Is God a Social Worker and we his clients?

By: Rev. Robert Vergeson D.D.

Is God a Social Worker and we his clients?

Now isn’t that a strange question to ask? But think about it for a moment, assuming that most of my readers are up on their knowledge about God in general and the science of social work. Could it be possible that God is the father of social work. I mean what is social work but a “generic term applied to the various organized methods for promoting human welfare through the prevention and relief of suffering.” A social worker is a person who through knowledge of the science of social work, sociology, and related fields, practices their chosen field by conducting a professional relationship with clients. Clients who need intervention and promotion of human welfare on a level that reduces suffering from the many ills of our society. Now in a nutshell, doesn’t that describe God and his relationship with us.

From the beginning as we find in Genesis 5:3-5 we have the first mention of the “Family” of humankind, and the beginning of God’s relationship with that family...

Genesis 5:1-6
This is the history of the descendants of Adam. When God created people, he made them in the likeness of God. [2] He created them male and female, and he blessed them and called them "human."

[3] When Adam was 130 years old, his son Seth was born, and Seth was the very image of his father. [4] After the birth of Seth, Adam lived another 800 years, and he had other sons and daughters. [5] He died at the age of 930.
[6] When Seth was 105 years old, his son Enosh was born.

...and so forth do we get a genesis of the first family and their relationship with God. We learn throughout the Old testament the many ups and downs of this family and how God deals with successes and dissappointments in his family. Now those of us who have read carefully the Old testament know about God’s relationship with his chosen people and how He as shaped and molded them into a civilization with morals, social values, and overhaul welfare of His people. Very much like a social worker and their client with the goals always being the betterment of their welfare and the reduction of suffering. God has always sought the betterment of His people
and the reduction of their suffering by offering them choices, very much like a social worker of today does.

Carefully, God has constructed a social plan for His chosen, presenting social values and morals that would lead them into a strong and responsible nation. When we have strayed from these social values and morals, God has not simply given up on us, but through His love and patience he has redirected us when we have strayed from our paths. It is when we willfully ignore God, do we find ourselves in trouble as a people. It is no different when we seek advice from a social worker regarding a issue in our welfare and ignore their professional advice, we will find ourselves right back in trouble and our welfare suffering just as much as it did before. Sin not only brings about ruinous behavior in us, but causes great change physically, and spiritually in us.
God is always concern when it comes to our welfare spiritually and physically, and when this change affects our social life, it is not just the singular person who suffers but the society of Gods family.

Genesis 3:5-8
"God knows that your eyes will be opened when you eat it. You will become just like God, knowing everything, both good and evil."
[6] The woman was convinced. The fruit looked so fresh and delicious, and it would make her so wise! So she ate some of the fruit. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her. Then he ate it, too. [7] At that moment, their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they strung fig leaves together around their hips to cover themselves.
[8] Toward evening they heard the Lord God walking about in the garden, so they hid themselves among the trees.

Clearly we see that Sin makes us ashamed and drives us to hide from God. When hiding from God we are refusing his helping hand in returning us to the welfare of his family. Addicts function very much the same way, when they hide behind denial, they are refusing God’s helping hand that can lead them to acceptance of their addiction. Denial is a barrier that many hide behind rather then accept the fact that they have sinned by polluting God’s body with harmful chemicals and immoral acts.

Genesis 6:5-7
Now the Lord observed the extent of the people's wickedness, and he saw that all their thoughts were consistently and totally evil. [6] So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them. It broke his heart. [7] And the Lord said, "I will completely wipe out this human race that I have created. Yes, and I will destroy all the animals and birds, too. I am sorry I ever made them."

You can see that God with His first family, was very angry with them, and seeing their denial of their sin, was very sorry he ever made them. Now haven’t we felt that way very much about a family member who has so strayed into sin, that we wish we had never given birth to them. So I believe we can see God’s view on this matter, and why He chose to start over again on his chosen people. Up until this time, God had’s love was not as tempered toward his people as they where to become later. After the great flood, and through Noah did God seek to find redemption in his people. We must remember that the flood did not erase sin all together, nor did it replace free will either in man. But rather it gave man a second chance to do what was right in God’s eye.

