Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth
them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.
But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood
and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour. If a man therefore purge himself
from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master's use,
and prepared unto every good work (2 Tim.2:19-21).
Who might aspire to understand the nature of all things? Would it be the scientists who
examine physical evidences of a creation they do not know? Or would it be those who see
nature as the power itself, as though it almost has a consciousness guiding it to move as
it does? Perhaps the one who truly seeks to understand the nature of all things, is the
one who resigns to be inadequate to ever truly know. For though what we call nature might
be awesome in its force and movements, there is behind what we call nature a super (or
higher) nature found in He who controls what is and what will be.
There is no mother nature, only Father God. Nature has not mothered us nor brought our
souls to be. To claim so is to take the credit from the God who created us and fashioned
us in His form, and then to hand it over to a nonexistent personification of what His very
hand has made. We are not the result of chaotic chance or an accident of nature, but we
are part of a plan of God, intentionally designed with a purpose. All that is, all that we
see and all that is to come were set into motion with all the thoughtfulness of our Lord.
We and all creation are not a natural happening--we are a supernatural development, to say
otherwise is to diminish the Handiwork of the Creator.
So what are we if not natural? I would have to contend that we are subnatural. The reason
being is that what we call supernatural would perhaps best be called natural, for it is
within the ways of God that things were meant to be from the beginning. We say that God
holds true to His nature, and He does, and He created us in His image and in His nature.
We, therefore, were created so that God's own nature would be that which is natural within
us. Yet, sin has entered in and we have fallen from the nature we were designed to
follow--fallen to a subnature--for we no longer function according to His purpose for us,
but have moved beneath it.
From this standpoint, it is easy to see why we see God as supernatural. But what is really
the case is that God is Natural and we are subnatural. For if we were not to have fallen,
the supernatural would seem to be what is natural. We would stand in awe of God not
because He does miracles, but simply because of who He is--within His nature.
If we could but confess that we are subnatural, and that we have not lived up to the
natural design for which God created us, perhaps then we could grasp the potential that
God has placed within us. It's like having a car that was designed to go 120 mph, but you
can only get it to get up to about 60; that is not the performance level at which it was
designed to run, but somewhere along the way we accept it--or we get it fixed. We have
been designed in the image and nature of God to function at what we would call a
supernatural level. But that is not because it is beyond the scope of possibility--it is
simply because we have all settled for far less than our potential.
Just like a car, we can do what we were designed to do. With the proper care and
maintenance, we can go the distance. Like speed limits on the highway, we too have
standards that we cannot exceed, but few of us would settle for a car that can only go 30
in a 65 on the interstate. So why have we settled for it in regard to how God has made us
to function?
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