Chris Toth - Pastor, People’s Church, Kipling, SK

Are we allowed to recycle jokes? I wanted to refer to that one last week about the Ten Commandments that Pastor Lincoln included in his article. You remember, everyone lined up at the gates while the Ten Commandments are read out one by one and those that had broke the Commandments were sent away. Then God sees who is left, the most self righteous, grim faced, and joyless of the lot, and calls everyone else back! (I think I’m missing something in the punch line!) But the joke begs the question, Does God have Fun? Is He interested in pleasure? Can God have a good time and does that good time include me?

The Bible is a record of how God enters into relationships with people through out History and there are two very strong themes that happen over and over again. God is either Blessing people or Cursing them. Much more is often made of the curses, and I think that it is because it makes for better movies! In a world that is fed by action there is nothing like recounting the curses of the past (Prince of Egypt) or the curses to come (the Left Behind Movies). With flashing of lightning, the crash of hail stones and fire falling from the sky, not to mention the battles between angels and demons, it is no wonder that the Curses of God get more air play.

Yet the reality is that God has built us for a relationship of Blessing. The Letter to the Ephesians in the New Testament makes sure that we understand how much God is pleased with us and has good things to make us happy. Here are three quick examples:

1. Ephesians 2:10a (NLT), “For we are God’s masterpiece.” According to Genesis, humans are the only part of Creation that were made by God’s hands. Everything else was created by words, but God put His best work into us. No matter what we think, God is already happy with us because we are the Masterpieces that He has made!

2. Ephesians 1:5 (NLT), “God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.” I find it amazing that God would find pleasure in having a relationship with us but then I am reminded of His friend Enoch from Genesis 5. They had such a close friendship that God took Enoch to heaven without Enoch having to die. God could not stand being without His friend! It is this same kind of friendship with us that gives God pleasure.

3. Ephesians 3:19 (NLT), “May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.” If we were to do a comparison between our ability for us to understand God versus the enormousness of God, it would be like trying to pour the Ocean into a puddle! Even though we are limited in how much we can take in, all the fullness of God’s Power and Love are available to us, so that we can live life to the greatest extent of Joy.

When I look at these examples, I can’t help but think that God is better to us than the picture of the Old Man in the Sky playing cosmic “Whack-A-Mole” with us every time that we do something wrong. Quite simply, God is pleased to be our friend. You have the opportunity to make God happy because He is first happy with you!