Becoming Passionate About God So We Can Bring Him Glory

Living in central Ohio I live with the most passionate group of fans around and the those fans would be Ohio State Football fans.  There are no other fans more passionate then that of a buckeye fan, they live and breathe the Scarlet and Gray.  No joking while in Atlanta my wife wear her Ohio State Shirt and everywhere we went we heard one of two phrase’s “O-H” (which we promptly replied “I-O” or “Go Bucks.”  As people we become passionate about teams, things, T.V. show, politics, this is all good.  But the problem is that the one true passion that we need to have in our lives we do not.  We like to believe that life is all about us.  Yet that is not what the Bible teaches us at all we must begin to realign  our thinking toward God, the one passion we need and need to make our deepest is a passion for God.  Paul wrote to young Timothy and told him this; “ this is why I remind you to fan into flames the spiritual gift God gave you when I laid my hands on you. For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline. So you must never be ashamed to tell others about our Lord. And don’t be ashamed of me, either, even though I’m in prison for Christ” (2^nd Timothy 1:6-8)

What is Paul telling Timothy, he is saying, be passionate about your love for God, don’t worry about how you want things to be.  Don’t fear the world, do not let what others think of you dictate how you act.  Let us think about this for a minute it’s pretty easy to figure out what a person is passionate about and what they love.  I’m huge Detroit Tigers fan, I have the hats and shirts, and even a jacket to prove it.  I have been a fan of Tigers since I was young boy.  I have been with them through the tough years, and now the good years.  I have never been ashamed to talk about them or show that I was fan.  Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying here I am not saying, go out to your local Christian book store and buy all the t-shirts and hoodies that have Christian saying on them, don’t go and start putting all kinds scripture on Facebook.  Not that any of that is bad, but let’s takes a look at what Paul is really telling Timothy.

Paul is talking about a life style, a way of living, putting God first and not our own fears and wants of wanting to be liked by others.  We are to stand on the ground of the word of God, we are to live for God not to ashamed of Him.  We must stand out and be different then the world around us.  We are to let those around us know that we love them because God first loved us.   That ,yes, we do not do everything they do because we do not want to bring shame to God, but we want to bring Glory to God.  We must live in such a way that everything we do is bringing glory to God, that are passion for God shines through and the world around us sees that passion.  We must remember that, “God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.”  We must stop walking around thinking that our life on this world is about us, and realize that it all about God.

Francis Chan in book Crazy Love says this about how we are to live, “To be brutally honest, it doesn’t really matter what place you find yourself in right now. Your part is to bring Him glory—whether eating a sandwich on a lunch break, drinking coffee at 12:04 a.m. so you can stay awake to study, or watching your four-month-old take a nap. The point of your life is to point to Him. Whatever you are doing, God wants to be glorified, because this whole thing is His. It is His movie, His world, His gift.”  “Whatever you eat or drink or whatever you do, you must do all for the glory of God.”(1^st Corinthians 10:31)

Chan, Francis (2010-01-01). Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God (pp. 42-43). David C Cook. Kindle Edition. 

Stop Relaying on Your Own Wisdom and Relay On God’s

So many times in our lives we go about and we don’t want to listen to what anyone else thinks, we think we know best.  We go and surround ourselves with a bunch of people who are yes people, and those that tell us we need to do something different, or think maybe we should  rethink a decision, they are just haters.  But the reality of life is that many times we go and do things without even thinking of asking for advice from others or from God.  Yet the writer of Proverbs tells us this, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will direct your paths.  Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom. Instead, fear the Lord and turn your back on evil.”(3:5-7) Instead of listening to the sound advice the bible gives, we start to listen to what we want to hear and those yes people. You know the ones, these people they say things like; “do what makes you happy,” “don’t listen to them they’re just jealous,” “if that’s what you want to do go for it.”  They never give you real advice and in fact when things get tough they normally are the ones to leave first.  But God tells us to listen to Him not to put ourselves above His wisdom.  The thing about following God and His wisdom is we are not always going to go down the easy road.  Many times we try to allow the circumstances around dictate our decisions and this is a dangerous road to go down, after all God’s will may be for us to through a tough or rough time knowing that we are going to grow and become stronger.

