Partners With God Series

Chuck Swindoll was told this true story of Joe Gibbs, head coach

of the Washington Red Skins. Joe's friend Frank looked out the

window one morning and there was his faithful Labrador Retriever

sitting on the front porch with something hanging from the dog's

jaws. A closer look revealed it was his neighbor's pet rabbit. Frank

panicked-what was he to do? His mind raced through the options,

and landed on one he thought was best.

He pulled the rabbit from his dogs mouth, and brought it into his

kitchen. He washed off all the dirt and gunk. Then he too it into the

bathroom and pulled out the hair dryer and blew the dead creature

until it was nice and fluffy. For a dead rabbit it looked quite nice.

That night after dark Frank crawled over the back fence and placed

the dead rabbit back in his cage. He then slipped back through the

darkness, hopped the fence, and breathed a sigh of relief. His scheme

seemed perfect until the next morning when there was a loud

banging on his front door. When frank opened it, there was his

neighbor with the dead rabbit clutched in his hand. "Frank," he

said, "we have a real sicko in the neighborhood. My rabbit died

three days ago and I buried it in the back. Some nut dug it up and

cleaned it off, and stuck it back in the hutch."

You can just imagine how stupid Frank must have felt in hearing

the facts which totally altered his whole perception of reality. He

had totally misread the evidence and assumed his dog had killed the

rabbit. It is amazing how we can turn reality into fiction by not

knowing the facts. Most of the major divisions of history that put

men at odds with one another are based on this demonic inspired

ability to jump to conclusions without the facts. Men are forever

trying to make divisions where the Word of God is making unity.

Men often live in a world of fiction of their own making, and not the

real world that God has made.

Man tries to divide the more female feeling approach to life, and

the more male intellectual approach, and thus, separate the head

and the heart. Paul makes all who so think feel stupid, for he links

the two together as one, and says that love is to abound more and

more in knowledge. Man tries to divide life into the good things and

the bad things-the positive events, and the negative events. But Paul

says that this neat classification is an exercise in futility, for God

uses the bad things and negative events for our good, and His glory.

You cannot compartmentalize life and keep the good and bad

separate, for going to prison was the way God advanced the Gospel

through Paul. The good and bad are linked together.

Man tries to separate the bad preachers from the good ones by

focusing on their motives, but Paul says that what matters is not the

motive, but the message, and so all the differences are not the issue,

but the unity of all who preach Christ. The fact of the united

message changes the whole picture of how you see the great

variations and divisions of the church. Man is constantly looking for

ways to divide and separate. God is looking for constant ways to

link and unite. Division is the goal of man, but unity is the goal of

God.

Man tries to say there are saints and non-saints, but Paul says, all

who are in Christ are saints. Man says, there are clergy and lay

people. Paul says to the Philippians, you are partners with me in the

Gospel. There is no division in Christ. Man says, there is male and

female in Christ, but Paul says, there is neither male nor female, and

in 4:3 he says, the women equally contended for the Gospel at his

side. Paul says, you cannot even divide between God and man, for

in chapter 2 he says, God became man, and in Jesus Christ the

divine and the human were linked forever as one. Men love to

distinguish between what is human and what is divine less in mixing

the two the divine gets contaminated. Apparently God was not

worried about this, for He sent His Son to enter wholly into human

nature. We don't have to worry that God will be offended by

linking man to Him as partner.

It is true that man at best is sinful, and God is holy, and some

things don't mix well, like gas and water; sin and holiness. We don't

want to pretend like many cults do, that man is God. There will be

an eternal distinction between man and God, and man will never be