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God is not a Man

By Aubrey C. Belue

1 Sam 15:29 – “And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent.”

The curse of humanity is that man refuses to elevate his vision of the Almighty. The thought above deserves emphasis: GOD IS NOT A MAN! In Psalms 50:21, God speaks to the wicked: "These things thou has done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself....". As Isaiah records in Isaiah 55:8, 9, God says: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts; neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts..”

So much of the response we make to the Almighty comes from the misconception that God IS like man. "Man" can be deceived; so, we think we can deceive God. We know that we can hide things from "man", and so, we think we can hide things from God. We can sometimes "get around" "man", cajoling or teasing him into accepting what at other times he might reject-and so we misbehave in the presence of God thinking that we can persuade Him that we are not so bad, or that he will simply overlook our "shenanigans". With the passing of time, "man" is prone to forget the bad acts of himself or others (think of how we fondly remember the dead, and overlook the many times he may have disappointed or failed us); God never forgets! "Man" tends to play favorites with those he regards as special; there is no respect of persons with God (Acts 10:34).

The words of God are not like the words of "man". Even the silence of God is not like that of “man”. Often, God reveals as much by what He does NOT say, as by what He does. And, through it all, God is ABSOLUTELY true to WHO and WHAT He is. Everything He thinks, says, or does is perfectly consistent with His nature and character. We must learn to think as the Thessalonians thought, described by Paul in 1 Thess. 2:13: "For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of man, but as it is in truth, the word of God...” As Paul says in Rom 3:4 -"Let God be true, and every man a liar...”

God's commandments are "true"; His promises are "true"; His threats are "true". If we faithfully fulfill His commandments, He will absolutely save and bless us; If we refuse or fail in the doing of them, He will absolutely curse and ruin us (contingent upon the continuing possibility that we will repent of such failures and return to Him-He has, in such cases, promised to receive us back). Make no mistake. God is NOT like man!  www.eastcolumbuschurch.com