Who do we serve?

One struggle that I've always had in my life is trying to please everyone. Now I know the further you read into this post the more of you might disagree with what I am saying. But I have always been taught even before I came to know Christ as personal Lord and Savior, that God should be first. I can attribute that to many great Christian influences at school or in other areas of my life. But keeping God first has always been important to me, and sometimes it has caused arguments among friends and family. And I can look back upon my like so far and see that those arguments come from me not wanting to back down.

Now I'm not claiming at all to be some sort of Super-Christian. I'm not I am just as human as the next person. But I can see where digging in and not giving into outer influences was due to the Holy Spirit at work in me because I allowed God to be put first in my life. Now there were, and are still, times that I take on so much to where I put thing in between God and myself, but it's the Holy Spirit that brings me back to where I need to be, and convicts me to re-align my priorities.

"You shall have no other gods before Me." - Exodus 20:3 (NASB)

From the time God gave this to Moses, it hasn't changed.

The defintion of god, lowercase G, is :

(lowercase) an image of a deity; an idol.

(lowercase) any deified person or object

More so than not, we do this in our lives, but we've justified it to the point where we don't see that we are doing it. For Christians we do it with the things of God, or things that are involved in the Christian walk.

We do this with the church building, worship services, preachers, deacons, sunday school, VBS, Summer camps, etc... The list goes on and on, we put so much into these people or things that those things become our concern and we don't remember to focus on God. We are so concerned with the song selection, or what so-and-so is wearing at church that day. We forget that we are coming together in the presence of the Supreme Creator of everything, for His sake.

As Christians we live FOR HIS SAKE!! If we don't then we make an idol of whatever it is we are living for. School, work, family, friends, fun, etc...

God wants us to have a good time, but we forget that we are here for one purpose and that is to bring Him glory! Once we align ourselves with the image of Christ, start living a Christ-centered life, then our desires become that of God and Psalm 37:4 reminds us " Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart." (NASB) Anytime we try to delight ourselves in what we are doing, we aren't aligning our hearts with that of God.

I know as a human I am going to mess up, and one thing that I have learned in my time on this earth is that I'm not going to make everyone happy, but as I strive to delight myself in God, and keep Him first I know that that should be my first priority.

We get caught up in trying to make everyone happy, and I want everyone to understand something THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN. Not that I don't want to serve people, I do and especially being in ministry that is what I am called to do. But first and foremost I am here to please God, and align myself with Him. If I do that then the out-flow of His love will be seen in my life, and in the service that He leads me to do.

If we just want to make people happy for the sake of making them happy, we will ultimately fail. But if we are in such a love relationship with God that we are seeking after Him constantly He is glorified.

"He is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in Him." - John Piper

So who are you putting first?

Do we yearn after God?

In my studies for my Wednesday night sermon for this week, on top of my already pre-determined convictions for the church as a whole, God gave me an incredible example in His word of how we need to seek after Him, in fact yearn after Him.

In Exodus 33:12-23 we find God's servant Moses coming to him with a longing spirit. Now Moses had already received the 10 commandments from God, and come down and broken them because of his anger towards the Israelites worshiping an idol. Now Moses is going back to God and wanting to see God, wanting to know Him in such a deeply personal way.
v. 12 & 13, is such a bold statement from Moses to God, but it is such a good word.(12) Then Moses said to the Lord, "See, You say to me, 'Bring up this people!' But You Yourself have not let me know whom You will send with me. Moreover, You have said, 'I have known you by name, and you have also found favor in My sight. (13) Now therefore, I pray You, if I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways that I may know You, so that I may find favor in Your sight. Consider too, that this nation is Your people."

Moses is interceding on behalf of his people, and asking God to continue to be with them (even though they have just bowed down to a false god.)

And in the next several verses we find God promising to continue to be with them and allowing the nation of Israel to be in His presence.

But the awesomeness has yet to happen. Next is what gets me, in verses 18-21. (18) Then Moses said, "I pray You, show me Your glory!" (19) And He said, "I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the Lord before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion." (20) But He said, "You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!

God listens to Moses' plea, and basically let's him know that He's in control, and that Moses is in His favor, but because that "He" is holy, and set apart no man can see Him and live.

The pure awesomeness of God is to much for our minds to comprehend.

But that is the God that loves us enough to want a personal relationship with Him, and we see Moses yearning to know Him more.

God was not telling Moses that he couldn't have that relationship, but that he couldn't see His face. We need to have that same yearning to know God more, and He will reveal Himself to us in His time.

What is our commitment worth?

I haven't blogged in a while but I've really been praying about getting back into it, or better yet making an effort in blogging.

Over the last 6 weeks we have been walking through the first several chapters of the book of Acts on Wednesday nights. Tonight we looked at the passage in chapter 5 on Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11). If you read through through the passage you quickly come to the realization that their sin was not holding back money, but lying to the Holy Spirit (God).
When they chose to follow God they gave up their rights to follow God and what His will would be for their lives. The same for us, when we make a commitment to follow God and to die to ourselves everyday, Luke 9:23, and then we put our desires aside and seek God's will so we can do what He has for us.

When we make that same commitment to God and we consciously lie to the Holy Spirit, we are telling God that our redemption wasn't worth the payment. We say that "whatever" is more important that our commitment to Christ, is Lord of our life.

In Ananias and Sapphira's case it was the money they withheld from selling their land.

We are all guilty of lying to the Holy Spirit, but what I can't understand is why God continues to show His grace to us, and forgive us from putting him second. Even though we are forgiven for what we do, that is sin, we should continually strive to live as Christ as an act of love because of what He has done for us.


What are you withholding from God?

Are you willing to let it go?