wednesday and again on Thursday. One person had broken his thumb when the wind whipped a cart toward him at Walmart. Others had been without power, some for several hours and others for several days. One had a tree from a neighbor's yard fall on their property and do damage. And still another had a tree fall on his car—while he was driving! In each of those instances, the insurance companies had determined that they were "acts of God." Did you know that (at least in Indiana) if a neighbor's tree falls on your property during an act of God, it's your insurance that has to pay, not theirs? But if it's sunshine and blue skies when the tree falls, it's their responsibility! One of the pastors said, "Well, of course, we only call it an act of God if it's a bad thing!"
Insurance companies are going to do what they are going to do. Most of the time, it seems, they don't even consider God in their work of adjusting, assessing and paying. But it's interesting that they even still have a category called "acts of God." My pastor friend is right—in today's world, God gets mostly blamed for bad things, not praised for good things.
Jesus indicates, though, that God really has one main act he is carrying out, and it's not pushing down trees on your house or on moving cars during a storm. Jesus sums it up in Matthew 5:48: "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." Once we commit to following Jesus and living as his disciple, God's main act is to make up more and more like Jesus, to make us perfect. That's not "perfection in action," something our humanity will not allow us to be or do. That's perfection in love, learning to love others the way Jesus loves them. As Jesus redefines the Law in the preceding verses, he's reshaping the laws and the people's conception of the law in terms of love. How we treat one another affects absolutely everything. That's God's main act—making us more like Jesus.
Can you imagine what the world would be like if people lived that way? Can you imagine what the world would be like if even Christians lived that way, if we allowed God to do his work in us fully, completely? This is the act of God: "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent" (John 6:29), and to be made perfectly like him.
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