Dallas Willard Daily Devotional- December 05, 2020

Does God Hear Us? Do Jesus and his Father hear Buddhists when they call upon them? They hear Anyone who calls upon them. "The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit" (Ps. 34:18). There is no distinction between "Jew and Greek," between those who have "it"—however humans may define "it"—and those who do not, "for the same one is Lord of all, abounding in riches to all who call upon him" (Rom. 10:12). You cannot call upon Jesus Christ or upon God and not be heard. You live in their house, their ecos (Heb. 3:4). We usually call it simply "the universe." But they fully occupy it. It is their place, their "kingdom," where through their kindness and sacrificial love we can make our present life an eternal life. Only as we understand this, is the way open for a true ecology of human existence, for only then are we dealing with what the human habitation truly is. And the God who hears is also one who speaks. He has spoken and is still speaking. Humanity remains his project, not its own, and his initiatives are always at work among us. He certainly "gives us space," as we say, and this is essential. But he continues to speak in ways that serious inquirers can hear if they will. We need not, as earlier described, stagger onward in darkness concerning what is truly good and really right. We need not fly upside down. There is a right-side up, and we can find it.—But we don't have to. We are free. For now. From The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God. Copyright © 1997 by Dallas Willard. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

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Tabletalk Devotions with R.C. Sproul - December 04, 2020

The Council of Nicea John 1:1–18 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God" (John 1:1–2). In the history of Christian doctrine, the cities of Antioch and Alexandria stand out as centers of theological development in the early church. Many of the major promoters of heresy hailed from these cities, but defenders of orthodoxy came from both cities as well. When it came to the debates over the deity of Christ, Antioch, which is located in modern Turkey, was a center of Monarchian thought. And of those Antiochenes known for their denial of Christ's deity, none are more famous than Arius. Arius wanted to preserve monotheism, and he believed that any attempt to equate Jesus with the Father destroys the biblical affirmation that there is but one, true God (see Deut. 6:4). According to Arius, God the Father alone is eternal and uncreated. Everything other than the Father is created, and this includes His Son, whom the Father made before anything else. The Son is a perfect creature, but He is a creature nonetheless — even if He was the agent through whom the Father created everything else. During the early part of the fourth century, Arius came to Alexandria and began promulgating His views. He soon ran into difficulties because the Alexandrian theologians held to a more orthodox view of Christ's deity. In the year 321, Bishop Alexander expelled Arius from the city. Yet Arius' popularity grew while he was in exile and soon the entire Roman Empire became embroiled in the christological debate. Even though he did most of his work after the Council of Nicea, which convened in 325, Athanasius remains the most familiar defender of orthodoxy associated with that gathering. At Nicea, the church officially recognized that the Father and the Son are homoousios, Greek for "of the same essence" (see John 1:1). Even though the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father, both persons are fully God, having the same essence or being. The Father and the Son, along with the Holy Spirit, each perform different tasks in redemption, though there was never a time when any of the three did not exist. Anyone who says otherwise does not hold the faith once delivered to the saints. Coram deo: Living before the face of God The deity of Christ is very important. As God He is able to bring us face to face with the Father and restore to us that which has been marred in the fall. Moreover, because Christ is God, there is no idolatry going on when we worship Him. Those who view Him as an exalted created being actually deny monotheism, for they are positing the existence of more than one god. Let us with full confidence confess and proclaim the full deity of our Savior. For further study: Micah 5:2 The Bible in a year: Daniel 7:1–8:27 For the weekend: Daniel 9:1–12:13,Hosea 1:1- 2:23

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Tabletalk Devotions with R.C. Sproul - December 07, 2020

Denying God's Transcendence 1 Chronicles 29:11 "Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty…. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all" (1 Chronicles 29:11). Theological controversy did not end at the Council of Nicea, and in the following centuries the church had to deal with errors regarding the humanity of Christ, the authority of Scripture, justification, and others. Despite the various positions taken on these issues, however, most theologians still insisted on the transcendence of God. That all changed in the nineteenth century. Our Creator's transcendence is affirmed throughout Scripture and is reflected in today's passage. When we say God is transcendent, we mean that He is separate from His creation and not dependent on the created order in any way. The Almighty made the universe and He is therefore its sovereign ruler (Gen. 1:1). A biblical view of transcendence does not mean that God is unable to enter into His creation or communicate with it. He is also immanent, present within the universe that He has made (Ps. 139:7). Nevertheless, creation is not God (pantheism), nor does God depend upon it. Creation, instead, depends upon our Creator for its continual existence (Eph. 4:4–6). Due to the work of the philosopher Immanuel Kant in the eighteenth century, many thinkers began to question whether we could ever know anything about the transcendent realm. This was based on an unbiblical view of transcendence, one that says God is so "wholly other" that it is impossible for His creation to communicate with Him at all. In any case, these ideas trickled down into theology, and through a variety of alterations they produced a new emphasis on immanence. However, the immanence promoted was also an unbiblical one, which basically said that God is so closely identified with His creation as to be virtually indistinguishable from it. The new focus on immanence is known as "immanentism" and ultimately amounts to pantheism. The result for Christology was to remove any sense that Jesus was unique as an incarnation of God. If all is God, then God is all, not only Jesus. At best, the philosopher G.W.F. Hegel said, Jesus is a picture of what it means that humanness and deity are ultimately one. This humanization of God and deification of man is antithetical to biblical orthodoxy. Coram deo: Living before the face of God The immanentism we have discussed today is still with us. The New Age idea that we are all divine is a further alteration of immanentistic thought and also draws upon Eastern religions. We must be on guard against any view that would make God identical to His creation, for then He would be identified with the wickedness His creation has promulgated. To lose God's transcendence is to lose any hope that He will overcome the evil of this world. For further study: Psalm 8:1; 96:4 The Bible in a year: Hosea 3:1–4:19

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Family Love on Which to Build- November 27, 2020

November 27 Parental love is vital. In homes where children are not adored by at least one parent (or a parent-figure), they wither like a plant without food. –The New Dare to Discipline For I was my father's son, tender and… beloved in the sight of my mother. (Proverbs 4:3 KJV)

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Family Love on Which to Build- November 28, 2020

November 28 Convey these messages to pre-elementary school children: 1. You are precious to me, and I thank God that let me be you mother/father. 2. Because I love you so much, I must teach you to obey me so I can protect you from things that might hurt you. –The New Dare to Discipline Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord. (Colossians 3:20 KJV)

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