"Who said anything about safe?"

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”    

C.S.Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Yesterday's sermon was phenomenal, and I am not one to ascribe such an attribute to sermons because I tend to intellectually shred them, or I feel I've learned or experienced nothing too new.


When I left the AG church and started attending the Baptist church, I found the sermons to be a balm, a healing.  I'm not saying that what I was preached in the AG church was unbiblical or bad, but somewhere along the way I wasn't getting answers, I was getting confusion.  I wasn't understanding, I was misunderstanding.  Unfortunately, I started feeling that way about the Baptist church, recently.  In modern Protestant churches, it is popular to present God as the friendly, neighborhood daddy figure.  Baptists love grace, and faith-only salvation doctrine.  I wasn't feeling like I was getting to know God.  I was feeling like I was getting to know a denominational doctrinal portrayal of a pretty God.

In Protestant denominations God is portrayed as hippie God, or grace-everywhere God, or understanding God who knows we're just stupid humans and let's us have passes so long as we say, "I believe in God."  There's the prosperity God, the God who only wants us happy and only wants to give us good things like a grandpa who loves spoiling the grandkids.  And then, these Protestants point at Catholics and accuse them of keeping God at a feared and reverent distance...a God who judges.  A God who disciplines.  A God who does what He will.  A God who expects obedience and repentance and penance.

I read the Old Testament!  I don't see the modern Protestant God there.  I see a God closer to the Catholic God.

We have been learning about the fear of God and the sermon yesterday explained the Godhead very well.

God is beyond our human understanding.
He is infinitely more dangerous than He is safe.
He is who He is.
He is beyond safe and beyond good.

Our responsibility to such as God is worship (service, works), reverence, and awe.  Boy, that sounds Catholic to me!

I loved this sermon because it really helped me understand my relationship with God better.  My responsibility before Him.  I think we Protestants too often get into this gliding relationship with God. We over-emphasize His grace, but forget His everything else!

And this is why I am on this quest!  I want to know what God expects of me!  I don't want to mess this up.  I don't want to be flippant, worldly, gliding on grace....

God IS and WILL BE.  He will do what He will do.

We Protestants paint this picture of this God who can be hugged.  The Bible paints this picture of our God being so much more than we can handle that Moses could only see His back for a moment and it nearly consumed him!

Our God isn't just a cloud-beard grandpa.  He's a consuming fire!  He's ALL!  Beyond our comprehension and understanding.

The Catholics look to Christ and Mary and the Saints because they cannot look upon God.  None of us can.  He doesn't owe us!

How selfish I have been.  How demanding, how expectant....How I have erroneously seen Him.

**Just as a side note, I am not bashing Protestantism in favor of praising Catholicism.  I'm not convinced either are right.  But sermons like yesterday's go beyond denomination into Pure Truth, which is what I seek.