Emily Adomanis

(partial) transcription of Allen Hood’s “The Playfulness of God” (1 of 4)

Oh! But there is confusion in the body of Christ…It’s as if we come into the kingdom, we believe in Jesus because we’re told we have to, to be born again and live forever. Then once we come in we’re so confused and we just do things in order to earn His favor. We just hope that if we get the right combination right He’ll like me maybe…No, it’s not going to be like that. God is not like that. God is not moody. He’s not capricious. He never has a bad, moody day. He never wakes up on the wrong side of the bed. Every moment, 24 hours a day, His heart is dreaming of ways to encounter you! He has mental genius incomparable in its focus right on you. But the reason why we are in confusion is we have no idea who we were made to be and where we are going at the end. If we understand that, it breaks off one massive thing, the misery of living in shame. Let me tell you, there is a no more miserable thing to be a Christian and not be able to enjoy God. It’s horrible! Think of the millions of Christians who never are able to enjoy God! And it’s all about Him! There’s only one good thing about being in the kingdom of God…it’s God! There’s only one good thing about heaven…it’s Him! And beloved, when He comes back to earth there’s only going to be one good thing about that…it’s Him! God. He’s awesome and He’s beautiful. But we have no idea the height from which we’ve fallen. God purchased us with royal blood for one reason, He wants to enjoy you!

I remember in my life I would argue with Him about all the little things I’d done. I’d plead, and bargain and beg that He’d hopefully like me. I remember the time He spoke to me, He said,

“Allen! You keep thinking all these little things are your problem! You have a much bigger issue with me! You have a whole bigger issue with me that we have to set straight than these little things you think you’re doing wrong…” He says, “They’re serious, but I have a much more serious problem…you hate the very thing I died for. You don’t like that which I love, and gave everything for! You hate you! You don’t like your life! You think you’ve got the wrong package. You think if you could have that person’s package…if you could just be like Mike you would have the God thing down and know that you’re His favorite… You don’t like you and I’m madly in love with you! We have a massive problem! You see, we’re incompatible in the way you’re thinking right now. You hate what I love! You hide in shame because you hate what I love. You despise yourself. We’re incompatible…and until you change, guess what? I don’t change. I’m not budging on this issue.”

You cannot talk God out of loving you. Your quiet time cannot talk Him out and your accusing voices can’t convince Him you’re not worth it. Even in your most suicidal moment he says, “bah humbug! I’m not listening! I shed royal blood to get you! I purchased you with the very life force that I had in my own being. I poured it out. I came as a man, I humbled myself. I courted you and tried to fascinate your heart…and at the very fullness of time I even gave myself for you. I broke the power of death! I came out of the grave! I am convinced that I’m going to have you or nobody will! You can’t talk me out of it. I’m lovesick.”

You see, we have no idea who we are. We speak of the cross only in the terms of legal atonement. We say, Jesus came to atone for our sin. He bailed us out. He was the righteous layer who came and made a defense before the Righteous Judge, the Father. We were on trial and in the middle of the court scene, when we we’re about to get the death penalty, the layer says, “I’ll take it. They’re a mess but Father, I’ll do it”. And He takes the punishment. And now the layer rises from the dead and says, “I did it. I was an atoning sacrifice for your sin. Believe in me, and you’ll live. If you don’t, you won’t. And I’m watching you very closely…because I gave My life to make up for your mess and the least you can do is get it right!”

That’s how we picture Him! Let me tell you…you were not born in a courtroom! And you’re not going to a courtroom! And the cross is not just about legal equital! It’s about a lovesick God who dreamed up a creature that’s so noble that He’s willing to take on your form and give His life for you! Do you know who we are!? We have no idea the height from which we’ve fallen! Our hearts accuse us. The enemy rages against us. And there’s a lone voice in the wilderness shouting, “it’s not true! I formed you in your mother’s womb! You are the nobility of another age! I’m madly in love with you! I’ve made you an image barer of myself! There’s no other creature like you…and you can’t talk me out of it. I’m lovesick.”

Let me tell you, your God is no passive judge. He is a turbulent, burning, fiery, passionate, ardent lover and you’re the one creature He’s set His affections on. Deuteronomy 10:14 says this, the heavens are His, the highest heavens are His, and the earth and everything in them…He owned it all but he set His affections on you. What do you do when a burning, jealous being sets His affections on you? We’re talking the ultimate stalker in the universe. For real. He will stalk you all the way to the pit of hell to win your love. But this one’s not violent…He gives his own life that you can live. He comes after you. He’s waiting at every turn. He’s setting up ambushes. He seems to think He has the right to enjoy you. He seems to have it in His mind that He loves you like no other creature and is willing to go to the depths to get you. You can’t talk Him out of it.

