If we only heard and saw and experienced a small portion of what God was doing, we would be like the guy here...and loving it. Better is one day in his house than a thousand elsewhere....
I don't speak Greek, but I bet the original language version of "awesome" is very close to what my friend Elom describes...a take-your-breath-away kind of feeling. Scott and I talked about this morning in this old commercial (think God instead of Maxell)....
In his message today Scott started with a true story about the greyhound race where the dogs are trying to catch the mechanical bunny. They are dumbstruck when the machine fails and the bunny stops. They have been chasing a false image of success. They lay down, howl, run all over the place but none finish the race.
People chase after possessions, Freedom, fame, power, money, spouse, and reputation even God. But the rabbit affects the trajectory of life. What is success? Like Tom Brady, sometimes we catch the rabbit and find it's not what we expected, its leaves us wondering "Why do I have three Superbowl rings and still think I have something coming?"
The answer, Scott says is that we DO have more coming, and the "formula for success" is in a character who symbolizes Jesus (the Lord saves) ....Joshua, son of Nun. Joshua 1:1-9 helps us anticipate...Don't turn to the right or left, God is in it, meditate on it. Be a sponge...Meditate day and night. We are sponges, but as sponges we can soak up water or poison. Pursue God first, then let the benefits flow. He gave examples of Talking to God first thing in the morning, reading, listening in the car, but also through the day.
- REMAIN on the Vine (John 15: 1-8)
- Asking "God give me the words, show me what to do.
- After a hard day's work, "God I have nothing right now, help me to be a husband. Fill me up. "
- Success by God's standards does not mean an absence of "failure". Jesus knows what failure looks like and who else could help us through that better? A lot of failure is what we view through the expectations of others. Joseph in Egypt is a perfect example of how God can take a failure and reveal in it success overnight.
- To get there will require faith and surrender
My God is not a computer program...if you do "this" then you get "that"....but separate conversations with two brothers today reminded me that if our sponge is already full, there is not room for Jesus, and likewise, if we are filling up the tank with His Word, His passion, and the unseen things that are beautiful to Him...there will be no room for anything else.
That is something I fall to, and consequently don't experience the fullness of Him or become what I was meant to be. Another way I think about it is taking my identity from those other things (work, possessions, even friends and family), instead of being His child and letting God be my Father.
A song we sang was written by TJs friend, but one line was clear to me, "I give you my heart". I pictured the scene in "The Last Mohican" where the bad guy's heart was cut out, and the corpse lay on the ground. In our case God restores it, and puts it back in (Ezekiel 36:26).
"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you;
I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. " Ezekiel 36:26
Is there anything I missed here?
Brad,
ReplyDeleteI like how you talked about a false sense of success. I am just learning that even success can be relative. It really does not matter in the end how successful or unsuccessful I am, if I don't have a relationship with Him. I am glad I finally learned my lesson...took me a while.
Elom,
ReplyDeleteI agree and I am humbled by the elegance and simplicity of your point.
Jesus is the destination, and yet the journey with Him is itself success, as long as we remain JN:15
Thank your for the clarity, and sweet Spirit. Fresh air every time.:)