The job market continues to dwindle, government spending continues to rise, and people continue to go hungry. Marriages crumble, lives are shattered, and hearts are broken. Wars continue, and families fear for the safety of their loved ones. Housing market falls, your monetary value shrinking with it, and your bills increase. Traffic’s at a stand still, gas cost way too much to refill, and it’s all starting to make you feel ill.
So, let me ask this. What is going right?
Two things we discussed yesterday in church, and it’s wholly gospel related. Sovereign God, and God Centeredness.
As we see what is falling apart around us, failed machinations that our own sin filled hands have wrought, do we see what he is building? If God is good and His will is perfect for the good of those who He has called to His purpose (glory); why aren’t we lamenting at his great work in us and around us? If God is sovereign and we profess his sovereign nature, why don’t we get excited about the possibilities of what is to come when those derailments happen? Why do we worry so much when we know that He is enough, and that our needs will be met.
The answer? God is not enough.
At least that is what our actions and our thoughts cry out as we fight and worry and complain about what is upon us, as if it were something we could control to begin with. The chief end of man at that point becomes, survive at any cost. Your focus is you and you’ve abandoned the God who made you. I’ve abandoned the God who made me.
The truth of that statement is so simple, yet so profound, to realize that you continually fail. That thought should invoke inside the Christian a heart of repentance and an awe for the grace that has been bestowed upon us. To realize that we are incapable of saving ourselves, of being righteous and as God centered as we should. We should be bursting at the seams with joy, to know that we are truly loved and forgiven.
So why aren’t we?
The only answer I have for that is one I find through prayer and scriptural meditation. I’m designed to worship, but my sin nature drives me to seek immediate gratification. I want the next best thing, not the one right thing. My heart is fickle and prone to wander; and love like anything important, requires work. I have to continually seek his face, to focus on what was done for me, and take stock of what is being done FOR me, and shift the perspective away from done TO me. We also need to break away from our relative view of what is best for us and understand that we can’t know all angles. Our God is good, and what is in store for us will be of like nature, and that is something we can rest in.
2 Comments
well said, brother. I have re-focused on the importance of prayer. It is vital to having a relationship with God.
Thanks, prayer to the Christian is no less important than oxygen and food. We can’t live in this world and not be conformed to it without that relational experience to the father. I also think it’s important that we focus on the cross to keep everything in perspective as well. Something myself and a few others refer to as a “gospel reset”. Take up that cross, and die daily.