Once again, my amazing sister has brought questions up that have me thinking the deep things of God. Who needs frivolous things when you can have the soul searching of God to think on. Who needs to sip at the milk of the Word when you have lived so long, studied so long, and only desire more desperately the meat of the Word of God? Seriously.
Is God accountable to anyone? He's God. He's the One who made all the rules, He's the master of the game, He's the creator of all. An author has total control over the worlds they create in their works. An author may pander to his audience and include things in his stories that he may not have if he weren't influenced by others, but ultimately, the work is his, the decision to publish his literary creation is his. Even if publishers tell him to do this, that, or the other thing in order for them to publish his work, he has a right to decline publishing to keep the integrity of his creation. He makes a choices.
What's all this have to do with God being accountable or not being accountable to anyone?
God is the author of existence. He determined His own accountability, irrevocably.
So many wrestle with the idea that God created evil if He created everything. So, how does one reconcile a God who allowed evil to exist at all whatsoever with a God who is love? MANY have this same question- a lot of people, most people who get beyond the simple thoughts of things have had these same questions. Great minds (meaning those recognized as wise, learned men and woman of God) have had this question and ULTIMATELY- there are things we just are NOT going to be given answers to and this is where our FAITH is brought to the ultimate test.
Having said that, I had a few more thoughts-
God is accountable to Himself. Now, before you go and say that's not being accountable. When you are only accountable to yourself you make up the rules and can change them to suit your situations.
Think about it though. Aren't we all ultimately accountable to ourselves? Accountable for our own actions whatever they may be? We have to live up to our own standards set in our own minds. Good, bad, beautiful, ugly, all that we do is something we have to live with. Every single action you make you have to live with. When we do something against our standards we can sometimes we choose to rearrange our standards, let them slip and slide, and accept the slipping and sliding. We lower our standards realizing maybe we made them a little too high in the first place. We make adjustments to them throughout our lives. But deep down, all the while we've rearranged our standards to suit our new way of living, we suspect we've gone against ourselves in some small way. Time will often dampen that suspicion, but sometimes even years after we've altered our standards those suspicions rear up and slap us in the face reminding us we once had different ideas of how we believed life, and us in that life, should be.
Those who choose not to have moral standards for themselves from the get go do not find it hard to do just about anything -because they've chosen no standards of accountability. They made a choice towards that end. They could have had standards, but decided they'd rather not.
Then there are societal standards which alter constantly with time, from generation to generation, age to age the standards waffle all over the place.
There are cultural/geographical standards, again all affected by what cultural, what part of the world you live in, and they too-- shift often. They adapt, either growing more stringent or more lax- our history since being recorded proves this to be true.
God has set standards that are immutable, unchangeable, unalterable, set in stone, etc, etc, He cannot… yes, I said, cannot change His standards BECAUSE He made the choice to have these standards and the choice to NEVER be able to change them. NEVER. NOT EVER. God decided LOVE and all the standards of LOVE were NEVER to be changed, not for ANYONE, not for ANY CREATED BEING! God's standards are permanent, from everlasting to everlasting.
God is accountable to Himself. God set Himself morals and deemed them beyond breaking. In setting those standards He took in all that could be love and discarded what was unacceptable to Him, what wasn't love- as being a part of His being accountable to Himself. These standards of GOD'S accountability hold true for all He would ever create. HOWEVER- the LOVE He chose to be, demanded that love is to be freely chosen. A free choice of all created. God did NOT create beings as miniature copies of Himself -albeit in different shapes/sizes/etc. God did NOT create and arbitrarily forced the created ones to His chosen LOVE standard. A choice would need to be made by EVERY individual creation with the ability to choose, to decide if they wanted to live in the LOVE standards of God, recognizing the love beyond imagining that created them to begin with.
When God created man in His image, it means so much more than appearance, form, etc. God made mankind with the ability to make choices-- God made - choices. You can't have the reality of good and evil and not have a choice made for one or the other.
The reality of the POSSIBILITY of goodness and evil were brought into existence.
The possibility of life devoid of love, and therefore - evil.
Evil was NOT in existence, the POSSIBLITY existed that it could come to exist this is what was there. Who knows how many creations God formed throughout all existence everywhere before evil first appeared in the choice of a single being… a created angel who made a choice with that possibility.
Once evil was chosen and nurtured, embraced, accepted, cherished- it had to be dealt with by God who chose LOVE as His standard, LOVE as His accountability, LOVE as the true reality. And HOW it was to be dealt with was something SO infinitely important because God did not want it to EVER exist again. Just as He made a choice, all His created creations everywhere for all time will have made their choices as well in such a way- when EVIL is eradicated from all existence it will be so that it can never exist again- and all existence will only consist of the choice makers for Love- and NOT a single choice maker from the tiniest to the greatest will EVER regret accepting GOD'S standards of accountability to LOVE perfectly.
