And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there: And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage. And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come. His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. (Joh 2:1-5)

If you want to know what faith is like, there you go. Mary had faith and Jesus worked a miracle. Never mind arguments about whether it was wine or “grape juice” and forget any arguments about drinking alcohol. That’s completely beside the point here. The point is summed up in this: “Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.” Yep.

Now, notice something important here. Mary shows no indication that she has any idea about HOW Jesus will provide wine. She just says, “Do what he tells you to do.” See? She knew Jesus could provide even though she doesn’t know how it will happen. That’s important.

There is something about faith that many who say they have faith never catch on to. When we pray for God’s deliverance, in faith, usually we have some idea in the mind of HOW God will accomplish that deliverance. That’s a bit of a problem. It means we think we know 1) what the problem is and 2) how the problem should be solved. All we want God to do is provide the power to get it done the way we want it to get done. Right? Yep. And that is a problem because it is not really faith.

God knows our problems better than we do. He knows what is at the root cause, and also the real purpose of our trials and tribulations. So, when you pray in faith for God’s deliverance you have to trust that He is going to go to work on the REAL problem, which may not be at all what you think it is, and then end up doing something remarkable. For example, maybe you are sick and need a physical healing. But, maybe (in fact most likely) the sickness is a result of some life-style thingy that you don’t even realize is a problem. If the sickness was just healed miraculously, you’d be sick again in a few weeks and then - well right then is where a lot of people get upset, thinking all that prayer and faith didn’t do any good. But, God knows your REAL need and will go to work on that if you trust Him. Yep.

But the thing is, you really have to trust Him. Like I said to start with, we usually think we know HOW God is going to fix things and when the plan we have in mind doesn’t materialize in the manner we think it should we get to thinking maybe God isn’t doing anything and maybe He isn’t listening or maybe I did something terrible and maybe… maybe… maybe. Enough already.

Here’s a little analogy about faith that I like: Say I’m going to mail a letter to a friend. I put the letter in an envelope, address it, put a stamp in it and drop the letter in the post office box. Then I just… walk away. I don’t go to the mailman and lay out a map and show him how to get the letter to it’s destination. I don’t call every ten minutes to check to see if the letter is going the right way. I don’t have to know HOW the Post Office is going to deliver my letter. I just have to have faith that they will deliver the letter and then take action based on that faith. Yep.

That’s what faith in God must be like. If you think you know HOW God is going to work a miracle you are almost assuredly wrong. So keep that in mind. When you pray for deliverance you have to be like Mary was. Whatever He tells you to do, just do it. Your faith does not need to see HOW God is going to solve the problem. Faith is the assurance that God can and will solve the problem, not the knowledge of HOW He is going to solve it.

And there were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. And he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it. When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew;) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now. (Joh 2:6-10)

See what I mean? They needed wine and Jesus is saying to fill the pots with water. I don’t know about you, but my first impression would be to argue that we need WINE not WATER! Maybe there was some miscommunication here. Nope. All they needed to do was listen to Jesus and do what he told them to do. That’s called faith.

With that in mind you can avoid some of the stumbling blocks that interfere with your faith. What happens if you think you know HOW God will solve the problem is that you may miss entirely the things that God is doing and as a result your faith may falter. Things don’t happen the way we expect, we get anxious and try to force something to happen opposite of what God is doing. That is where most faith fails. So, don’t do that.

For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. (Rom 8:24-25)

Faith takes courage, tenacity, patience and a willingness to hold on no matter what starts happening. This is difficult of course. Once you have prayed in faith for deliverance, watch and wait to see what God is going to do. It may seem at first like nothing is happening, but if you truly have faith you know that the unseen power of God is already working and will eventually manifest a solution. If you accept whatever God starts doing, then your faith will be strengthened as you begin to see changes take place that you never could have conceived of. That’s when we jump and shout for joy and God gets even more glory. Yep.

One last thing that should put it all into perspective: “thou hast kept the good wine until now.” That’s what I’m talking about. That’s a good thing to remember. The things that God has in store for those who trust Him are beyond our imagination and better than anything you have yet experienced. Don’t shortchange God’s plan for your deliverance by trying to get it all planned out for Him. Let Him work out in your life and show to you what He has planned for you from the beginning. Let His will work itself out over time. Wait and see. The best is yet to come.

