Beginning with God 6<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It all begins with God -- what we think about God shapes what we think about ourselves and those around us and our world. It begins with God. What is our\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2009\/07\/22\/beginning-with-god-6\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Beginning with God 6\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It all begins with God -- what we think about God shapes what we think about ourselves and those around us and our world. It begins with God. 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{"id":5819,"date":"2009-07-22T06:51:30","date_gmt":"2009-07-22T11:51:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/2009\/07\/22\/beginning-with-god-6\/"},"modified":"2009-07-22T06:51:30","modified_gmt":"2009-07-22T11:51:30","slug":"beginning-with-god-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2009\/07\/22\/beginning-with-god-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Beginning with God 6"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"Worship.jpg\"$ <\/span>It all begins with God \u2014 what we think about God shapes what we think about ourselves and those around us and our world. It begins with God. What is our \u201cnarrative\u201d of God?<\/p>\n

James Bryan Smith, in The Good and Beautiful God: Falling in Love With the God Jesus Knows (The Apprentice Series)<\/a> $\"\"$ <\/strong><\/em> is asking us to think about our narratives and the need to reshape our narratives with the narrative of Jesus.<\/p>\n

One of those narratives is \u201cGod is holy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Declaring God\u2019s love can be overdone, Smith states. God\u2019s love doesn\u2019t mean God permits sin. God, he says, \u201cis a consuming fire\u201d (Heb 12:29). Two dominant narratives are wrong:<\/p>\n

God is wrathful and God does not care about sin. This angry-distant God narrative isn\u2019t what Jesus teaches. H. Richard Niebuhr put the problem this way: \u201ca God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross\u201d (116).<\/p>\n

What has helped you get over the God-loves-me and winks-at-sin narrative about God and reality? What helps you keep God\u2019s love and holiness in balance?<\/b><\/p>\n

\n
The teddy-bear God won\u2019t do. God\u2019s wrath, Smith argues, \u201cis a beautiful part of the majesty and love of God\u201d (117).<\/p>\n

Wrath, for Jesus, is God\u2019s right action. John 5:28; Matt 12:36-37; 16:27; Luke 21:23; John 3:36<\/a>.<\/p>\n

People, like Thomas Jefferson, like to clip out the parts of the Bible they don\u2019t like. Smith says many clip out the wrath stuff. God\u2019s love does not wax and wane like our emotions; God\u2019s love is to will the good of humans. Wrath is not rage. Wrath is not passion but pathos, a determined decision of God that is rational. Wrath expresses God\u2019s commitment to love, peace and justice. It is God\u2019s verdict on evil.<\/p>\n

Holiness is God\u2019s essence. Love loves unto purity is the idea of holiness. Nor do we want an unholy, unwrathful God. Moral indifference will not do. This means, Smith states, that hell is necessary.<\/p>\n

He finishes this with a soul training exercise on the need for margin in life.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"