This book really made me question how much I actually love God. Am I really willing to give up anything for God, to deny myself and follow Him? What about sin in my life? There are sins I know within me yet I do not strive, to the point of blood, to resist them. When I fail to do this I place that sin above the love and desire for God in my hearts. If I love Him I will obey Him… so they lack of obedience reveals the lack of love. If we truly love God why do we choose other things over Him and even worse deny the existence of this folly.
I have experienced God and know how much closer I can be with Him. So why do I not seek with all my strength to get back to the most amazing point in my life. I weep at the idea that I don’t have a burning desire for Him inside my soul. How can one fix something like this? If God gives the desires of my heart why do I not desire Him with all my heart? I fail and fail again in trails He has put me through only to come out confused of what I really am. If I give up this sin He will surely bless me beyond what I can imagine. So why do I not give it up instantly?
I long to desire You above all in my life. I wish I had the desire for You as David did in the Psalms. I pray that the You grant me with overwhelming desire for You as You, not for Your gifts or rewards just simply you. God Give me the faith and desire for you above all else. Burn a whole through my heart from the intensity of the fire I could have for you.
On the flight home I sat next to a woman who was very interesting. As we were talking she mentioned that she grew up in an atheist home. I asked her if she believed in God and she said because she grew up in that type of teaching it was hard for her to accept that there was a God. Although, she had recently taken classes on logic and philosophy and was struggling with this reality. Surprisingly she had actually read Genesis and Exodus and knew a little about what the Bible says about creation. So I started from the beginning and tried to show to her that there had to be a God. Then after I had her stumped on the concept of Someone having to create matter for it to collide and make a “big bang” she asked why creatures were on the earth if they are just going to die. She seemed to be hinting at the purpose of life. I explained how they were not made in the image of God like we are so they just die and turn to dust. After discussing random things about the church fathers she started talking about all the things going on in her life. In the past month she has had 7 people either pass away or become terminally ill. At this point I did not know what to say so I just listened. She said that drinking helps and that hopefully this vacation would help and I encouraged her to turn to Jesus if these things did not work and she said she had already tried that a few times. At that moment I thought… God? Why if she prayed and sought you did you not overwhelm her? After the plane landed we said goodbye and went our separate ways.
On the next flight I picked up “Pursuit of God” and started reading. In the opening of chapter four Tozer says “Canon Holmes...calls attention to the inferential character of the average man’s faith in God. To most people He is an inference, not a reality. He is a deduction from evidence that they consider adequate, but He remains personally unknown to the individual.” This struck me as the exact thing this woman was doing. In her mind it made sense for there to be a God yet she was not willing to except it for some reason. The fact is that through reasoning she concludes there is a God yet she does not actually know Him. This is the difference between the saved and unsaved… one has had an experience with God and the other merely acknowledges His existence. I think I missed the mark when it came to getting this point across to her but if the Holy Spirit was speaking through me and I was not hindering it then what was said must have been what was needed. The important thing is that a seed was planted and that God can work even more now. I would ask that you would pray for her because she is really going through a lot right now and this seems like a time she truly needs God.
The point is that we have to experience God. We cannot miss the mark when it comes to knowing God. There needs to be more then acknowledgment of His existence. Rather, there needs to be a true relationship and love for Him. We use our minds to reason and draw conclusions but God reveals Himself through our spirit not through reasoning. Man cannot experience God through reasoning… God is delighted in hiding Himself from the wisdom of man….
Ok feedback. Please correct me if I have drawn false conclusions or misinterpreted scripture in any way.
I very much appreciated this post. Beginning with the truth that you (and all of us) do not love God as we should and connecting that to our sin was a very good point. Jesus told us that if we love him, we will obey him. Thus, when we purposely rebel against him and when we do not fight, as you said 'to the point of blood', against sin in our life, we are saying that we don't love God. That's extremely powerful and takes on a very serious (and biblical) view of sin.
ReplyDeleteI also appreciated your compassion for the woman on the plane. She seems to be like so many others who are searching for some kind of satisfaction, unwilling to accept the truth that satisfaction can only be found in Jesus. Driscoll said in a sermon something along the lines of the fact that we have the streams of living water (that is, Jesus), and we see people drinking out of toilets because they are so thirsty, unaware that Jesus satisfies. I think this perfectly describes the situation of this woman (from what it seemed!), and of so many people. Seeking anything, seeking absolute garbage, for satisfaction, when only Jesus is the living water. You did what you were called to do in trying to share with her the living water.
At the end you hit on a good point- that is, that we cannot simply acknowledge God, James says even the demons do so. But we must submit to him. We must submit to accepting Jesus' righteousness rather than our own (Rom. 10:3), and we must be in relationship with him- so much so that we are in him and he in us.
Good post, Matt Haynes. Very Scripturally sound, and you could see your compassion for people and your love for God in it.