My Number One

When God really wants to teach us something or remind us of something, He often uses many different experiences in our lives to emphasize it. This has definitely been the case for me during the past few weeks.

The pastor at our church has been preaching a short series through the Lord's Prayer, petition by petition. In his sermon on the first petition, "hallowed be thy name," he introduced a key point for the series: we try to fill God's place with other things that we hallow and praise, but whatever we praise will control us. Only when we put God first will He control our lives and make us complete. The second petition, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven," has a similar focus. The primary point of his sermon on this petition was active and passive obedience and submission to God's will. Whatever we submit to will control us, and so we need to submit to God to have a thriving Christian life.

In my personal reading time I have been going through books ranging from Money, Possessions, and Eternity by Randy Alcorn to Emotional Purity by Heather Arnel Paulsen, and I have been struck by how all of these authors emphasize contentment with God's will and a close relationship with Him as the foundation or even the solution to so many problems that we experience in this life. When God is our number one, our all in all, our first priority, we no longer feel compelled to seek satisfaction, identity, and fulfillment in wealth, power, or relationships. God may graciously give us those things in His good timing, but even when we receive them, we will treat them as gifts rather than the Giver if our hearts are God's first. Our pastor preaches a similar message in many of his sermons.

I sometimes read Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest as a devotional. It teaches that we must be filled with God and with the Holy Spirit in order to accomplish His purposes in our lives.

Hmmmm.

Maybe God wants me to concentrate more on my relationship with Him and make Him my number one priority in my life? Maybe He wants me to focus on being filled with the Spirit to be His agent on this earth?

It has been challenging to see His standard for Christian living and to see how far I am from that standard. Over the next few weeks I am going to attempt to analyze my life from His perspective and see what needs to be changed or removed. I definitely can't do this on my own, so I would appreciate prayers for the Holy Spirit's help.

~Mac

Tension and Growth

During the past few months I have been reading Money, Possessions, and Eternity by Randy Alcorn. It has been rather challenging to explore what the Bible has to say about money and how far we fall short of God's standards at times. I will probably be posting more of my insights related to the actual topic of the book, but today something popped out at me that was not specific to the issue of money. Talking about insurance on page 349, Alcorn writes:

There are many factors to consider when making an insurance decision. Sometimes I think we should have a little more insurance; other times I think we should have less. This tension is healthy. As we continue to grow in Christ, we continue to evaluate. But we are determined to follow His lead as best we can discern it. [emphasis mine]

Two things really struck me about this paragraph. First, the idea of healthy tension in the Christian life. Over the past several years, one thing that God has been teaching me is that there are two extremes to almost every issue in Christian living, and in almost every case, we are to take the middle ground between them, not falling into their extreme. This is hard for me, because I like things to be black and white and straightforward. This idea that the resulting tension we experience is healthy is very freeing! God wants us to constantly be thinking about why we are doing what we are doing, whether we can improve it, and always searching for and listening to God's will.

Secondly, continuing evaluation as we grow in Christ. As I have grown older, I have realized more and more that I cannot simply take a week, a month, or a year, decide my stance on all the issues, and then coast for the rest of my life. God is always revealing new ideas and new principles to us through His word and wise teachers of the Word. The Christian life is a constant journey of sanctification, re-evaluation, and learning. In all areas of our life, we need to be willing to constantly evaluate our behaviors, motives and beliefs and change them if God has revealed more wisdom to us that contradicts our current beliefs.


Even though these insights mean a harder, more involved Christian life, they encourage me. Coasting along secure in one's beliefs and free from tension is not a good way to grow and learn. I have new motivation to search the Scriptures, discuss the issues, and to follow His lead as best I can discern it at my current season of life!

 Any thoughts? What has God been teaching you lately about sanctification and the Christian life?

~Mac