Incomprehensible

Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NIV84)

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Good morning Zebras,

Last month my herd pondered on the incomprehensible nature of God. And to drive the point home that His ways are so far beyond my understanding, He gave me the privilege of teaching a passage from Revelation to the middle students at my church.

The passage we were looking at was Revelation 20:11-15 where each person stands before Christ holding the book of their life.

In preparation for the lesson each student had a few minutes to write The Book Of their Life.  Questions to help them included:  “What is the worst thing you have ever done?” “What is the best thing you have ever done?”  and “List six people who have greatly influenced your life.”

Of course, the point of the lesson was that we can’t earn our way to heaven.  Even if the page of good deeds was full to overflowing and the bad deeds page had only one or two entries, if Jesus’ name was not written on the page of people who changed your life you were not getting in.

But the lesson didn’t end there.  Because although that’s absolutely true-it’s only faith in Jesus Christ that gets us into heaven- even middle school students instinctively knew that how we lived our lives still mattered.

So then we talked about the judgment of believers.

The Bible says we will all stand before God and give an account of the deeds we’ve done in the body, so we know it’s going to happen, but how can it be both? How can we stand before God totally forgiven because of Jesus Christ and yet also be held accountable for the things we done.  

The answer is: “I don’t know, but God does.”

When I was little I understood math. 1+1=2 and that was good, even multiplication, division and fractions were clear understandable concepts.  But then I hit “higher math” and suddenly I had no idea what they were talking about.  I knew what they were saying was true, but it sure didn’t make sense to me. 

Sometimes that is how I feel about God.  I know what He says is true, but it doesn’t always make sense to me.  But then it doesn’t have to, because incomprehensible is an attribute of God. And Isaiah 55:8 clearly says: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, and neither are your ways My ways.”

Love,

Jill