I will be their God, in truth and in righteousness-Zech. 8:8.
These words go far deeper than the necessary Divine relation to all His
creatures. He is a God to every star that burns, and to every worm that
creeps, and to every gnat that dances for a moment. But there is a close
relation, and more blessed, than that. He is a God to every man that lives,
lavishing upon him manifestations of His Divinity, and sustaining him in
life. But within these great and wondrous universal relations which spring
from the very fact of creative power and creatural dependence, there is a
tender, a truer relationship of heart to heart, of spirit to spirit, which
is set forth as the prerogative of the men that trust in Jesus Christ. The
special does not contradict or deny the universal, the universal does not
exclude the special: "I will be a God to them" [Heb. 8:10], in a deeper,
more blessed, soul-satisfying, and vital sense than to others around them.
And what lies in that great promise passes the wit of man and the tongues of
angels fully to conceive and tell. All that lies in that majestic
monosyllable, which is shorthand for life and light and all perfectness,
lived in a living person who has a heart, that word God-all that is included
in that, God will be God to you and me if we like to have Him for such. "I
will be a God to them"-then around them shall be cast the bulwark of the
ever lasting arm and the everlasting purpose. "I will be a God to them"-then
in all dark places there will be a light, and in all perplexities there will
be a path, and in all anxieties there will be quietness, and in all troubles
there will be a hidden light of joy, and in every circumstance life will be
saturated with an Almighty Presence which shall make the rough places plain
and the crooked things straight. "I will be a God to them"-then their
desires, their hungering after blessedness, their seeking after good need no
longer roam open-mouthed and empty throughout a waste world, where there is
only scanty fodder, enough to keep them from expiring, and never enough food
to satisfy them; but in Him longings and hopes will all find their
appropriate satisfaction. And there will be rest in God, and whatsoever
aspirations after loftier goodness, and whatsoever base hankerings still
lingering may have to be cherished and fought, the strength of a present God
will enable us to aspire, and not to be disappointed, and to cast ourselves
into the conflict, and be ever victorious. "I will be to them a God" is the
same as to say that everything which my complex nature can require I shall
find in Him
In Celebration of Life in Him,
Dr. Jim DeBruhl, gembeaux@bellsouth.net
Everything is wrong until God makes it right
