MAKING THE LORD KNOWN (PART 4)

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“God did this so that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from any one of us. ‘For in Him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are His offspring.’”

Acts 17:27-28

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

We serve an almighty God, the only true God who created and then rules over all things in heaven and on earth. He sits in ultimate authority over everything but He is not a God who lacks compassion or caring. Rather, He is a God who loves and forgives perfectly, providing for all He has made because all created things are totally dependent upon Him as they live to serve others in obedience to His calling. Finally, since He is Lord over all, possessing infinite power to make the impossible possible, He holds history in His hands, ordering events across time while placing His people within the borders He draws up. Nations rise and fall by His mighty hands.

This was a snapshot of who God was, a snapshot delivered within a speech Paul delivered by invitation to the Athenian Areopagus who lacked knowledge of the Lord before Paul began talking. In fact, as Paul was touring around the city upon his arrival, he came upon an altar erected in honor of an unknown god and so Paul sought to make the Athenians aware of the one true God, the God who exposed the gods they had worshiped as non-existent.

As we look at the fourth message in this series centered on making the Lord known, we find Paul driving these additional points home about God.

First, the all powerful God who has existed since the dawn of creation is not a God who disassociates Himself from His people. Rather, He has always been in the midst of everything He has made. He is always available to aid anyone who seeks His help. When someone reaches out to Him, He is there for them because He is never far from anybody.

Second, because every created thing is dependent on the one true God, all people live and move and have their being through Him. God not only grants life but He sustains it once granted.

Finally, when a man and woman produce a child, that child is called their offspring. The couple, given the gift of reproduction by God, join together to make new life. And since God is the first parent, fashioning the first man and woman by His own hands, He is the heavenly Father over all people who are in turn His offspring. We all are ultimately children of God.

It’s this latter point that a couple of Greek philosophers had actually touched on without completely understanding what they were saying. For we find Paul quoting the Cretan philosopher Epimenides as well as the Cilician Stoic philosopher Aratus in verse 28 of this passage. Through his words, Paul puts meat on the bones of the divine concepts the philosophers were trying to reason about.

How does the fact that all people are God’s offspring change the way the Lord is viewed?

We’ll look at that tomorrow in the fifth devotion in this series as we continue to be reminded of God’s nature and how He relates to His created people.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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