For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. (Rom 8:18)

Although the doctrine of the Trinity is one of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, there are quite a few who call themselves followers of Jesus yet deny this doctrine. In fact, I was listening to an interview on the Internet recently and heard the interviewer and interviewee claiming that the doctrine of the Trinity is false. That’s not all that rare these days, but what was amazing was the claim that it was difficult to discover where this doctrine comes from. Nonsense. The doctrine of the Trinity was enumerated at the council of Nicea and all we need to do is to understand the historical context and arguments made at that time to see why this the Trinity is central to Christian dogma.

For most of my life I also had the opinion that the doctrine of the Trinity was impossible to prove or even really understand. After making my own study of the history, I found that it is simple, obvious and fundamental to Christianity. When looked at correctly, the Trinity is easy to understand and obvious. As I hope I can show, if you discard the doctrine of Trinity you undermine the foundation of Christianity and open the door to various heresies and ultimately false Christs.

The first thing that needs to be done is accurately state this doctrine. Most of the anti-Trinitarian claims create a straw-man to argue against, and thus it sounds like they know what they are talking about when in fact they are not arguing against the “trinity” at all. The simplistic statement of the Trinity is that it refers to a “triune-god” but that really isn’t what it says. Stated only as “three-in-one” without a full understanding, the Trinity cannot be understood logically and sounds to be in conflict with the Bible. The Bible states that there is one and only one God. All other gods are false. To suggest that there are three “Gods” at first seems wrong. The arguments against the Trinity usually build from this point and argue that Jesus was limited, physical, could die and thus could not be the omnipotent, omniscient, infinite being that we define as God.

We take it as an a priori premise that God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and thus to identify God with something limited seems wrong. However, to say that God is omnipotent but can’t do ‘X’ is inconsistent. The moment you state God can’t do something you have denied his omnipotence. It’s a paradox, then, because if God is truly omnipotent, then that must include the ability to be limited at the same time. Think about it for a bit, because it’s a little confusing at first. The problem is that our system of logic has limitations. We cannot logically describe anything that is “A and not A” and the idea of an omnipotent being that is somehow limited cannot be expressed in logic. All that means is that logical statements are limited to those things that logic can describe, but that cannot be taken as the limit of all truth since that would in effect declare logic as omnipotent. See? There are things about the infinite that cannot be logically described because of the limits of logic. We call these ‘paradox’ and leave it at that.

Another common argument is that the Bible does not describe God as a Trinity. That’s arguable, but not really all that important. The doctrine of the Trinity is not a form of exegesis but is rather a theological conclusion drawn from statements in the Bible. This isn’t a problem because the doctrine of the Trinity is not really “three-in-one” but rather is an attempt to explain the nature of Christ as savior based on statements that are in the Bible. It is a part of Christology, in other words. The best way to understand that doctrine is to follow the same path of philosophical reasoning the bishops at Nicea did. The Trinity then becomes obvious and correct.

There are two areas of philosophy and theology that we need to look at. The first is ontology. Ontology is a branch of metaphysics that deals with categories of being. There are many different ways of dividing being, but the one that is relevant here has to do with created being as opposed to self-existent being. Any person is one or the other. If you are created, you are not self-existent. If you are self-existent you are not created. We state categorically that God is self-existent. All other being must be created if we believe in a monotheistic theology of the the Bible. That was the basic problem. If Jesus is self-existent being and distinct from God is sounds like we have more than one God. Thus the anti-trinitarians defined Jesus as subordinate, created being. The Trinitarians said, basically, you can’t do that and have Christianity.

The reason has to do with the area of theology called soteriology. Soteriology deals with the nature of salvation. Christianity is based on the claim that Jesus is the savior of mankind. More importantly, He is a unique savior of mankind. “No man comes to the Father but by me” in other words. In addition, Christianity states that man cannot save himself. Put in philosophical terms, the ontologically inferior must rely on the ontologically superior for salvation. Thus, logically, obviously, if Jesus is our savior he MUST be ontologically superior to man. Since we only have two categories of being, created and self-existent, Jesus must fall into the category of self-existent. Q.E.D.

Simple, isn’t it? You see, if Jesus is taken out of the category of self-existent being, then you would be saying that any created being could have been the savior. That means, you, me, or almost anyone else could have, hypothetically, become a savior of mankind. What’s more, you could have many saviors, each with the necessary conditions, of course. That opens the door to false-christs and self-saving attitudes by man. It is the idea expressed in Gnosticism and many modern new-age ideas of Ascended Masters, world teachers, etc. If you take the unique divinity of Jesus away, you destroy the foundation of Christianity. Now do you get it?

This is why the Catholic Church and the Protestant Churches have been so adamant about the doctrine of the Trinity. Anyone trying to undermine this teaching is laying the foundation for denying Jesus as the unique savior of mankind.

