10/25/2013
Is the Kingdom of God more important to us than...
1. Our plans?
2. Our careers?
Let’s lay those and the following on the altar and place God first
3. The idolatry of our own intellects
4. People pleasing/people liking us/doing things for or giving gifts to people just to cause them to like us/doing certain things simply to make us look good to other people
5. Our reputations
6. Our gifts/abilities/talents
7. Defending ourselves
8. Being respected/liked/fitting in in church
9. Our callings
10. The idea that we can do…ANYTHING without God
Some of these points do admittedly overlap a bit. They are a good reference for some self-reflection, and revisiting these points periodically will help us to make sure God is truly #1 in our hearts.
Let’s review…
1. Making plans is fine; let’s just be willing to do something else at a moment’s notice if that is God’s will.
2. Our careers will end and people will forget about us, but God will never forget the people who forsake all to follow his will. A lustrous career may be God’s calling on your life, but what if it’s not; are you willing to give it up? There are many things God will permit us to do that aren’t necessarily sin, but we should seek to not just be in his permissive will, but his first will for our lives.
3. Whichever side of the spectrum you feel you are on, remember that your intellect has nothing to do with your value. Think about it, the Creator of the universe created you. You are without a doubt valuable. If you feel you are gifted in this or any area, remember it is God who gave it to you for His glory and God who gets the credit. How silly would it be for a clay sculpture to prance around and gloat about how beautiful and talented it was as if he somehow had something to do with it when it was the sculptor that made it so wonderfully? Let’s just be thankful to God for what he has given us and enjoy our gifts and use them to glorify Him.
4. Is it bad to give gifts to people? Of course not…depending on the motive.
5. God’s opinion of us should be more important than opinions of other people, regardless of who they are. This of course is not easy, but we should take courage and do what’s right in God’s eyes even if it mars people’s reputation of us. “Courage is not the absence of fear, but merely the knowledge that something is more important than that fear”. I’m sorry I don’t know who the quote is from, but I love it!
6. Let’s lay our gifts and talents on the altar and let God choose what to do with them. Would we give up something very dear to us if that is what God asks? This does not mean God WILL ask us to permanently give it up, but He may, and if He does, while heart-wrenching, we need to place God before anything else.
7. Let’s leave this to God. Occasionally God may put us in a situation where we speak for ourselves, but for the most part, we simply need to focus on doing what God has set before us and not worry about what people say or think about us.
8. If there comes a time or times that we are forced to choose between doing what we believe is God’s will, and being accepted within a religious institution, what will we do? As long as we know we did what was right in God’s eyes throughout our lives to the best of our knowledge, we don’t have to be embarrassed when we stand before Him alone. We certainly don’t want to hear God say “why were you more concerned with what people thought of you than what I thought of you?”.
9. Then it gets really rough… If you know what your calling is, you know the feeling of it being as deeply ingrained in you as life itself. We aren’t talking here about callings we came up with ourselves; we are only talking about callings that God put in us Himself. When you know what your God-given calling is, you know. It doesn’t mean you understand everything about it, but you just know. A calling is such a part of us that it can almost feel as if it is us. After all, it’s the very thing we were created to do. We have such a non-articulable need, a drive, an obsession to do what God has called us to. But that’s just it; it’s what we are called to do, not who we are. It makes no sense to us and it’s so ironic and contradictory to our minds, but the VERY thing God has called us to, He will ask us to put on the altar as well. Is our calling good? Well yes, assuming it’s from God, but God has to know that even that is not above Him. We must be willing to let our own calling die on the altar, and it’s no joke, it’s not just an exercise; you will actually watch your calling die. Smoke will rise in a column in the air; it will burn, and burn. Eventually the fire will die out and all that will be left is a pile of ashes. And then when you thought it couldn’t be any more dead, the wind will come and blow the ashes far away, but it doesn’t stop there. Torrential rains come and wash away the smallest traces of ash specs still visible on the ground. This is a very painful process, but necessary. A seed, before it grows into a healthy plant and blooms beautiful flowers, experiences a burial into the ground, an appearance of death, but it has to appear to die it can grow. Your calling is so ingrained in you that it will feel as if you are dying, and really, a part of you is dying, but you will find that you, your soul and spirit, will still remain. All we want is God to be glorified anyway. Who are we to say that God can’t let our calling, one of the main purposes He created us for, die? In the way that a beautiful vase, by simply sitting on a shelf and doing nothing, brings glory to the potter who made it, we bring glory to God simply by the fact that we exist. This brings us to the last point…
10. We must come to the full realization that we can’t even take our next breath without God. We can’t take a single step without him, or do 2 + 2, or pump a single blood vessel through our body, or have a single cognitive thought, without him. It is God who put the ability in us to do these things in the first place. There are quadrillions (probably a number with many more zeros than that actually) of processes happening simultaneously in our bodies during every moment of our lives. We cannot of ourselves even stay alive from one second to the next. It is very important that we go through this process and lay all things on the altar. Death is painful, but we must die a thousand deaths to be useful to God because God cannot get as much glory out of somebody who mistakenly thinks he has anything to with it. We must come to a point where we know we can’t do anything ourselves, God is God, we are not, and we are just content to know that He sits on the throne, that He is, and we don’t know if God will ever use us or if we will ever get to see again the things we sacrificed on the altar, but we are content to know (not that it’s fun or that we like it) that God’s will is being done, and He, the one true God is the one on the throne. He may even ask us to sacrifice things multiple times, but if it’s His will, then so be it. We must come to the point where we have nothing but simply the knowledge that God is on the throne and will stay there for eternity! Hallelujah! Let’s ask God to give us wisdom and truth. Let’s actually beg Him to keep us in His will and do whatever he wants with us even if we end up complaining. It’s a dangerous prayer and may not bring one the most comfort oftentimes, but it’s worth it if it’s God’s will because that is best for the Kingdom. What an honor it is to be used by God, and anyone can, by simply asking to be in His will! Do we serve God because it makes us feel good, or simply because He’s God? He may make us feel good at times and shower us with his physical presence, but He may also allow you to go through a dry spell for a season, even for years where you don’t sense His presence at all. Does He have to drug us to get us to serve Him? Simply the knowledge of God is enough for us to serve Him. “Blessed is he who believes and yet has not seen”. It is a blessing! If you are seeking God but don’t sense His presence, it is a sign that He trusts you and knows He doesn’t have to drug you in order to get you to serve Him.
Think about two men in a war. Can they comfort each other while they are in combat? Not really, but they can reminisce and will share a special bond when the combat is over. Why do we ask God to use us but are surprised when we aren’t coddled the whole time? If we aren’t being constantly wrapped in His tangible presence, that may actually be a sign that He is using us to fight alongside Him! What an honor! He is God and could have chosen to do it without us, but He chooses to use us to win souls and help build His Kingdom.
This is impossible to tell since scripture says we love Him because He first loved us, but would we serve God even if we went to hell at the end of it? Wouldn’t it still be worth it? Praise God this is not the case, but let’s say nobody could go to heaven and hell is the only place we could go; wouldn’t we rather serve the one, true, righteous God on our way there instead of Satan? Yeshua didn’t have to come and shed His blood for the sins of the world, but He did! If He didn’t though, God would still be completely righteous and just to send us to hell. Praise Yeshua for shedding his blood! Nobody has to experience eternal death; there is a way out. It is “not His (God’s) will that any perish”! It is indeed a narrow path that leads to life and a wide path that leads to destruction, but the narrow path is worth it. Go spread the good news while there’s still time and give God all the glory!
