Encouragement
My excitement for the God of the Ages is beyond description. Hopefully some insight into my thoughts will spark a fire to fall in love with your Creator.
“But if my fire is not large it is yet real, and there may be those who can light their candle at its flame.”- Tozer
The Bible constantly uses the illustration of the church being the bride of the bridegroom, Christ. A bride is someone who is fresh, excited, and passionate towards the groom. This illustration is interesting. God could have said that we are the wife of Christ and used husband and wife terms, but He didn’t. The day we got saved and said yes to the finished work of Jesus on the cross was not our wedding day. When we finally meet Jesus, after we run the race of life, is when we celebrate our wedding day. He is our “exceedingly great reward” (Genesis 15:1). When you think about it, what kind of normal human person is not excited for their wedding day? If we weren’t excited and passionate, then why would we get married? We aren’t dull and tired of each other when we are still brides. We are childlike with our excitement. How absurd would it be to tell a bride that they should calm down and not be excited for their wedding day? No! I am thrilled beyond words and will not accept the “fact” that this is just the way that it is. I know that there will be tough seasons when we don’t see God or feel Him, but that is fine. I don’t depend on my emotional feelings towards God, because I am certain that He is there and is so much greater than me or any situation I am in. I love this verse from Job. After all of this stuff happened to him, he said above all what he would want to be remembered by is this:
23 "Oh, that my words were recorded,
that they were written on a scroll,
24 that they were inscribed with an iron tool on lead,
or engraved in rock forever!
25 I know that my Redeemer lives,
and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.
26 And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God;
27 I myself will see him
with my own eyes—I, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!
Job 19:23-27
When we stop looking for favor from God or things from God, but God himself, I believe that we cross a threshold. When He becomes the very reason we get up in the morning, when we cannot utterly breathe without Him, we are in a very good place. I am not saying by any means that I am perfect and have achieved this yet, but it is the song in my heart. This is my passion. And I know that it can be available to you. I ache to know Him. I must know Him. Philippians 3:14 “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” That pressing is so healthy and so natural, and I believe with everything in me that God calls us to do that.
8 Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ 9 and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. 10 I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, 11 so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead! Philippians 3:8-11
Everything else is worthless. TV, videogames, mindless entertainment, relationships, EVERYTHING. Those kinds of things won’t matter when we die, so why not focus on what does matter? That is Jesus Christ, a person that is able to be pursued. I understand that we all have hobbies and quirks about our personalities that make us unique, but those should be so minimal compared to who we are in Christ. We can say that we are a Republican or that we enjoy this certain type of hobby, but what really defines us shouldn’t be anything less than the power and love of Christ. He is who we are. Our whole lives should be radically arranged around everything that He is and then the other sub-categories fall into place. And it’s not all about us waiting for us to get a sovereign surprise from God or obeying God. It is about falling in love with the creator and God of the ages. It is an active part that we must play. We don’t just wait around and hope that God will give us something good. We must long to know Him in the depths of our souls. How can we not long to know Him? Do we already have him all figured out, that we think there is nothing left to behold? That is very foolish on our part.
If this time when I was first saved is the most exciting spiritual time for me in my life, then why go on? If no growth or longing in my heart is going to follow me into my older years, then what is the point? There is no way that I have already found out all of the exciting things of the Kingdom. When I am thirty or forty I pray that my heart is even bigger for God. I hope that I am still downright baffled when thinking about God’s unfailing love or power when I am eighty years old. I don’t think that is something that can ever lose its excitement. And I don’t think that it is just “growing up” and calming down. Save that kind of excitement for the youth groups, we are too wise to take part in that kind of mindless excitement, this is how it really is in the world. No, I refuse to believe that. Absolutely refuse to believe it. It is a lie. I think this is what the devil uses to try to get us to calm down about the whole God thing. He is there and working in the lives of people who are supposed to be our mentors (your more mature friends, pastors etc) and they tell you lies like that. They tell you to enjoy the excitement while it lasts, because it won’t be that way forever. Show me somewhere in the Bible where that is supported. It’s not there.
Tozer talks about how a man is “saved but he is not hungry nor thirsty after God. In fact, he is specifically taught to be satisfied and is encouraged to be content with little.” David Perkins, a pastor at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, preaches that most churches only focus on saving people, but that is only the very beginning. It’s a baby step. There is so much more to do. Our lives are about more than getting right with God. We are called not to get right, but to go far, to be solid, to become grounded and rooted deeply. Tozer also says, “Everything is made to center around the initial act of “accepting” Christ (a term which is incidentally not found in the Bible) and we are not expected to thereafter crave any further revelation of God to our souls.” “Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth.” And
“We need not fear that in seeking God only we may narrow our lives or restrict the motions of our expanding hearts. The opposite is true. We can well afford to make God our All, to concentrate, to sacrifice the many for the One.”
As the deer pants for the water brooks,
So pants my soul for You, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God? Psalm 42:1-2
God bless...
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Everything else is worthless. TV, videogames, mindless entertainment, relationships, EVERYTHING. Those kinds of things won’t matter when we die, so why not focus on what does matter? That is Jesus Christ......Amen. This has been on my heart. That nothing else really matters but God. Too often we make other things god in our lives. Things that don't profit us anything. Thanks so much for sharing and keep writing for God's glory.
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