Impressing God . . . 05/18/2011
 My thoughts this weekend have been on "coming clean" before God. I'm sure that comes from step study being on my heart. It 's difficult to participate in steps one through four and not think about "coming clean!" These steps demonstrate so profoundly how far we will go to "pretend" to be who we are not. In the end, just who do we impress by wearing masks? I find myself wondering if God is impressed at all with His children. I know that sounds pretty negative. I truly don't intend for that question to be a judgment as much as a question of amazement. I have a holy sovereign God who has shown His heart by becoming intimate with me as a Father. He has provided a way for me to call Him "Abba" to emphasize how close this relationship really is. He gives me gifts, none of which I deserve or can ever come close to repaying. In my faithlessness, He is faithful. In my lack of maturity, He always provides and leads. He never leaves me, in fact, He lives IN me. With all that in mind (and 66 books full of more), how do I impress my Father? Larry Crabb would say it is a choice between first thing and second things. In other words, God or self. When I'm trying to mask my weaknesses, faults, sins, failures or brokenness, those are all about self. When I'm open to God's grace in my life to give me His strength for my weaknesses, why then would I even consider wanting to hide my weaknesses? My faults, failures and sins are masked mostly because of pride. How's that worked for me? Not! I believe if I were to impress my Father, it would come from a heart of humility, servant hood and selflessness. In other words, it would look like God's other son: Jesus! Along this line of thinking, I was blessed Sunday morning with thoughts from Isaiah 58. God is strongly admonishing his children, who were in Babylonian time out, to get real. In the NLT the words he uses are: "they act," "they seem," "they ask," and "pretending" (vs. 1-3). They are whining because they have done such good stuff and yet God's not been impressed or even noticed (vs. 3). Fasting, probably the most outward form of religious piety, was masked. Behavior was right, heart was untouched. God's response: you can't "expect your voice to be heard on high," nor is that a "day acceptable to the Lord." (vs. 4-5). God's not impressed. What does it take? Verses 6-12 God lays out important "if . . . then" scenarios. To sum it up, He says if we will get out of ourselves and have His heart, then He will be impressed. What does that look like? God leaves no guessing or doubt. When I help the downtrodden, broken, lonely, destitute and oppressed people around me, then God says He will guide me, strengthen me, satisfy my needs, heal me quickly, and when I cry for help, He will say, "Here am I!" There's not much that can top all that! This is the word from God that keeps me confident that efforts to create a ministry as Celebrate Recovery which specifically reach out to the people on God's heart is what impresses God. The amazing part is that everyone wins. When I help others, God helps me, but the most important thing is that we help God by doing his work here on earth. Isn't it remarkable to see the contrast between what we commonly think impresses God and what Jesus told the Pharisees? Or what God himself says to his people through almost every prophet? I hope you will read Isaiah 58 many times and that it will impact you as it has me. We have such an awesome God! CommentsSharon Darling 05/21/2011 10:06pm
Great Blog... :) Leave a Reply | AuthorElaine is a wife, daughter, sister, mother, mother-in-law, grandmother to three precious children, friend and child of God. ArchivesJanuary 2012 Categories |
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