God's Perfectly Created Structure and Order

This week, a number of articles appeared in the popular press that describe a huge gash on Jupiter that was just formed by a collision with a meteor. Here is the link to the LA Times story on the phenomenon:

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-jupiter22-2009jul22,0,5215362.story

Hugh Ross, a Christian Astrophysicist, has written about how miraculously finely tuned Jupiter’s size and location and path of travel in the solar system is in order to keep earth from being struck by space objects. Jupiter is so large that it could hold 1,400 earths! See http://www.reasons.org/jupiters-size-and-location. If the size and location and path of travel of Jupiter were just slightly off, life on earth more than likely would have long ago been destroyed.

In The Truth Project, we learn that this created order also applies to social systems – that just as Jupiter is finely tuned to protect the earth, God’s created order of the family is essential to protect who God made us to be.

I was contemplating this as I swam laps in the pool and lost count. I started thinking about how many laps I “felt” like I swam. You can imagine playing golf and entering your score based on how you “feel” like you did, or playing baseball based on how you “felt” like you hit the ball. As soon as we allow our feelings to circumvent the order and rules of the sport or activity, we destroy the activity or sport. There is a clear objective standard governing how we are to play the game. We have to follow the rules. If you are pulled over for speeding, a claim that “I didn’t feel like I was driving too fast,” isn’t likely to cut it. When you weigh yourself on the scale, it is not a question of how much you feel like you weigh - there is an objective standard by which things are measured.

The same is true with God’s created order in marriage. Marriage is glorious and fulfilling when we follow God’s design and order. When we don’t “feel” like it and try to remake it in our own image, according to our feelings, it loses the glory and purpose of God and the results are usually disastrous.

As Del Tackett stated, we have taken the glory of the word “submit” (Jesus Christ submitting to the will of the Father for the glory of God and the blessing of all of us) and replaced it with how we feel. We have also taken the “authority” of the husband and used it in ugly ways that destroy God’s design for marriage and crush the life of the godly wife. How we all need to continually be transformed into the image of the nature and character of Jesus Christ, that we may bring glory to God’s design and blessing to others. As men sacrificially and unconditionally love their wives as Christ loved and sacrificed Himself for the church, and as wives demonstrate respect and honor for their husbands, people around us will see the cycle of grace and blessing in our lives and be attracted to the author and perfecter/finisher of our lives and our marriages. Words like submission are not legalistic mandates in Scripture, they are intended to help us thrive within the structure and order of God's glorious design. The best way to counter the attacks on marriage and the family, and efforts to redesign these institutions, is to model the grace and love and glory of marriage and the family that wholeheartedly reflects the presence of Jesus Christ.