The main thing

"...we make it our aim to please him." 2 Cor. 5

Imagine if this was the primary goal of every believer. Just this one thing. How would your decisions change, your desires change if this was your first filter?

Missing the glory

As I read the news, watch the Twitter feeds, read my friend's Facebook posts I realize we are missing the glory.  Our eyes are focused on what is wrong, what is going on around us and we fail to climb the ladder to see an amazing God working in our mess.

We are missing the glory of God's grace, his plan, his care and his love as we focus on the junk around us.

One author in scipture wrote, "Look up!  You salvation is almost here!"  

We are missing it, even in the midst of all the junk.  We see the giants and miss the David.  We see an ocean and forget about a God who parts it.  We see lack and never bother to ask a good God to fill it. We grieve over loss and never ask for comfort from the only one who can help us.  We hear noise and never find time to listen for his voice.

We are missing the glory!  We are missing God in the midst of the madness.

Jesus said, "When the son of man comes will he find faith on the earth?"  It is the most profound question ever asked!  Will we keep our focus on and faith in a good and loving God even as our world crumbles around us?  Or will we cower in fear and bitterness at all that is going wrong?

How do we forget so easily a God who made the Universe, who died for us, who loves us more than we can know?  We are misssing HIM even as we sit in church, sing the songs and hear the sermon.  We are missing the God, the glory, the only hope we have in a world shaking at the core.

This morning, as I attempt to "be still and know that he is God," I realize I am letting the world make me fearful and even as I do that I lose sight of the God my heart longs for, the only one who can help me.

Which brings me to my only solution once more, the words of Jesus, who said, "Come to me......"

Truth

Truth exists.  

Truth is never personal but always universal.  

If truth exists then it's important to know what it is.  

We live in a day when people are too lazy to be bothered with the quest for truth so they drug themselves with their own imaginations hoping that will pacify their minds while they do as they please.  

But God will not leave us content with that and will demand of each of us an evaluation of our lives in light of the truth he revealed.

Living sacrifices

"We can offer ourselves to God as living sacrifices only because someone else offered himself as a dying one." Mike Messerli (Romans 12:1-2, Romans 3-6)