TWRAC 040 (11/10/11): Understanding Personal God

This Week’s Recovery Application Challenge

Please click on TWIRL 040 before continuing TWRAC 040… 

The next four questions do not have right or wrong answers but are meant to challenge your perceptions of God as they relate to perceptions you have of yourself. Carefully consider your responses, especially if your score regarding your confidence in God’s love is higher than your score for His blessing, provision, forgiveness, and healing.

• If God does and will love you, why would He not bless you?
• If God does and will love you, why would He not provide for you?
• If God does and will love you, why would He not forgive you?
• If God does and will love you, why would He not heal you?

God loves you and forgives you…

Earlier in the ADMIT section called “MEdom = Worship/Idolize Self”, we observed the Scripture from Isaiah 57 that saw God speaking through the prophet Isaiah to His people about their choice to invest in their idols as their replacement for their relationship with God. The result was their addiction to alcohol, drugs, sex, and alternative spirituality that even led to them sacrificing their own children to their gods. We explored how our addictive thinking and behavior is similar and leads to similar consequences. We came to understand that our destination in relationship with our idols, namely the addiction we have to self, leads us directly into broken fellowship with God. Broken fellowship and relationship with God is not his doing, it is ours. We know it, too. That is why we struggle to have confidence that God will bless us, provide for us, heal us, and forgive us. How can God forgive us for what we have done?

There is the tendency to believe that if God is about justice at all, he cannot possibly forgive this thing or that thing. Ultimately, we struggle to believe that God altogether loves us. What it comes down to is the realization that I do not altogether love me. If I were God, I wouldn’t forgive me; I wouldn’t bless me. Yet it is in your nature to continually crave satisfaction in whatever form it takes, so you remain stuck in the dissatisfaction of not getting what you want, even you realize that you are unworthy to have it and do not deserve it. Thank God, God is not you. God is God and He loves and forgives and blesses and provides and heals according to His desires and standard for justice.

The following from Isaiah 57:14-21 is God’s response to the addictive behavior of His people:

¹⁴ God says, “Rebuild the road! Clear away the rocks and stones so my people can return from captivity.” ¹⁵ The high and lofty one who lives in eternity, the Holy One, says this: “I live in the high and holy place with those whose spirits are contrite and humble. I restore the crushed spirit of the humble and revive the courage of those with repentant hearts. ¹⁶ For I will not fight against you forever; I will not always be angry. If I were, all people would pass away— all the souls I have made. ¹⁷ I was angry, so I punished these greedy people. I withdrew from them, but they kept going on their own stubborn way. ¹⁸ I have seen what they do, but I will heal them anyway! I will lead them. I will comfort those who mourn, ¹⁹ bringing words of praise to their lips. May they have abundant peace, both near and far,” says the Lord, who heals them. ²⁰ “But those who still reject me are like the restless sea, which is never still but continually churns up mud and dirt. ²¹ There is no peace for the wicked,” says my God.

Do you remember from ADMIT what the rocks and stones represented? The rocks and stones were emblematic of the addictive behavior and idol worship of God’s people.

• Who is God speaking to when we proclaims, “Rebuild the road! Clear away the rocks and stones so my people can return from captivity”?
• Rebuild what road?
• Captivity from what?
• What would say it means when God says through Isaiah, “For I will not fight against you forever; I will not always be angry”? -How did God “punish those greedy people”?
• What does it mean that God “withdrew from them”?
• How does God being angry, punishing, and withdrawing fit into your perceptions of God?
• As a parent, do you ever become angry with your children? Explain. (If you’re not a parent, respond to the question as though you are) -Do you love your children any less when you become angry?
• As a parent, have you ever withdrawn or allowed some space from your children? Explain.
• Do you love your children any less when you give them space?
• As a parent, have you ever withheld provision or gifts from your children while they were disobedient or broke fellowship with you? Explain.
• -Do you love your children any less when you have to withhold blessing from them?
• As a parent, have you ever disciplined your children through some form of punishment? Explain.
• Do you love your children any less when you have to discipline and punish them?
• If you were to stay angry at your children, withhold blessing, and punish them permanently forever, what would become of them?
• Do you believe, as a perception of God, that He would choose to stay angry with you? Explain.
• Do you believe it is the personality of God to continue to punish you? Explain.
• Do you believe it is God’s intention to keep you in the consequences of your selfish mistakes? Explain.
• As a parent, what does it take on the part of your children to be restored into the fullness of privilege after they have been selfish and made mistakes?
• What does it mean to be repentant?
• What does it mean to have “spirits” that are contrite, humble, and crushed?
• God said, “I have seen what they do, but I will heal them anyway! I will lead them. I will comfort those who mourn.” How is this attitude of God, similar to the attitude you have to your children?
• When you view God in the context of a parent, how is your perception of the person and personality of God affected?

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