During the first six days of creation God created everything by the power of His Word and after due examination declared it as good. And then He created man to rule over all of His creation in His authority and as His representative. And to guide and bless them he visited them every evening in the Garden of Eden, the place of abundance and blessings. In all of this and in His creation what is the best gift of God to mankind and how do we receive that?
How to identify God’s best? A father decided to distribute his property among his children and during the process he realized that due to a wrong calculation he had nothing left to give to the youngest son. He made a list of his ten best friends who had stood with him throughout his life and gave it to him. After a gap of two years he called all of them back to assess how much growth they had managed in their respective assets. To his surprise the youngest son with only the list of friends had turned out to be the most well off among them all. What was the best of the father to his children, the assets or the list of friends?
Even after sin God the Father did not break communication with mankind and instituted various ways to continue the dialogue. King David looked at the beauty of the entire universe, wherever he could see and said, ‘The heavens declare the glory of God; the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech and night unto night reveals knowledge’ (Psalm 19:1-2). Even the darkness of the night fills one with awe to see the moon, the stars and the vastness of it all. Everything works absolutely well, the beauty in its artistry and His kindness revealed in all of creation shouts aloud the glory of the Creator. But in what aspect of all this is God at His best?
The astronauts who traveled into space experienced the greatness of the earth from that height and were overwhelmed. Man fights for occupation of one part of the earth or space but it is now learnt that if one were to travel for a million years, he would still have probably travelled only up to a part of the creation. Surely this must be God’s best! But when we look at various parts of the earth with its various seasons, unique plants, flowers and the fruits, we presume that to be His best. We look at the sun and the moon and the stars, all in their proper places and the sun has not needed any recharge or the moon needing any fixing up. Surely that is God’s best part of creation. The various types of birds flying high in the sky, animals and beasts of the wild, each with its own specific uniqueness add to the diversity of all of creation. The plants, trees with all types of tasty fruits to sustain life on the earth also represent God’s best.
And after all of creation was in place God said, ‘Let us make man’ and He created him in His own ‘image and likeness’ (Genesis 1:26-28). And He gave dominion over everything to man to rule as God’s own representative on the earth. But we start looking at man and his character traits and start assuming God to be like man or maybe just a little bigger and greater. We look at all that man has achieved in the past through his efforts to make aircrafts, medicines that work in the affected body part to treat diseases. And man’s ability to think, analyze and solve difficult problems further affects our image of God in our hearts and then we start taking God lightly. God made man and woman with specific abilities but in all this we realize that despite all the qualities that mankind has, it is still God who created all this. God saw their effort when Man tried to reach up to the heavens above, by building a tower to make a name for themselves, and only confused their language without any punishment (Genesis 11:4-7). Therefore, this must be God at His best.
God performed various miracles in Egypt by the hand of Moses to get His people freed from slavery. God must have been at His best while parting the Red Sea, or getting water from the rock sufficient for two to three million people and their livestock. Or when He provided Manna to them for their food every day for forty years, surely that is God’s best. We look at God from our limited perspective with our limited knowledge and understanding. But God looks at us from His own view for he is the great ‘I AM’ who is aware of everything about the past, present and the future. He knew beforehand about the fall of Lucifer and mankind, yet still He let them be created. This merciful act must be God’s best.
Even after that God has still permitted mankind to be what they want to be and bound Himself by promising to never destroy them by a flood (Genesis 9:11). Since mankind had forgotten about their original image and purpose at creation time, God came down to the earth, communicated with a man, Moses, to give them His laws to lead them into His ways (Exodus 20). God called the Israelites His people and wanted them to be different from the other nations around the Promised Land that he had given them. Yet they hurt Him by seeking a king for themselves like others and the LORD told Samuel, the prophet, ‘they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them’ (1 Samuel 8:5-7). Surely this was God’s best to allow them to do what they wanted and still blessed them.
