01/08/2018
How much of ourselves have we given to God in love? Do we conform to His will in all things, or only as much as we think it will take to please Him? Jesus was the most amazing and incredible man to have ever lived, and yet He subjected Himself in His entirety to God... He leads us in understanding the true nature of God’s expectation of us. He demonstrates what it means to be a loving Child of God.
“When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.”
1 Corinthians 15:28 ESV
I have four children, and they represent my greatest joy, and pain. My expectations of them are higher than they can imagine, and very often beyond what they are capable of achieving on their own. At their best I love them dearly, and at their worst I love them equally. At their best they look to me in love and respect, and at their worst they turn their heads... but my eyes are forever fixed on them, and my countenance never turns away. This is the reflection of God’s Love for us. His love is absolute, and He desires our complete love in return. Andrew Murray tried to describe this relationship when he wrote these words:
“The all of God is what we must seek. there should be no use of our time, no word on our lips, no motivation of our heart, no satisfying of the needs of our physical life that is not the expression of the will, the glory, and the power of God. God must not be merely something to us or even a lot, but all.” - Andrew Murray
We never truly understand the love of our parents until we have children of our own, and likewise, we don’t understand the love of God until we have realized that the love of parent for child has been passed from generation to generation since creation itself... all those being the children of God, and reflecting His love for them, and us.
So in the youth of our faith we seek to please Him just enough to satisfy our expectation of what we believe He desires of us. In our immaturity we don’t easily understand that He wants all of us... our complete focus on His will, and not a smidgeon less.
Then, in the maturation of our faith, we look back on those times of naive youthfulness, and wonder how we could have missed that most obvious, and all inclusive, aspect of God, and His love for us. He wants us dwelling in Him, just as we want our children embedded in us... He never wants to let us go, and desires that we look to Him with eyes filled with love, respect, adoration, trust, and an obedience to His will and wisdom for our lives. He wants this so much that He created the universe for us, and sent His only begotten Son to suffer, and die to redeem us from our sin.
“even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
1 Corinthians 1:6-9 ESV
Yet our temptation is to remain focused on ourselves, and to look to Him only when doing so serves our own selfishness. We say things such as “God help me because I am hungry” or “Lord, where are you? I am in trouble!” Until we are suffering a need we can’t satisfy by ourselves, we continue to come to Him in a rote manner of prayer and worship, but for the most part, continue to lean on our own devices. We use God as our failsafe, just as we do our biological parents when we are young... coming around on holidays, and treating them marginally unless we desperately need them... and until at last we realize we love them as they have always loved us.
For a parent to not love a child, or for a child to lose it’s love for a parent is unnatural, and a travesty. This flies in the face of God’s desire and example of a parent/child relationship. Our behaving in this manner breaks God’s heart, and although He must punish us for turning away from Him, he does so with a broken heart. Listen to Ezekiel...
“then those of you who escape will remember me among the nations where they are carried captive, how I have been broken over their whoring heart that has departed from me and over their eyes that go whoring after their idols. And they will be loathsome in their own sight for the evils that they have committed, for all their abominations.”
Ezekiel 6:9 ESV
We should give the entirety of ourselves, and our love, to God. We should never lose sight of His perfect love for us, and that His will for us is good, and designed to cement our relationship with Him. How do you see Him today? Are your prayers rote, or from the heart? Have you given Him your all?
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for loving me beyond all understanding. I thank you for creating the unending expanse of the universe, and sacrificing your only begotten Son so that I might remain in you. Holy Father, I await the second coming of my Brother Jesus Christ, but I do so with my eyes fixed on You, and my desire ever longing to do your will. I have spent days absorbed in myself Father, and in my naivety of faith I have strayed from serving you completely. Forgive me Merciful God for my behavior, and my lack of understanding your desire for me. Help me to place our relationship before all else in my life, and teach me to love you with the same urgency that I love a parent that I am about to lose to death. Let me grasp after your hand like a child about to fall; let my love and desire for you be so immediate that I can see nothing else but you before me. I thank you Father for your unending love, and for your will that is designed to provide for my best interests, and your ultimate glory! I praise your name Lord God, and shout your praises from the mountains of my being... you are great above all things, and my love for you is never enough to satisfy my soul. Holy, Holy, Holy, art thou... the Focus of my life.
Rich Forbes