God is not man, that he should lie,
Numbers 23:19
or a son of man, that he should change his mind.
Has he said, and will he not do it?
Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?
“For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.
Malachi 3:6
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
Hebrews 13:8
We humans cannot live a life of sanity if we are untethered from anything solid and unchangeable. Imagine if you weren’t confident that tomorrow morning the sun would rise. What if gravity didn’t exist? What if 2 plus 2 didn’t equal 4? It would not be possible to live lives of sanity. We live in a time of insanity, but there is a way of maintaining sanity amid insanity.
In the past few decades, academics have begun to proffer this kind of thinking and have passed it off to students as reality. The name post-modernism characterizes this kind of thinking. Post-modernism has discipled students to believe that there are no absolute truths and my truth and your truth can be different and still be true. There is no such thing as immutability or unchangeableness. Nothing is absolute.
What has been the fruit of this thinking in our culture? Among other things, the facts of biology are being ignored. Again, it’s a “my truth” argument. I can determine my gender without that gender being tethered to my biological sex as created by God. That which is unchangeable has become changeable. Is there any wonder we live in a society becoming dominated by insanity?
The fact that our Creator is unchangeable is the determining factor of true, sane living. The title of this blog is Living Life Successfully. The absolute fundamental article of successful living is the fact of God himself. All creation derives from God, who is unchangeable. He is the Creator and sustainer of all things. Without him, nothing holds together, neither material things nor spiritual things. He is the anchor of reality.
A life lived without the fear of God is a life of foolishness and a form of insanity. The only sane approach to life is an approach that, first of all, acknowledges the Creator.
Why is this important? We see record-high numbers of suicides, especially among younger people. The chickens are coming home to roost, and we are eating a foul meal. Our marriages don’t survive; our children don’t thrive, and our foundational institutions are crumbling. We are trying to live lives untethered from our Creator and are reaping the harvest of insanity.
It is, however, possible for one to live life successfully in this kind of insanity by living our lives fully tethered to our Creator and Redeemer, the one who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our Creator and Sustainer. We are not sustained by some philosophy of life that allows us to play God and determine “our” truth. This problem is not new; it has been around since the garden where Adam and Eve exchanged the truth of God for the lie.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world,[g] in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
Romans 1:18-27
This exchange of the truth for the lie (that we can worship creation rather than the Creator) produced societal insanity early in human history and resulted in God’s judgment through Noah’s flood. Humanity got a reset with Noah and his children, but we have proven to be infected with the same disease as our ancestors and have attempted to live worshipping the creation rather than our Creator. Therefore, we also inherit the insanity of thinking we can live untethered from our Creator. It will end the same way it did the first time, except the judgment will be final. There will be an end to life untethered from God. Christ will return and fulfill all of the promises of our unchanging God, and we will enjoy his new heavens and new earth in which no one attempts to live untethered from our gracious Creator and Redeemer. There will be no more insanity.
Until that day comes, we can live sane lives amid insanity by walking in submission to theLord Jesus Christ. Submission to the Lordship of Jesus is submission to reality. It is a battle that is primarily in the mind.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Romans 12:2
We are born with a propensity to live untethered from God and learn to live separately from God. Our thoughts are untethered thoughts. So, Paul instructs us to be transformed by renewing our minds and learning to think as God thinks. We can swim upstream against the flow of culture and think as God thinks. The culture won’t like it when you swim upstream, but it is better to swim upstream than to flow over the waterfall downstream and be destroyed.
A life tethered to God is characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. This is the essence of living life successfully, won’t you agree?
Frustration is attempting to gain, in an untethered condition, that which only comes from being tethered to God.
Are you frustrated in your attempts to find joyful living? If so, ask yourself, am I living tethered to ultimate reality, or am I living an untethered life? One can live with a primary faith in God and yet still live largely untethered from him by ignoring his word. That kind of living will produce frustration and reap the harvest of untethered living.
How do I gain this tethered life?
- Fully submit yourself to the lordship of Jesus
- Renew your mind by reading, studying, and meditating on God’s word
- Obey what you have learned in #2
- Join together with a group of other people who are committed to following Jesus fully
