Saturday, July 4, 2015

Paul At The Areopagus In Athens, Greece

Acts 17:27-31


He is not far from each one of us. For in Him we live and move and have our being. 

We are all "inside" God; He surrounds us as water surrounds the fish. The whole universe exists inside Him. We exist because He is thinking about us. His Word alone created all that is, and He holds everything together. Just as my hand "knows" where my ear is without my looking for it, so God is aware of everything that goes on in His universe, down to our very molecules. I think of it as we are God's imagination, if He ever ceased to think of us, we would not exist.

As some of your own poets have said, "We are his offspring." Therefore, since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the Divine Being is like gold or silver or stone--an image made by man's design and skill.

Since we as human beings are the offspring of God, then we bear an image, a likeness of God; so He must be more like a living, organic being than like inanimate, earthly materials.

In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now He commends all people everywhere to repent.

Now that we know better, we have a responsibility to respond to His call, to turn around.

For He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice.

This is a specific day; He will not judge at a whim, but according to the laws and rules He has set down for us to obey. He is a God of order, and always has and always will do everything in an orderly manner.

By the Man He has appointed.

Jesus Christ.

He has given proof of this to all men by raising Him from the dead.

Jesus' resurrection is the proof that God accepted His sacrifice in payment of all our sin; and Jesus also purchased the world of mankind which gives Him the Authority to be the legal Judge of all of us. Therefore, each one of us will see Him as either our Savior and Redeemer, or our righteous Judge.