GOD IN A BOX!

Can God be fitted in a box??

Can the Almighty Creator be limited by His own creation??

We may have likely heard it said that Christianity is not a religion but a lifestyle. And as true as that is, our worship of God often seem to rather tend towards more of repeated religious activities, which becomes more and more powerless as we get more and more familiar with it. So I tend to define 'Religion' as 'God-in-a-box'!

I believe most of us do agree to the truth that God's ways are higher than man's ways and no mortal can attain a full comprehension of His ways, but yet we often believe we can always predict his reactions in response to our actions, especially the repetitive acts we do...

So we can easily believe that if we pray or speak or act in a particular way; or serve God in a certain way, then we can easily predict our results or how God would respond; even though we understand that the written Word (The Bible) is our ultimate guide in our walk with God...

However, a look at the life of Christ which He lived as a revelation of how God Himself would live if He were to be a man on Earth; We find that He did not always live a predictable lifestyle. He healed sometimes by laying hands, other times by speaking a word, and one time He anointed a blind man with a mixture of saliva and clay, and all those actions produced same healing result...

Then sometimes He paid tax by taking money from the money-bag, and another time He gets money from a fish's mouth. Then a few times He miraculously multiplies bread and fish to feed His hungry followers, other times He let them feed themselves. Then sometimes He takes the boat with the Disciples, and one other time He walked on water to meet the Disciples in the boat. Sometimes He would say short prayers, other times He would say long prayers...

But then the question is: Why employ different means? When He could simply just follow the same routine always and get the needed result? After-all the miracles happened ultimately because of Who He is, and not necessarily because of the process He followed. We also find that even with God's dealings with men in the Old Times; walking with God was more about obeying each instruction He gives per time than about learning processes; as we see in His dealings with Moses and the Old Israelites...

Then the other question is: Why does the believer need a relationship and close fellowship with God and sensitivity to the Holy Spirit in daily life? If one can learn all the possible ways God could instruct or lead a person probably based on some manual or from the experience of others?

Recall that even after Jesus returned to Heaven, the Early Apostles saw other dimensions of God they did not experience while Jesus was still with them. For instance, Peter's shadow healing the sick or an Angel breaking him out of prison. And I believe they themselves would have been amazed at some of the new manifestations they were seeing, even though Jesus had told them ahead of time that they would do greater works than He did...

Therefore, I'm of the view that if we relate with God with a religious mindset, with the ideology of performing procedures and repetitions of the same cycle of activities; not seeking to know more of Him in a progressive daily manner; Yes, we may obtain some level of results, but we will likely also limit God from revealing some other possibilities in Him which we may be unaware of. Because even when He is the One working, we would likely not recognize it, because He is not speaking in the language we understand from our limited knowledge about Him and His ways...

And my point is: As we are often encouraged to think out-of-the-box in our approach to life, we must also learn to take God out of the box of religion and our religious mindsets, so that He can be free to reveal Himself to us in more unusual and supernatural ways than we ever imagined, as long as our hearts are set right to obey even His most 'unreasonable' instructions...

Lets also be reminded that only Jesus had the ability to reveal all of God nature as He had the Spirit of God without measure. No other man can have such full grasp of all of the multifaceted dimensions of God; because if that were the case, there wouldn't have been a need for the diverse spiritual office gifts (Pastor, Evangelist, Prophet, Apostle and Teacher). As there are also diverse gifts of the Spirit. Of which no one man can have them all; and you can be sure if such a man ever exists, he would be called a god and worshipped by many...

Therefore do not limit God and your spiritual growth by believing that all you receive from your local assembly is all there is in God. Also be aware that God can give you instructions anytime and anywhere; it must not be in Church on a Sunday, and it must not be at your fixed daily devotion time. And that is what having a relationship with God means; there is no time-table for communication in any great relationship...

More so, God is a Spirit, and the ways of the Spirit are like the ways of the wind; the ways of God cannot always be predicted, and that is what makes Him God. Therefore, take off the limits, take Him out of that box and make room for flexibility and divine interruptions, as that is the recipe for a rich spiritual life...

Psa.78:19 (KJV)
"...Yea, they spake against God; they said, Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?
Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel..."

Luk.18:27 (NIV)
"...Jesus replied, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”

1Cor.2:9 ( KJV)
"...But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him..."

May we keep growing in grace and in the knowledge of Him Who has drawn us to Himself by His love, and desires to reveal His glory in and through us, in ways beyond all our imaginations...

Amen!!!

Thanks for reading!
#GodIsStillinCharge