The actual statement of the doctrine of the Trinity is found in the Nicene Creed. It is that Jesus is “begotten not made” indicating that he is ontologically superior to man and equal to God the Father. He is, therefore, of the same “substance” as God. Although this is a paradox that cannot be logically explained, the necessity of the Trinity can be logically derived from the nature of our salvation.

The doctrine of the Trinity is complex and involves a long history. It should not be casually discarded simply because it seems to go against common sense or because it is difficult to understand. Those still young in faith may not fully understand the importance, and really, as long as you hold to Jesus as savior, it isn’t necessary that you understand all the complexities. Simply put, the doctrine of the Trinity says that Jesus is divine, and thus capable of being our savior. Beware of the wolves in sheep’s clothing that would confuse this issue to the point that it becomes an open door to heresy and apostasy.

For further reading, see the following:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_of_the_Trinity#History

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea

God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? (Num 23:19)

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. (Joh 8:44)

How do you feel about someone who never keeps his word? I can’t stand it. If someone says they will do or not do a thing and then turns around and does the opposite it just really pisses me off. Even worse, if I catch myself failing to do what I said I would do, I get angry with myself! Yep. Unfortunately this is our normal condition. We say “I will do” and yet we “do not.”

In Biblical terms, we are talking about covenants here. If you make a covenant you have to keep it. Period. If you don’t want to be held to the terms and conditions, and don’t want to face the penalties for failure, don’t enter into the agreement in the first place. Simple, easy, no problem - except that our lives are filled with covenant making and breaking. Many of our covenants are implied rather than clearly stated. For example, if you sit down in a restaurant and order from the menu, you have created an implied covenant. You have agreed to pay for the meal at the price stated on the menu. If you go apply for a job and enter into service of another, you have created a covenant with you as the servant and another as the master. The limits of that servitude better be spelled out carefully if you don’t want to avoid total slavery!

We make covenants like that all the time, usually without even being aware of it. Then, when the implied covenant is broken, we have a tendency to scream and yell about how unfairly we are being treated. But, it’s not unfair to hold someone to a covenant. In fact, holding someone to a covenant is called justice, the highest of moral virtues. Mankind has, without realizing it, entered into a covenant with Satan against God. The evil, the suffering, the pain of this existence is not because God desired it, but because God will maintain the integrity of every covenant that we make - one way or another.

So what if you don’t want to make any covenants with God or against God? Fine. You are on your own. But remember about “implied covenants” and don’t you dare use for yourself anything that God has created for Himself. Get it? How are you going to get food and water or air to breathe? You didn’t create the Earth or the plants or the animals, so you are taking something that existed without you doing anything just in order to live. Oooops.

Throughout the Old Testament you see images of what happens to those who break their covenants with God. God holds them to the terms of the covenant, and sometimes (in fact most times) the failure to meet the covenant results in some pretty nasty goings-on. There is judgment followed by wrath all over the Bible. Whole nations are slaughtered, dying of famine, conquered, overrun by heathens, you name it. Of course those who want an excuse to hate God will point to all this madness and mayhem and blame it on God. They will say the “God of the Old Testament” (as if it were a different God somehow) is a vindictive, cruel tyrant. Look at all that wrath! Look at all the evil that happens! How can a good God do that or allow it to happen!!!

Oh puullleeease… What man wouldn’t do exactly the same thing to those who violate covenants with him? PUT THE JERK IN JAIL! MAKE HIM PAY! TAKE AWAY HIS STUFF! Yep. Why do you think they have all this animosity towards the “God of the Old Testament?” First, because they are hypocrites who will not allow the same consideration towards God that they demand for themselves. Second, because they don’t understand what God’s goodness really is…

Man defines good and evil in terms of man. Evil (or simply calamity if you prefer) is seen as those things that end human life or cause suffering, or pain, or anything else that does not lead to human pleasure. Good is then defined as the opposite of evil. But, notice that it is all centered around man, not God. God in those terms is only considered good if God is the servant of man’s pleasure. If God does anything other than create a nice little playground where man can do whatever man wants without harmful consequences they say God must be bad (or non-existent). Nice, huh? If God can’t be turned into a being who exists only to serve man, they will throw God out. That’s equally true of theists and atheists, by the way. Most religion just invents a fake god to serve man’s best interests and sell the fake god to any who will buy into it. At least the atheist is a little more honest about it.

Of course, in all the ranting and ravings and accusations they fail to mention the parts of the Bible that talk about mercy and forgiveness. They fail to mention that throughout the Bible God preserves, defends and benefits those who follow God’s ways. They tend to blame everything bad on God and everything good is awarded to man.

