A God of Order

I have been dealing with a lot of questions about our God to be a God of order while there are also others who will argue that God is also a God of spontaneity and we can’t put Him in a box and limit Him to certain rules and order.

There are 2 biblical references where Paul refers to both of them: 1 Cor. 14:40 NAB says “…everything must be done properly and in order” and in 2 Cor. 3:17 NAB also says “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” Of course, as we know, God does not contradict Himself and even Paul who wrote on 2 occasions addressing the same church and people does not intend to contradict himself.

The physical laws of nature (we refer to them as natural laws) demonstrate the order that God has caused. Ordered systems or structures do not happen by accident, never without an intelligent cause to direct the order.  If we hold all the parts of a watch and regardless how many times we throw them in the air, they will not fall down in order and assemble themselves accordingly. You will need a pair of hands and the logic of a mind to assemble it and put all the pieces into its proper place, sequence and order.

However, as I reflect on the many attributes of God and being a God of order is one of them, I have realized that while it is true, I can say that it is not His highest or the most important attribute. He doesn’t cause order because of His compulsion about perfection but He causes order as a necessity to express His love. And so the perfect order of His creation is about love and not about being organized.

Some few months ago, quite a number of my FB friends were hitting “Like” left and right about a video by somebody named Jefferson Bethke’s entitled “Why I Love Jesus but hate religion.” It stirred up a lot of debate but obviously I have come to realize that truly a lot of us have failed to see from the beginning that there is something wrong with the message and it is actually harmful. I have dealt with this issue by posting several good explanations why the video of Jefferson should not hold and I am not going to deal with that here anymore. I am mentioning this because it has something to do with I believe.

I believe that God has willed to leave us a Church so we can be put into order. “When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted” (Mt. 28:17 NAB). This happened immediately before His great commissioning and ascension into heaven and every time I encounter this verse, I feel some kind of relief because I know that I am not alone. That these people who have personally witness Jesus dying on the cross and powerfully rose from the dead as He promised will still have that window in their faith to doubt. So I can have excuse if I doubt from time to time.

I believe Jesus fully understood our human failings and brokenness that even after showing himself to His followers 3 days from a death they all witnessed, we will continue to have doubts and reservations on things we have seen and have believed. The verse ended by Christ’s commissioning the 12 apostles … “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of age.” Note that Jesus did not say… I am with you until you die and neither He meant that the 12 will live for 2000 years or more. With this, He perpetuates His Church as we all know that has been founded on the apostles with the bishops as their successors.

This is the same Church, we strive to follow some order and hierarchy as God has designed her to be the channel of His love and mercy. He endowed with spontaneity so we can celebrate the many gifts of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in our community. We cannot profess to love Jesus and hate the religion and the Church that He has established. As faith is a gift, we have received it through her.

For those who have been trained to be organized and orderly, we will need to find the source of that compulsion. And unless otherwise, it is motivated by our own consciousness to express the love of God that He has allowed us to experience, then we will realize that our compulsion for order and organization are self-serving designed to feed our emotions and ego.

It is time to realize, it is God who creates and puts everything to order. Our role is not to create but to participate in His creation. When we come into terms with this, then we will see that we only need to follow the leading of His natural laws that He has given us and we will stop fighting one another, especially those who we call brothers and sisters.