To minds corrupted by sin it's so hard to fathom living perfect love without having it contrasted by evil, but it will be a reality that we can only minutely grasp at when we are given a tiny glimpse of pure love. Some find that tiny glimpse in the perfect newly discovered love of another, others find it in the love that has lasted through years and feel that bitterest of loss when death separates the love. No, I'm not talking about years of constant pure love for that can't exist with Satan stirring our angst up all too often even in small disputes, and irritations. We don't let those things destroy the base of our love, but they aren't the perfect love that will have none of those things one day. There are others who find the instant of pure love in the gaze of their newborn baby, a child may experience that love more often in the comfort of a parent's embrace. We do get tiny rare moments of what we can imagine pure joy to be, and there is absolutely NO angst, no need for horrors to contrast it for us to be awestruck by its wonder.
Eye has not seen… what is prepared for those who choose God's standards, choose God's love.
Ear has not heard… what is waiting for all those who make their choice for God, for pure love - uncorrupted by man in anyway, uncorrupted by evil's deceptions, twisted by warped hearts.
1Co 2:9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
So, yes, God could do ANYTHING, and people get all upset when they start to question WHY God has allowed evil to even exist. Let yourself be upset but don't DWELL in that upset, don't live there. Set it aside and TRUST in God and His love that has already signed Evil's death warrant. We MUST remember this so important truth- this life of ours now no matter how much we suffer, or others suffer horrifically, is TEMPORARY to ETERNITY, and that eternity is pure love, suffering free! Satan would have us look at our temporary circumstances as if they are all there is, all there will ever be, he wants us bogged down with the horrors of the temporary so we lose sight of the ETERNAL.
Recognizing the evil and having our hearts break over and over at every evil we are caused to bear witness to in one way or another, is all the more reason we cry out for God to save us, to keep us in Him, to get us through the horrors surrounding us, and not only us but all those around us through it too! We long for the return of our Savior, and He will return. Come, Lord Jesus, come!
Don't let life now cheat you out of life eternal.
All by the grace and mercy of our LORD who died to secure evil's end and God's eternity of love.
In the name of Jesus Christ our LORD and Savior, now and forever!
Amen.
Is God accountable to anyone? He's God. He's the One who made all the rules, He's the master of the game, He's the creator of all. An author has total control over the worlds they create in their works. An author may pander to his audience and include things in his stories that he may not have if he weren't influenced by others, but ultimately, the work is his, the decision to publish his literary creation is his. Even if publishers tell him to do this, that, or the other thing in order for them to publish his work, he has a right to decline publishing to keep the integrity of his creation. He makes a choices.
What's all this have to do with God being accountable or not being accountable to anyone?
God is the author of existence. He determined His own accountability, irrevocably.
So many wrestle with the idea that God created evil if He created everything. So, how does one reconcile a God who allowed evil to exist at all whatsoever with a God who is love? MANY have this same question- a lot of people, most people who get beyond the simple thoughts of things have had these same questions. Great minds (meaning those recognized as wise, learned men and woman of God) have had this question and ULTIMATELY- there are things we just are NOT going to be given answers to and this is where our FAITH is brought to the ultimate test.
Having said that, I had a few more thoughts-
God is accountable to Himself. Now, before you go and say that's not being accountable. When you are only accountable to yourself you make up the rules and can change them to suit your situations.
Think about it though. Aren't we all ultimately accountable to ourselves? Accountable for our own actions whatever they may be? We have to live up to our own standards set in our own minds. Good, bad, beautiful, ugly, all that we do is something we have to live with. Every single action you make you have to live with. When we do something against our standards we can sometimes we choose to rearrange our standards, let them slip and slide, and accept the slipping and sliding. We lower our standards realizing maybe we made them a little too high in the first place. We make adjustments to them throughout our lives. But deep down, all the while we've rearranged our standards to suit our new way of living, we suspect we've gone against ourselves in some small way. Time will often dampen that suspicion, but sometimes even years after we've altered our standards those suspicions rear up and slap us in the face reminding us we once had different ideas of how we believed life, and us in that life, should be.
Those who choose not to have moral standards for themselves from the get go do not find it hard to do just about anything -because they've chosen no standards of accountability. They made a choice towards that end. They could have had standards, but decided they'd rather not.
Then there are societal standards which alter constantly with time, from generation to generation, age to age the standards waffle all over the place.