If social workers today where to just simply take a stance that there are no second chances, that we have made our final mistake and that is just the last chance we will have to redeem ourselves, then their would be no hope or light at the end of the tunnel. Any social worker that works on this premise in their relationship with a client, is creating a self-defeating sure fire way to fail in they commitment to introduce affective change in their clients welfare. God saw this as well when He approached Noah, and set in force His next session with man’s welfare in the long term. Any social worker worth their weight in gold will have a short term and long term goal for their client. God’s short term was to reduce the sin factor to a manageable state, while at the same time implement a long term approach that would reach His goals. God knew the cost of sin, and He paid it grievously when He found no other recourse but to be harsh with His people. However, God saw what He did and was just as grievously sorry for his actions, and thus did He make a covenant with Noah that He would never do it again. It is this love that God has for His people that has endured through the time and have allowed the family of God to overcome many challenges and tribulations.

It is important to understand that this love is unconditional, that is to say that He loves us without regard to past and present sin, and to show that love He has forgiven and forgotten our sin’s. God knew that we as his people would need an example that which we could emulate ourselves, or rather be expected to emulate by example. God makes it very clear that forgiveness unlike love is conditional.

Matthew 6:14-15
"If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. [15] But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.

He has given us a model to follow, one that is modeled after His own heart. God has told us many times the condition of his heart and how He feels about what we do. Sin is like a thorn that has pieced his heart, and when we live in denial of our sins, we daily push that thorn deeper and deeper into his flesh. When we fail to forgive others of their sins, knowing that God has forgiven us of ours, we take that thorn and twist it deeper and deeper once again. Hypocrisy is a sin that reviles God to the very center of his divine being. God’s forgiveness is a tangible commodity that we can exchange for an eternal life with Him.

Matthew 18:21-22

[21] Then Peter came to him and asked, "Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?"
[22] "No!" Jesus replied, "seventy times seven!

How many times do you think God has forgiven his people of their sins? When you read the Old Testament, you will learn that God has not three times as the Rabbis taught the people to do to those who offend them. But innumerous times, time after time for God knew how repentant they were. Therefore, when Peter asked Jesus how many times should he forgive others there sins against him, Christ said seventy times seven, just as often as God has forgiven you of your sins. This real forgiveness follows God’s pattern and design of his own heart. Remember Gods covenant with Noah, never again would He destroy all mankind for the lack of love. Since that time He has never forgotten his covenant and has always put his love above all else, despite our continued pattern of sin. God delivered His only begotten son, unto death so that we may have His continued forgiveness of our sins through an act of sacrifice, the ultimate act of love that we are also asked to give others. We must realize that when we don’t forgive others, we are setting ourselves outside and above Christ’s law of love. A law that God administrates through His own love for his people.

Once again we discover how much God is like a social worker. Here we have a pattern of behavior to which we are to model our own life after. The social worker in dealing with dysfunctional behavior works with their client in showing them alternatives to bad behavior by revealing social models for good behavior, very much like God. The social worker seldom judges their clients sin, but rather seeks to help them overcome the sin through the offering of better choices and solutions. This is the helping side of the social worker, much as the Word of God is our helper in how we make choices and find solutions to our daily walk in Christ. Of course it always remains up to us to make the right choices and affect the right solutions to our social model. Gods word defines what that social model is and how we are to act and behave as his chosen people.

As believers we must expect and respond to many circumstances in our lives which challenge us. How we endure them is the test we are given by God. This is God training course for us, pass or fail, God will always remain with us regardless of the difficult circumstances we may find in our lives. He will not leave us alone while we traverse our difficult circumstances, but rather will always be there, even if we don’t always realize it.

James 1:1-18
This letter is from James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is written to Jewish Christians scattered among the nations.
Greetings!

