OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with Me.”  (Revelation 3:20 NIV))

Loving God is different from loving doctrine. Doctrine (true ideas about God and His ways) is important. It is crucial that our minds are as soundly converted as our hearts. But in the end, ideas are just ideas; whereas God is alive -- a flame of love, a presence, a power, a reality, a person. Ideas can be embraced, but God can be loved. Once ideas are accepted and one’s life is conformed to them, the matter is over. But when God becomes the center of life, the story has just begun. How will it unfold, where you will be led, who will play a part in your life, what task you will be asked to undertake, where you will go -- all of that will emerge in the context of your relationship with God…

The Christian life is no static holding action; it is an amazing, serendipitous journey. To live it out is our calling in life. As we do so, we become what we are meant to be: whole people, holy people, conformed to the image of Christ. This is our great and wonderful task in life. 

-- Richard Peace in “Learning to Love God”

#5731

A GOD-CENTERED LIFE

“Then Jesus said to the crowd, ‘If any of you wants to be My follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily, and follow Me.’” (Luke 9:23 NLT)

While the essence of sin is a shift from a God-centered to a self-centered life, the essence of salvation is a denial of self and a return to a God-centered outlook. We must come to a place where we renounce our self-focused approach to life and turn the attention and control over to God. When this happens, God orients us to Himself and to the purposes He is accomplishing around us…

God-centeredness requires a daily denial of self and a submission to God. 

-- Henry Blackaby, Richard Blackaby and Claude King in “Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God”

#5415

GLORY AND MAJESTY

“Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen.  (Jude 1:24-25 NKJ)

Christianity today is [human]-centered, not God-centered. God is made to wait patiently, even respectfully, on the whims of [humanity]. The image of God currently popular is that of a distracted Father, struggling in heartbroken desperation to get people to accept a Savior of whom they feel no need and in whom they have very little interest. To persuade these self-sufficient souls to respond to His generous offers God will do almost anything, even using salesmanship methods and talking down to them in the chummiest way imaginable. This view of things is, of course, a kind of religious romanticism which, while it often uses flattering and sometimes embarrassing terms in praise of God, manages nevertheless to make [humanity] the star of the show. 

-- A.W. Tozer

#5374