God --> Man --> Dog

I am an unabashed dog lover! Dogs are to me such interesting creatures of God. Much can be learned about the Creator from the actions of the creature.
I personally have always lived with a dog from my earliest childhood years. At seventy-two years old, as best I can remember, I have had twelve dogs in my home – as many as three at one time.
My present dog is a Pomeranian named “Nicky”. He is thirteen years old (equivalent to ninety-one years of human maturity at the usually recognized 7 to 1 ratio).
As Nicky interacts with me, I see some parallels with how I interact with God.
Nicky has grown to recognize me and love me as his master. I wasn’t always his master. In his early years, Nicky had a very independent spirit. He recognized my desires but when they conflicted with his own, he did his own thing. This is how God and I interacted in my early life. I knew how God wanted me to live but my independent spirit led me toward selfish things.
But just as God patiently put up with my independent actions, I tolerated Nicky’s independence as just a puppy and adolescent stage. I figured as he got to know me and see that my desires were for his good, he would accept me as master and friend. This is much like God saw my independence, I suspect.
One day, when Nicky was about five, he slipped out the door between our legs and disappeared into the extensive woods around our house. He was gone from early morning to evening time while we called for him and searched. As it was getting dark and we were losing hope of seeing him again, out of the woods and down the street came Nicky. He looked worn out and bedraggled much like the prodigal son in Luke’s parable. He had “sown his wild oats” and come to recognize where his best life was.
I also “sowed some wild oats” in my relationship with God but came to see that independence from my Creator and Master was not the best way to go.
Now that Nicky is old and more settled in his ways, he has grown to recognize how much I love him and desire to care for him. And in return, he has become probably the most loving dog of all my previous pets.
I must say that Nicky is still not perfectly loving. When he wants to sleep and I want him to go outside, he gives me a little growl as I get him to his feet. If I call him and he is busy with his own activity, he acts like he didn’t hear me.
Sounds a lot like my relationship with God. Even though I love and respect Him, I still growl at God or act like I didn’t hear Him because there is something of my own that I want to do.
Every life has a law of life. Part of the law of dog-life is barking and growling. The law of cat-life includes mouse-chasing and purring. It is not necessary to teach a dog to bark or a cat to chase mice; they do these things because of their law of life. Law, simply stated, is just the way something works; and it doesn’t work in any other way.
Most of us, at some time in our lives, have had a dog as a pet. We become attached to them and derive great pleasure and satisfaction from our relationship with them. Dogs can be so lovable and seem to return love and affection to their human masters.
But a dog is not a man. You could never teach a dog to be a man. You could put clothes on him, and tell him all about man’s law of life, but he will never be anything but a dog. The only way a dog could live man’s law of life is by a miracle! If you could miraculously inject man’s life into him, or if a man could miraculously somehow get into the dog, then he would talk, act and live like a man.
God also has a law of life. The law of God-life is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).
It is even more impossible for an unconverted man having no miracle involvement to act like God than for a dog to act like a man. Yet, religion teaches that salvation involves acting like God. You must love your enemy, turn the other cheek, be good and run from sin. This is all well and good but unconverted man’s law of life is selfish. The law of his life is to cheat, lie, steal, and even to be good when it’s in his own best interest. You do not need to teach a child to lie and cheat; it is his law of life.
You can try to teach a man to act like God, but it just doesn’t work. About all you can teach a man is to hide his selfishness under a veneer of good manners. If God’s life would miraculously enter a man, however, it would become the man’s law of life to live the life of God.
Well, this is exactly what God has in mind for man. To be born again simply means to miraculously receive another life. We receive the law of God-life into our beings that He might live His life through us. This is our purpose, and the only way to total peace and happiness, both on earth and forever after death.
It is a sad truth that man seems to get closer to his Creator (just as Nicky gets closer to me) in times of stress and problems than in times of prosperity and ease. Whenever a man gets to feeling self-sufficient, it seems a problem comes which shows how weak we are.
Seeing Nicky grow to develop a personal relationship with me reminds me of how I have grown to develop a personal relationship with Christ. (Certainly I recognize that Nicky is a lower animal with Pavlovian responses to hunger and pain and an unknown “love factor”. But I still believe that the analogy of dog to man and of man to God still holds up.)
As we grow in Christ, we develop a closeness of thought, our mind with the mind of Christ. We learn to hear, recognize and listen to His voice. Before this time it is not safe to listen to the small voice within us for guidance because it may not be God. Just as the sheep learn to recognize the voice of the shepherd and Nicky learned to recognize my voice as his master, there comes a point when we can safely follow the direction of the small voice we hear daily as we recognize the Voice from our relationship with Christ. God has promised us and we know in faith that this is His will for us.
If I could work a miracle and place my law of man-life into Nicky, I would do it in an instant – because I love him.
Well my heavenly Father wanted to and did place His law of God-life within me and every other born again Christian – because He loves us. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, actually comes to live right within the Christian in a Spirit to human spirit union. This is a miracle of the first order.
A person must become the “John Smith-form of Christ” or the “Mary Brown-form of Christ”. This is what life is all about.

IF A PERSON DOESN’T CHOOSE TO LIVE GOD-LIFE, HIS NATURAL MAN-LIFE WILL HAVE HIM “WORKING LIKE A DOG” TO STAY OUT OF TROUBLE!

[Back to Home]