So let’s get this straightened out once and for all…

God is good. God’s goodness, however, is not defined using man’s wellbeing as the benchmark. God’s goodness is defined by what God says is good. Of course, that just really, really irritates the humanists. But, it’s the truth. God, to be God, must be thought of as the source of authority on what is good and what is not good. To define an ideal good that is above God is to reduce God to some lesser state of being. If we want to determine if God is good, we better understand what the difference really is between our idea of goodness and God’s idea of goodness.

The temptation is to just say that God considers good to be those things that benefit God. That would be taking the humanist attitude and applying it to God. The Bible’s answer is quite different. Often, God’s goodness results in things that are not pleasing to God. He is the one who sent Jesus into the world to redeem the world and allowed Jesus to be crucified for our sakes. Get the picture? God took the pain and suffering on Himself for all those who will….

HAVE FAITH.

Yep, that’s what God considers good: trustworthiness. And that is the message of good given throughout the Bible. Goodness means that someone can be trusted to do what he said he would do. The Israelites were promised that if they kept to the covenant given through Moses, God would bless them. If they did not hold to that covenant, there would be dire consequences. It all went down JUST LIKE GOD SAID IT WOULD. Get it? God’s word was true, accurate, and complete. But, God didn’t just promise rewards for the lawful and punishment for the lawless. He went beyond that and made a promise that seems impossible to fulfill while remaining consistent with His word:

Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people. …

Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. (Isa 55:1-4,7)

This is just one example of what I am talking about. God has said that even though we have failed, He will show mercy. He will provide the means to obtain what we need without our having to pay the price for it. Learn to read the spiritual meaning in verses like this. It is not the literal water and bread and wine and milk that are to be obtained without price. These are spiritual metaphors. The things that are needed in order that “your soul shall live” are not things we can purchase; they must be provided for us by another. If we will trust God, He will make an “everlasting covenant” with us and provide exactly those things that we need.

So, how do we know that this is possible? How do we know that we can trust God to give us life? That’s the point of the Bible, really. It shows over and over again that God’s word to us can be trusted, even if we don’t like the consequences, even if God desires something else. Unlike man, God does not go back on His word, even if it will cause Him pain and grief. He said that if man went against His ways, man would suffer because of it, and man has suffered. But, He has said He will redeem all those who run to Him, and He will. The price that had to be paid for our covenant breaking was paid by Jesus at the cross. God can remain true to what He said - that the result of sin is death - while giving us life.

His word is TRUE. He has kept His word, and we can trust Him. That makes God “good” even by the lowest standards of human thinking. And that is what the Bible says is different between man and God:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. (Isa 55:8-11)

What is different about God’s ways is that He always keeps to His word. If we diligently seek out Him, come to understand what He has said, we can call on Him to keep His word. God IS good, not like a man who lies. God keeps His covenants. This is the promise of God, the covenant He will make with us:

Thus saith the LORD, Keep ye judgment, and do justice: for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed. Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it; that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil. (Isa 56:1-2)

Once again, learn to read the spiritual metaphor. The “keeping of the Sabbath” is not referring to sitting around and not doing anything on the seventh day of the week. As Hebrews explains, we have our “rest” by appropriating the work of Jesus Christ. We cease from our futile attempts at righteousness, our constant covenant breaking, and rely on Jesus to fill us up with His righteousness. That is the water, bread and wine of spiritual life that we can obtain without price. He paid the price, and when we covenant with Him those things will give us life as well.

But, we are not to do evil. In other words, we are not to break covenant and turn again to our own ways. We are to claim the promise and hold fast to it.

There is something else here in Isaiah 56 that must be said again and again.

Neither let the son of the stranger, that hath joined himself to the LORD, speak, saying, The LORD hath utterly separated me from his people: neither let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree. For thus saith the LORD unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant; Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off. Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the LORD, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people. (Is. 56:3-7)

There are still today many who want to limit salvation to a specific race or type of people. They just don’t get it. God is God over all of mankind. He will redeem and save any who will call on Him. The strangers - those who were not of the chosen of Israel - would obtain a place equal to Israel. In other words, the only condition is to enter into God’s covenant through Jesus Christ. No other requirement is put in place. Thus, never let anyone say that God will not accept you because of what you have done, or who your parents were, or money, or health, or anything else. Isaiah stated it and Jesus confirmed it: A House of Prayer for ALL People.

That means you and me both, because, after all, God IS GOOD. All those who will come and enter into His everlasting covenant, He will save. God said it and He will do it.