Too many times we think “oh if I let God increase and I decrease I am losing more freedoms and won’t be free to be me.”  But Christ tells us in John 8:34-36; “I assure you that everyone who sins is a slave of sin.  A slave is not a permanent member of the family, but a son is part of the family forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will indeed be free.”  Understand what Christ is saying here, that we are slaves to sin. We are not free, we may think we are free, that we are doing things that bring us joy and make us happy.  But these things are going to pass, happiness comes and goes but true joy is with us always.  Think about it, if we want to live a life that is truly fulfilling we must give up on our own wisdom and take on Gods wisdom.  We must give up a life of sin to live a life of holiness, a life that this world does not understand.  We must put our faith in Christ and not in us or in man, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”(Hebrews 11:6)

Paul tells us in 2^nd Corinthians 5:6-10, ^“So we are always confident, even though we know that as long as we live in these bodies we are not at home with the Lord. ⁷ That is why we live by believing and not by seeing. Yes, we are fully confident, and we would rather be away from these bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord.  So our aim is to please him always, whether we are here in this body or away from this body. For we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in our bodies.”  This means that we are not always going to understand what’s going on around us or why God has allowed things to happen in our lives but we know that our home is not here but it is in Heaven with God.  But while we are here on this earth we must align our lives with God’s wisdom and be obedient to Him.  “God wants us to align our lives with Him so He will accomplish His divine purposes in and though us. God is not our servant to bless our plans and desires. He is our Lord, and we must adjust our lives to what He is doing and to the ways He chooses to accomplish His work. If we will not submit to God and His ways, He will allow us to follow our own devices. But be sure of this: we will miss God's activity, and we will not experience what God wants to do through us to bless others. As Christians, it is not only important what we do but how we do it.” (Experiencing God, Richard Blackaby)

Blackaby, Richard (2008-09-01). Experiencing God (p. 96). B&H Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

I Must Put My Focus On Him Not On Me

As this week progressed and I thought about building a strong foundation on Christ I pondered what should we talk about this Sunday this scripture continued to come to me.  “Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. ^He must increase, but I must decrease.”(John 3:30)  It came to me so often through many different forms, I began to realize that I could no longer ignore the fact that I should talk about it this week.  As I looked into what John the Baptist was saying here I began to realize as I study this that John had come to a point with his walk with God had become such that His heart was completely in sync with God’s.  How does this happen that one’s heart can become in sync with God’s?   This is what we are going to discuss in the next few weeks building a foundation by becoming less and letting God increase in our lives.

The first thing we need to do is to make sure we are not putting idols before God.  Exodus 20:3 tells us, “Do not worship any other gods besides me.”   This is the first commandant that God gives us, many think of it as saying to just make sure we only worship God and not wonder off to some other religion, but it means much more than that.   It means that we should put focus on God, as many  people in today’s society we have come up with a lot of demi-gods that are not carved images our even called religion.  People are putting their jobs above family, others are trying to make a name for themselves, some people put their children above everything else.  But God says put me first above all other things. Let us look at this conversation that Christ has here in Luke 10:25-28; “One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: “Teacher, what must I do to receive eternal life?”  Jesus replied, “What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?” The man answered, “ ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ”  “Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!”

The reality is that many of us love ourselves to the point that we are not really loving God or those around us, we are too busy trying to do things that make us happy.  We may come to church or even say we follow Christ but we say that because it makes us feel good.  But are we really allowing ourselves to come into sync with God’s heart are we living for His kingdom or for ourselves.  In his letter to the church of Ephesus in Revelations God tells them, “but I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first!”(2:4)  The question we must ask ourselves is do we love ourselves and the world around us more than God?  Listen to what Paul tells the Colossians here in Colossians 3:1-11; “Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits at God’s right hand in the place of honor and power.  Let heaven fill your thoughts. Do not think only about things down here on earth.  For you died when Christ died, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.  And when Christ, who is your^* real life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory  So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual sin, impurity, lust, and shameful desires. Don’t be greedy for the good things of this life, for that is idolatry.  God’s terrible anger will come upon those who do such things.  You used to do them when your life was still part of this world. But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language.  Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old evil nature and all its wicked deeds.  In its place you have clothed yourselves with a brand-new nature that is continually being renewed as you learn more and more about Christ, who created this new nature within you.  In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.”