“A generation of Christians reared among push buttons and automatic machines is impatient of slower and less direct methods of reaching their goals. We have been trying to apply machine-age methods to our relations with God. We read our chapter, have our short devotions, and rush away, hoping to make up for our deep inward bankruptcy by attending another gospel meeting or listening to another thrilling story told by a religious adventurer lately returned from afar. The tragic results of this spirit are all about us. Shallow lives, hollow religious philosophies, the preponderance of the element of fun in gospel meetings, the glorification of men, trust in religious externalities, quasi-religious fellowships, salesmanship methods, the mistaking of dynamic personality for the power of the Spirit; these and such as these are the symptoms of an evil disease, a deep and serious malady of the soul.”

Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen; such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on earth. God does nothing but in answer to prayer. — John Wesley

I picked up E.M. Bounds On Prayer. It is like a million pages long and 8 font…yet every word is so rich. I’ve been doing quite an extensive study on intercession and prayer…there will be a blog soon about it. Until then, read this and get stirred up…

“Only glimpses of the great importance of prayer could the apostles get before Pentecost. But the Spirit coming and filling on Pentecost elevated prayer to its vital and all-commanding position in the gospel of Christ. The call now of prayer to every saint is the Spirit’s loudest and most exigent call. Sainthood’s piety is made, refined, perfected, by prayer. The gospel moves with slow and timid pace when the saints are not at their prayers early and late and long.

Where are the Christly leaders who can teach the modern saints how to pray and put them at it? Do we know we are raising up a prayerless set of saints? Where are the apostolic leaders who can put God’s people to praying? Let them come to the front and do the work, and it will be the greatest work which can be done. An increase of educational facilities and a great increase of money force will be the direst curse to religion if they are not sanctified by more and better praying than we are doing. More praying will not come as a matter of course. The campaign for the twentieth or thirtieth century fund will not help our praying but hinder if we are not careful. Nothing but a specific effort from a praying leadership will avail. The chief ones must lead in the apostolic effort to radicate the vital importance and fact of prayer in the heart and life of the Church. None but praying leaders can have praying followers. Praying apostles will beget praying saints. A praying pulpit will beget praying pews. We do greatly need some body who can set the saints to this business of praying. We are not a generation of praying saints. Non-praying saints are a beggarly gang of saints who have neither the ardor nor the beauty nor the power of saints. Who will restore this breach? The greatest will he be of reformers and apostles, who can set the Church to praying.

We put it as our most sober judgment that the great need of the Church in this and all ages is men of such commanding faith, of such unsullied holiness, of such marked spiritual vigor and consuming zeal, that their prayers, faith, lives, and ministry will be of such a radical and aggressive form as to work spiritual revolutions which will form eras in individual and Church life.

We do not mean men who get up sensational stirs by novel devices, nor those who attract by a pleasing entertainment; but men who can stir things, and work revolutions by the preaching of God’s Word and by the power of the Holy Ghost, revolutions which change the whole current of things.

Natural ability and educational advantages do not figure as factors in this matter; but capacity for faith, the ability to pray, the power of thorough consecration, the ability of self-littleness, an absolute losing of one’s self in God’s glory, and an ever-present and insatiable yearning and seeking after all the fullness of God — men who can set the Church ablaze for God; not in a noisy, showy way, but with an intense and quiet heat that melts and moves everything for God.

God can work wonders if he can get a suitable man. Men can work wonders if they can get God to lead them. The full endowment of the spirit that turned the world upside down would be eminently useful in these latter days. Men who can stir things mightily for God, whose spiritual revolutions change the whole aspect of things, are the universal need of the Church.

The Church has never been without these men; they adorn its history; they are the standing miracles of the divinity of the Church; their example and history are an unfailing inspiration and blessing. An increase in their number and power should be our prayer.

That which has been done in spiritual matters can be done again, and be better done. This was Christ’s view. He said “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.” The past has not exhausted the possibilities nor the demands for doing great things for God. The Church that is dependent on its past history for its miracles of power and grace is a fallen Church.

God wants elect men — men out of whom self and the world have gone by a severe crucifixion, by a bankruptcy which has so totally ruined self and the world that there is neither hope nor desire of recovery; men who by this insolvency and crucifixion have turned toward God perfect hearts.

Let us pray ardently that God’s promise to prayer may be more than realized.”