There are cultural/geographical standards, again all affected by what cultural, what part of the world you live in, and they too-- shift often. They adapt, either growing more stringent or more lax- our history since being recorded proves this to be true.
God has set standards that are immutable, unchangeable, unalterable, set in stone, etc, etc, He cannot… yes, I said, cannot change His standards BECAUSE He made the choice to have these standards and the choice to NEVER be able to change them. NEVER. NOT EVER. God decided LOVE and all the standards of LOVE were NEVER to be changed, not for ANYONE, not for ANY CREATED BEING! God's standards are permanent, from everlasting to everlasting.
God is accountable to Himself. God set Himself morals and deemed them beyond breaking. In setting those standards He took in all that could be love and discarded what was unacceptable to Him, what wasn't love- as being a part of His being accountable to Himself. These standards of GOD'S accountability hold true for all He would ever create. HOWEVER- the LOVE He chose to be, demanded that love is to be freely chosen. A free choice of all created. God did NOT create beings as miniature copies of Himself -albeit in different shapes/sizes/etc. God did NOT create and arbitrarily forced the created ones to His chosen LOVE standard. A choice would need to be made by EVERY individual creation with the ability to choose, to decide if they wanted to live in the LOVE standards of God, recognizing the love beyond imagining that created them to begin with.
When God created man in His image, it means so much more than appearance, form, etc. God made mankind with the ability to make choices-- God made - choices. You can't have the reality of good and evil and not have a choice made for one or the other.
The reality of the POSSIBILITY of goodness and evil were brought into existence.
The possibility of life devoid of love, and therefore - evil.
Evil was NOT in existence, the POSSIBLITY existed that it could come to exist this is what was there. Who knows how many creations God formed throughout all existence everywhere before evil first appeared in the choice of a single being… a created angel who made a choice with that possibility.
Once evil was chosen and nurtured, embraced, accepted, cherished- it had to be dealt with by God who chose LOVE as His standard, LOVE as His accountability, LOVE as the true reality. And HOW it was to be dealt with was something SO infinitely important because God did not want it to EVER exist again. Just as He made a choice, all His created creations everywhere for all time will have made their choices as well in such a way- when EVIL is eradicated from all existence it will be so that it can never exist again- and all existence will only consist of the choice makers for Love- and NOT a single choice maker from the tiniest to the greatest will EVER regret accepting GOD'S standards of accountability to LOVE perfectly.
To minds corrupted by sin it's so hard to fathom living perfect love without having it contrasted by evil, but it will be a reality that we can only minutely grasp at when we are given a tiny glimpse of pure love. Some find that tiny glimpse in the perfect newly discovered love of another, others find it in the love that has lasted through years and feel that bitterest of loss when death separates the love. No, I'm not talking about years of constant pure love for that can't exist with Satan stirring our angst up all too often even in small disputes, and irritations. We don't let those things destroy the base of our love, but they aren't the perfect love that will have none of those things one day. There are others who find the instant of pure love in the gaze of their newborn baby, a child may experience that love more often in the comfort of a parent's embrace. We do get tiny rare moments of what we can imagine pure joy to be, and there is absolutely NO angst, no need for horrors to contrast it for us to be awestruck by its wonder.
Eye has not seen… what is prepared for those who choose God's standards, choose God's love.
Ear has not heard… what is waiting for all those who make their choice for God, for pure love - uncorrupted by man in anyway, uncorrupted by evil's deceptions, twisted by warped hearts.
1Co 2:9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
So, yes, God could do ANYTHING, and people get all upset when they start to question WHY God has allowed evil to even exist. Let yourself be upset but don't DWELL in that upset, don't live there. Set it aside and TRUST in God and His love that has already signed Evil's death warrant. We MUST remember this so important truth- this life of ours now no matter how much we suffer, or others suffer horrifically, is TEMPORARY to ETERNITY, and that eternity is pure love, suffering free! Satan would have us look at our temporary circumstances as if they are all there is, all there will ever be, he wants us bogged down with the horrors of the temporary so we lose sight of the ETERNAL.
Recognizing the evil and having our hearts break over and over at every evil we are caused to bear witness to in one way or another, is all the more reason we cry out for God to save us, to keep us in Him, to get us through the horrors surrounding us, and not only us but all those around us through it too! We long for the return of our Savior, and He will return. Come, Lord Jesus, come!
Don't let life now cheat you out of life eternal.
All by the grace and mercy of our LORD who died to secure evil's end and God's eternity of love.
In the name of Jesus Christ our LORD and Savior, now and forever!
Amen.