God is seeking. He is looking at me.

March 10, 2011

The more and more I listen to messages about God, the more and more I feel uneasy. The more messages I hear about God, the more I long to hear more about Him.  The more I learn about God, the more I am amazed at what He has done, and what He will do.  The more I am confronted by God, the more grateful I am that He has saved me from his wrath.  The more I live with knowledge of this God, the more I seek to live with acknowledgment of this God.

There is an overwhelming flood from our world to live to seek our own ends.  We all have different capabilities, different ideas, different loyalties, and it is our selfish nature that drives us to complete and compete for these things.  Let no man stand in our way, but whatever another man wants to do, let him do it for it is his desire and ambition, and that must be good in and of itself.  For we should all say, “I should be seeking to build wealth and build a successful business, build a cohesive family, build strong relationships with family and friends.  I should be a hard worker, a providing husband, a good investor, a smart teacher.  I should maintain my vehicles, I should mow my grass, I should clean up after myself.  I should help other people, I should talk to others, I should care for others.”  All of this is the world’s philosophy, and I reject it.

God didn’t create us to take up space here, and to “do good.”  He created us to proclaim His name.  He made us to make Him known, and in all of our actions, praise Him and give Him the glory.  If we don’t do the things the world desires, that doesn’t make us any better than the world.  We just have different goals.  We are just another person who says, “I am doing this because its right for me.  If you do the other thing, then that is right for you.”  If I do all of the good in paragraph two above, I am nothing.  I sound very much like Satan did in Isaiah 14:13-14.  He said he wanted ascend into Heaven.  He said he wanted to be like the most High.  Isn’t it good to be like God?  Isn’t it good to be praised by other people?  Isn’t that what we say we are seeking?  To be like Christ?  Christ is God.  We are seeking to be like God.  That’s what Satan said so many years ago.  I seek praise continually.  We all want to be praised for our hard work, our good family, our loyalty to church, our commitment to things and friends, but isn’t that what Satan wanted?  He took his angel friends with him didn’t he?  He had good relationships too.  His peers applauded him.

When God stops you from the race, and pulls you aside.  He may ask, “Why have you cared for your family?”  “Why have you saved for retirement?”  “Why have you focused on a properly cared for yard?”    What will you say?  Because it was the right thing to do?  Because everyone told me I should be doing those things?  Because I just felt that it was the way things should be done? 

I don’t believe He will accept that.  When you face yourself directly with God, you will be crushed and humble.  You will be abased.  You will no longer do anything without thinking about how your actions reflect God’s glory or how they spurn his majesty.  There is nothing in between.  You must mow the grass for God’s glory.  You must care for your family with God’s glory in mind.  EVERYTHING must be done this way.

Satan did not.  He did what he did for his own praise and glory.  Those who left with him left for Satan’s glory and for their own glory.  The world does what it does for its own glory.  All the hospitals that get built by an unbeliever are built for another purpose than for God, and this does not glorify Him.  All the fruit trees that are trimmed in order to produce more fruit are not trimmed for His glory if that trimmer isn’t doing His job with God’s glory in his mind.  When we stop and think about all the things we do in just one day, we must not be glorifying Him enough.  With all our heart, soul, mind, we must worship Him.  ALL THE DAY.  None of us do this, and we fall short.  When you get a glimpse of the wrath He has prepared for those do not accept Him and recognize that you are just the same as they, your God is the only thing that stands between you and that wrath.

Grow from this point.  Throw yourself completely at his mercy and grace.  We need His grace every day.  We need Him to work through us to do what he commands of us.  We need Him to grant that we would do things with His glory in mind.  We must ask Him to do this for us.  We CANNOT do anything righteous by ourselves.  Saved or Unsaved.  No one can.

When I think about how God flung the universe from his finger, and created galaxy upon galaxy in a moment, I am confronted by His unceasing magnitude of power, His ever watchful eye over His creation, and His grace that maintains it all.  I know that He directs the hearts of men every day in every place in every nation, and has done so since the beginning of time.  How could I feel helpless?  In spite of what an unjust peasant I am, HE reached out from the foundation of the world, and plucked me out of the darkness, and out of his wrath. 

When you think about God and study Him, He changes you.  Ask Him to change you.  Throw your life into his hands.  Study the book he left for you.  I AM WHO I AM is still the God of universe.  His name is Jealous.  He is the Lofty One whose name is Holy.  His name is Almighty.