And then the ‘LORD looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. They have all turned aside, they have together become corrupt, there is none who does good, no, not one’ (Psalm 14:2-3). God did not abandon them and kept on sending His prophets to them to help them mend their evil ways and turn to Him but they continued in their own ways. The just God did not inflict any punishment on mankind but instead completed His justice by putting all of His wrath on His own Son by making Him suffer all that mankind was to undergo. The Son also underwent all that, though being sinless He became sin for us. Surely His Son and His sacrifice on the cross is the best that God has done.
What can be better than the sacrifice of the Redeemer? The state of the Son of God astonished all those who looked at Him as He was being forced to carry the weight of the cross for ‘His visage was marred more than any other man, and His form more than the sons of men’ (Isaiah 52:14). Though none of His bones was broken in fulfillment of the prophecy of Psalm 34:20, yet the face was unrecognizable and the back and rest of the body were ripped apart by innumerable wounds of scourging and beating. ‘Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief’ (Isaiah 53:10) for it was declared by God about bringing enmity between the seed of woman and the devil. And that ‘He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel’ (Genesis 3:15). God became flesh and not only dwelt among men but was dependent on mankind for His daily needs (John 1:14). The best of God was man being made in His image and likeness but still more than that was God putting on humanity and becoming one of us.
Many women supported Lord Jesus and ‘provided for Him from their substance’ (Luke 8:2-3). A woman during those days was under the control of her father and later her husband and had no rights, so much so that she was not even permitted to study the Scriptures. Lord Jesus not only accepted their support but it was the women who were the first to receive the news about His resurrection from the two angels at the tomb (Luke 24:5-6). Not only that, the Risen Lord appointed Mary Magdalene as the first evangelist to proclaim the news of His resurrection by telling her, ‘go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God’ ((John 20:15-17). But the disciples did not believe the message of triumph from these women. Surely God doing all this to bring equality for the woman must be His best.
If I was asked to sacrifice either one of my two daughters to rescue someone from going to hell, I will not even consider that, for who can do such a thing. Abraham was asked by God to sacrifice his son Isaac but at the last moment stopped him by providing a ram as the sacrificial offering (Genesis 22:2-&12). However, when His Son was put on the cross, nails were put into His hands and feet, people ridiculed Him for six hours, while every breath was painful for Him, God did not intervene. For mankind surely that was God and His Son at their best.
At any time during His stay on the earth, Lord Jesus, as Commander of the army of the LORD God, had thousands of angels at His command. Yet He tolerated all opposition, torture, ridicule and suffering alone and accepted the worst punishment that a worst criminal could be given and then being amidst the two criminals. God the Father in heaven and all the heavenly army, could have destroyed all things on the earth, yet nothing was stopped. Surely this is God’s best to redeem mankind from the clutches of sin and death to make all believers as part of His own family and citizens of His kingdom
Lord Jesus warned and prayed for the disciples that their faith may not fail when attacked by the devil ‘to sift them as wheat’. All deserted Him and Apostle Simon Peter denied Him thrice. But the Lord, amidst all His sufferings ‘turned and looked at Peter’, the look of love and forgiveness, not condemnation (Luke 22:61-62). He forgave our sins by taking all that on Himself for all of us have denied Him through our continuation in sinful living, yet He loves us still. To these same disciples Lord Jesus asked, ‘Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?’ to receive a positive answer (John 21:15-17). The question was repeated three times to wipe out his conscience of that stigma of denial and each time great responsibility was also given to him. God even talking to him is beyond me but our Lord has a task for each of us despite our background. That is God’s best.
Apostle Paul saw the knowledge of God’s light of His greatness being made ‘to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ (2 Corinthians 4:6-7). And this treasure is passed on to us, ‘earthen vessels’ that are perishable so that we may proclaim His love to others. God is ‘just and faithful to forgive us our sins and cleans us from all unrighteousness’ if we confess these to Him (1 John 1:9). God was not the best at the time of creation of heaven and earth, not in making man, not while parting the Red Sea or giving manna for forty years from heaven, not the miracles and not even in the virgin birth. But God continues to talk to mankind, that has rebelled against Him and rejected Him, that is His best.
