10/30/2023
Are you someone who prides yourself on common sense and morality? Do you believe it to be a substitute for faith in God? Throughout my life I have heard people say about someone, “they are a good person and do good things.”, but is that enough to please God? Is that enough to earn them eternal life?
“And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”
Hebrews 11:6 ESV
God sees all that we do, but He doesn’t reward us for our efforts to be good or to behave morally. These things might determine how we treat our neighbors, or one another, but although these things don’t upset the Lord, what pleases Him is our faith in Him. God wants us to believe that He is the one true God, and to believe He sent His Son Jesus Christ to redeem us from sin. He wants us to worship and obey Him in everything.
Having faith means that we hear those things that God asks us to do and then we obey them to their fullest... no matter how contrary to common sense they might appear to be. Take for instance the instructions of Jesus to the young ruler. Jesus told him to sell everything he owned, give it all away, and then come follow Him. What common sense can be attributed to that? It seems outlandish and crazy; wouldn’t it make more sense to use that wealth and power for the advancement of God’s kingdom?
Jesus wasn’t concerned with what this man owned, He was interested in him having only one God before Him, and placing his undivided worship and faith in Him. God didn’t want a moral, or a good man, that was only part of the equation, so Jesus wanted a man of great faith to worship His Father. He wanted the equation of life, and eternal life, to be complete in this young ruler. He wanted him to solve a three part equation… He wanted him to believe that He, Jesus Christ, was the Son of God; He wanted him to love and find unwavering Faith in God as his one true God; and, He wanted him to love those around him, his neighbors, as himself. Morality and common sense might have had a play in accomplishing this, but it was not what Jesus wanted him solving for.
“Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."”
John 14:6-7 ESV
“And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."”
Matthew 22:37-40 ESV
These two scriptures deal with the three parts of the equation of life. This is what we seek to solve, and quite often it doesn’t satisfy what we would consider to be common sense, sometimes it even appears to be contrary to it.
One morning during church I listened as the founder of Mercy Multiplied spoke of sending some money in response to a burden that God had placed on her heart. She was leading a struggling young work for God and had a thousand dollars, and some change, in the bank when God asked her to send a person she had met by chance, and really didn’t know, a check for one thousand dollars... I am sorry, but if you are a person of common sense this just doesn’t make much sense! To break the bank of your fledgling ministry sounds crazy doesn’t it? So she told her accountant to write the check, then she attached a letter to it explaining why she was sending it, and mailed the money. At that moment her mission was basically broke, but something amazing happened. Something that occurs over and over again when we obey God, and become a participant in God Sense.
In the return mail she received a check back from this person for three thousand dollars, and the checks kept coming. Today that person donates $25,000 dollars a month to keep Mercy Multiplied going. God had asked her to do something that to any reasonable person would appear unreasonable, and then He did what He is so good at... He made our view of common sense obsolete by introducing us to God Sense. This is what happens when we seek, obey, and ultimately please God.
Sometimes it is money, and at other times it might be our time, our loyalty, or our love... well, the list is nearly endless in what God might ask of us. On the surface much of what we are asked appears to go against good common sense, but at its heart it all makes perfect God Sense! God deals in faith, and if we meet Him there, then we will see Him work in our lives using it. We will receive the reward of our belief through the implementation of His good and perfect God Sense. Are we willing to do these things that we believe have no apparent return, no guarantee of success, and are nothing more than a mysterious request from God? Well if we are, then that is faith, and it opens the door to reveal God’s Sense to us.
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.”
Hebrews 11:1-3 ESV
This is how we please God, how we solve the equation of belief, and learn what it means to experience God Sense!
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for giving me common sense, but most of all I thank you for teaching me God Sense. I thank you for showing me that you operate in a way that is often contrary to the logic of the world, but has unending reward in your kingdom. Holy Father, help me in my unbelief in those times when you ask me to step out in faith alone. Help me to do those things that I later see as great, and that ultimately I cry over as I recount in awe the magnificence of your God Sense in my prayer closet. I praise you Jesus for leading me to the Father and redeeming me of sin, and I thank you for teaching me to love my neighbor, but I praise you in tears for showing me the truth in faith, and the God Sense that took your death and turned it into life everlasting. Father you spoke all things into creation and your goodness is imbedded in every Word you spoke in so doing. I thank you for the good in you, and the good in all you ask of us. I stand firm in my belief in those things you reveal to me, and in my faith when you ask me to trust in things unseen. Help me Father to overcome my common sense when you ask me to follow the good that is inherent in your God Sense. Strengthen my faith Lord to overcome what I feel must be seen with my eyes, and for leading me in faith to the truth you desire to show me through the mystery within your God Sense. Praised be your name Holy Father! Praised be you for the grace, mercy, and God Sense you shower me with each day.
Rich Forbes