The Hospitality of God- Making a Companion

 18The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”...22Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.23The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”

Thoughts: Clearly we were not meant to be isolated.  We are meant to be with someone else- not just in the sexual sense.  It is not good to be alone.  God cares about our being with other people and hospitality is born out of that.  If there are no other people, we cannot be hospitable.  Love means nothing if we are alone.  
    Wesley and others speak of those who have faith not being isolated.  I like to say that you can play football all by yourself.  You can toss the ball up in the air and catch it.  You can kick it up and catch it.  But football is best played with others.  So it is possible to be a Christian in a nursing home or on the Space Station (or other isolated places) by oneself.  But Christianity thrives with encouragement and human love.  
    Now, the ironic thing is having a person who differs from you- who is not just a clone, means that there are differences of opinion.  We are not to be loving and hospitable to only those who think exactly like us.  God did not mention the problems of being together- only that it is better together.  

Prayer: Thank you Lord, that you created the ability to have companions.  You cared for our hearts to love.  Help me to see that love is worth all the hurts or inconveniences that accompany any relationship. 

6/24/14-The Basis for Morals

1Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

2The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”

4“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5“For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

6When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. (Genesis 2)

Thoughts; How do we know if something is good or not?   For some people, it is good if it appears or seems good and doesn't seem to hurt anyone else.  This was Adam and Eve's reasoning- recorded in Genesis.  "The woman saw the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye."  Eve might have said, "It looked good to me, it didn't seem to hurt anyone else, so I did it."  The reality is that this sin hurt everyone else.  Sin always has ripple effects even if we think it is just between me and God.
    The first move out of the temptor's mouth was "Did God really say?"  Doubting belief in God and in God's Word is the first step.  If we cannot listen to what God tells us is good or not, we are on our own, without directions from the Maker.  But the Maker has not left us alone.  He has sent the Spirit and the Spirit speaks through the Word.
     The woman's response was more strict than God said.  God did not say to not "touch" the fruit.  But to her the rules seemed tough, and so she exaggerated their toughness.   Sometimes we may think that obeying God is impossible or only for very rare people. But God's directions have everyone in mind for their own good.  We are made and created to listen to God.
      Later Eve offered the fruit to Adam.  It could have been said in this story that 100% of the human population, including the latest human experts, human scholars, the best of humanity all agreed that it was okay to eat the fruit.  But simply because the majority agrees does not make a thing right.  The majority's opinion that wrong is right can make doing right- resisting temptation very hard.  We do not have to look  back very far in history to see this plainly.  Nazi majority and experts (holding to Nietzsche's theories) agreed to eliminate the Jews and those who were weak.  The Soviets likewise agreed to the Gulags for those who disagreed with Stalin and his adherents.  The Hutus thought it was fine to eliminate the Tutsis in Rwanda.  During the Clinton administration a huge moral change occurred in our country driven by polls instead of scripture or reason.  There is obvious danger in this (given by the above examples).
      Good is not determined by how it feels, how it looks, if other people think it is okay.  Good is determined by the Maker.  He wants us to listen.

Prayer; Help, me , O Lord, to have ears to hear and heart to obey.