God waits patiently for us to turn to Him while providing us all possible help to get to know him through various means. God is at His best when in His compassion He changes lives through healing of the body and the soul of those who seek Him. God is at His best while blessing us while knowing that many may never come back to Him again. God is at His best when strengthening us during our times of trouble, pain and suffering, when He assures us of a prepared place, earmarked for each of us in His Father’s house (John 14:2-3). And not only that, when He assures us to come back to take us back with Himself.
God is not His best in raising a dead person to life for he will perish yet again after a few years, but He is at His best when He gives new birth to a lost sinner like me and endows us with His Holy Spirit. He is at His best when He empowers each one of us to be useful and productive members of His family and kingdom to reach out to others with the message of His love. Surely God’s love, compassion, mercy and grace display his best for mankind and that is the greatest gift from Him.
Why do we miss great blessings from such a loving God? Right from the time of creation the forces of darkness have always presented the blessings of God negatively (Genesis 3:5). We are tempted to do all that God has done for us with self efforts and that is why Eve ate the Forbidden Fruit to be what God had made them, in His likeness and image. God is at His best as a Redeemer of His people to keep them in a close relationship with Himself. We were made rulers of the earth at creation and God in His grace and mercy made us joint heirs with His Son of all that is His in heaven and earth. Prophet Elisha asked for a double portion of his teacher and mentor (guru) Prophet Elijah’s spirit and received it (2 Kings 2:9). Lord Jesus has blessed all of His disciples that, ‘The works that I do you will do also, and greater works than these you will do’ (John 14:12). This blessing for the disciples to be able to do all this, must surely be God at His best.
But we are always eager to prove to God that we can do better than what He wants to do for and through us. The believers in Jerusalem contributed their resources for the well being of everyone and many sold off their possessions, though no one had asked them to do so. Ananias and his wife Sapphira, after selling their possession, kept part of the money while telling a lie to Apostle Peter about offering the whole amount (Acts 5:1-10). The Apostle confronted each one of them saying, ‘You have not lied to men but to God’. On hearing this first Ananias and later his wife also ‘fell down dead’. The devil is ever ready to lead us to believe in our own efforts and resources. Those who do not believe the Word of God and His salvation do so, for their minds ‘the god of this world has blinded’ (2 Corinthians 4:4).
God created man only after all that he would ever need was already in place and even today He never places anyone in a situation that is beyond him. Apostle Paul says the same to all believers that the LORD God ‘with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it’ (1 Corinthians 10:13). Moses cried out to God for help when they had the Red Sea in front and the Egyptian army behind them. But God commanded him to ‘tell the children of Israel to go forward. But lift up your rod and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it’ (Exodus 14:15-16). We feel overwhelmed by such a command but with God helping us, we are equipped to do the impossible.
The best of God for all mankind is not only the gift of His Son and His sacrifice, His resurrection and ascension into heaven but His desire to have a close relationship with us. The presence of the Holy Spirit in each of us is proof of that but many link His presence with the manifestation of His gifts, especially of speaking in tongues. With this we disbelieve God’s promise, remain lost in the wilderness and refuse to enter the Promised Land, which He has also decreed for us. God cannot be blamed for our attitude for it is like a person marooned in a flood, refusing help from a rescue team in a boat and then in a helicopter while waiting for God to personally come and rescue him. God uses His people to provide help but we want to experience something supernatural in our lives, what the devil urged Lord Jesus to do by jumping off the ‘pinnacle of the Temple’ (Matthew 4:6).
The promise is absolutely clear, ‘Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you’ (Matthew 7:7).This is the best promise of God and the best gift to all humanity from God and God has paid the heaviest price possible to ensure this for us. Believe, receive and live a blessed life in His presence or perish under our own efforts in finding joy and peace in a world full of tribulation. We have to make the choice!
As per Scripture a mother can forget her sucking child but God’s love and blessings for His people will never fail. A child of God may go astray but our Lord has promised to come looking for His lost sheep and even for those who do not belong to His sheepfold. But if some lost sheep is unwilling to be found or rescued and deliberately hides while refusing to listen to His call, who can then save such a one? God never forces His will on anyone and we have to make the choice.