[2] Dear brothers and sisters, whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. [3] For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. [4] So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything.
[5] If you need wisdom—if you want to know what God wants you to do—ask him, and he will gladly tell you. He will not resent your asking. [6] But when you ask him, be sure that you really expect him to answer, for a doubtful mind is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. [7] People like that should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. [8] They can't make up their minds. They waver back and forth in everything they do.
[9] Christians who are poor should be glad, for God has honored them. [10] And those who are rich should be glad, for God has humbled them. They will fade away like a flower in the field. [11] The hot sun rises and dries up the grass; the flower withers, and its beauty fades away. So also, wealthy people will fade away with all of their achievements.
[12] God blesses the people who patiently endure testing. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. [13] And remember, no one who wants to do wrong should ever say, "God is tempting me." God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never tempts anyone else either. [14] Temptation comes from the lure of our own evil desires. [15] These evil desires lead to evil actions, and evil actions lead to death. [16] So don't be misled, my dear brothers and sisters.
[17] Whatever is good and perfect comes to us from God above, who created all heaven's lights. Unlike them, he never changes or casts shifting shadows. [18] In his goodness he chose to make us his own children by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation, became his choice possession.

James speaks of whenever you face difficult circumstances not if you face them, but rather that we are to expect circumstances that may test our faith and strength. Which is Gods way of accomplishing his purpose in our lives. The social worker does the same, by accomplishing a purpose or end result despite our difficult circumstances. The social worker encourages us to find out of our diversity a positive that negates the negative, and through this process we are trained to make better choices and discover solutions that pleases not only God, but builds in us a stronger faith and strength in our walk in Christ. Through this process does God ensure that we have the best of tools needed to over come our difficult circumstances, much like the tools a social worker uses in their profession. These very tools are of God’s design and we can find them in the Word of God. When you find a Christian social worker, you are getting the best of both worlds when they base their social model on God’s pattern of life He has designed for us.

Regardless on how I may have put a contemporary slant on the view of God being a social worker. God’s social model for our behavior is older then the mountains around us. Through His tenets, covenants and social and moral laws, God has defined a social model that He asks us to follow. This social model is patterned after his unconditional Love for us, and His perseverance and steadfastness in continually forgiven and forgetting our sins. This very act of being God is the social model for our behavior, and how we are to live our lives in God’s eye’s.
Many of our contemporary social ills are linked to this failure to live within the social model God has created for us. This citizenship in the kingdom of God brings us immediate benefits for which Paul defines as (1) he made us qualified to share God’s inheritance...

2 Cor. 5:21
For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

... (2) he rescued us from Satan’s dominion and made us his children, (3) he brought us into his eternal kingdom...

Ephes. 1:5-6
His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him great pleasure.
[6] So we praise God for the wonderful kindness he has poured out on us because we belong to his dearly loved Son.

... (4) he redeemed us by buying our freedom from sin and judgement...

Hebrews 9:12
Once for all time he took blood into that Most Holy Place, but not the blood of goats and calves. He took his own blood, and with it he secured our salvation forever.

...(5) he forgave all our sins...

Ephes. 1:7
He is so rich in kindness that he purchased our freedom through the blood of his Son, and our sins are forgiven.

As citizens of any social model we are given certain benefits to which we are entitled to. However, like any social model, when its citizen rebel and defy the norms of that social model they risk expulsion from that social model. God has made it very clear what risk we take when we defy the social model He has created for us. We like contemporary citizens, lose citizenship benefits, and like contemporary citizens, can find ourselves confined for our criminal acts, our lives/bodies at risk for substance abuse, immoral acts, and social deviance, SIN! As a citizen of God’s kingdom we gain far more then mere mortal benefits. God social model is only a temporary and brief existence we have on this earth. How we make that brief existence an earthly benefits to us, all depends on us and how much we obey God and how we take his love, use his social model, and create a life with God that is rewarding, earning His heavenly benefits.

Amen.

Article Source: http://www.religionarticlelibrary.com

Rev Robert is an associate member of the Universal Life Church (since 1979) and founder of God’s Temple of Grace Ministry Website at www.geocities.com/revdocrobert. The website offers bible studies and personal testimony. Visit www.todayschurch.blogspot.com for additional written material by Rev Robert.

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