Illumine Church

While you probably think of a courtroom and a black robe when you think of judgment, if you can transport your thinking to a county fair or the cooking channel, you might start thinking of someone sitting down to test and rate a dish - a judge of whether or not something is good, tasteful, and of a certain quality. God encourages this - not with food, but as you experience the world, different mes...

One of the most common words in the Hebrew Old Testament for judgment has to do with the law, judge-pronouncing-judgment, and courtroom - which is probably the most common way we talk about judgment today in English, too. The image of a "justice system" working to uphold the laws is powerful, and the idea of God as that kind of neutral, objective, cold/stern/righteous judge is a common idea. The g...

That is the question, isn't it? And an answer is: ";Don't judge." or "Don't judge me." or"Don't be judge-y." But if that's our answer, it is incomplete. Because the Bible says more. Today, we find out what comes after, "Don't judge."

"I got this." ...is a phrase that may be true, but may not be best. In our world, and especially in our American culture, we value individualism. We may think we should be able to stand all on our own. We may think that just doing things ourselves is the easiest, most efficient way to do things. We may be anxious about opening ourselves up to dependence on others. We may be anxious that if we do o...

"God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array." God created everything, including humanity and nature, in a way that was perfect. Today we see how humans depend on the nature God created, how nature depends on us, and the attitude we ought to have towards all of God's creation.

Because God is God, and we are not, it’s somewhat simple to understand that God designed us to depend on him (though we frankly quite often don’t think and act that way in our everyday lives). But what’s harder to grasp is how God designed us in such a way that he depends on us. And yet all at the same time, we depend on him. Back and forth. Interdependence.

Interdependence is the proper posture in which to live, and has inherent value, for 2 reasons: it’s the way God is, and it’s the way he designed us.