What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.

The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God. For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like…

…The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worthy of Him – and of her. In all her prayers and labors this should have first place. We do the greatest service to the next generation of Christians by passing on to them undimmed and undiminished that noble concept of God which we received from our Hebrew and Christian fathers of generations past. This will prove of greater value to them than anything that art or science can devise.

A.W. Tozer

Do you agree? How do you view God?

“And God is able to make all grace abound to you, that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed.” 2 Corinthians 9:8

We all need grace. But how often do we actually let grace operate in our lives? I think grace is a whole lot more than we think it is. I think if we truly understood all that grace is and what it means, we would be radically changed people. Grace is more than just “forgiveness after we’ve screwed up”. Grace is the reason why we are able to do and accomplish all that God has called us to do. Grace is why we are here. Grace is why we are alive.

Check this excerpt out by Jud Wilhite from his book, Pursued:

The big lesson I’m learning is I need to invite God in more and live from His grace. I need to stop worrying and doing it on my own, throwing “with God” in as a nice religious tagline. I need to stop idolizing my own independence and start allowing God’s grace to work through me in all I accomplish. I need to stop assuming I have grace all wrapped up nicely with a bow on top when I’m not applying the depth of the gift. I need His undeserved favor far more than I ever imagined. 

Can you not identify with that? I think we rely on ourselves way too much and give God way less credit in our lives than He deserves. My prayer lately is simply, “More of you Lord and less of me.” (John 3:30)

Let’s give credit where credit is due. Let’s allow God’s grace to operate more freely in our lives. Let’s stop thinking that we can actually get things accomplished on our own strength. Let’s stop lying to ourselves that we can just work ourselves out of the storm we are in. We need God. We need His strength. We need His grace.

So, you may be thinking. Yes. Amen. I agree with that but how do I allow more grace to flow in my life?

And answer can be found in 2 Peter.

May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord. 2 Peter 1:2

As we begin to strengthen our relationship with God, and trust him more, we will begin to rely on His grace more and more. When we can start to internalize the truth that God is our hope, our rest, our future, our healing, and our savior…His grace can abound in our lives.

Amen.

“God has made humans to reflect Him, but if they do not commit themselves to Him, they will not reflect Him but something else in creation. At the core of our being we are imaging creatures. It is not possible to be neutral on this issue: we either reflect the Creator or something in creation.” Greg Beale

We are God’s masterpieces! We are created in His image and were designed to reflect Him and bring glory and honor to His name. But, unfortunately, it is not always like that.

Sometimes we let other things in life hold a higher value than God. God has blessed us immensely and instead of purely thanking God for those blessings, we start to focus on the blessings and make those the ultimate instead of God himself. We will all worship something, we have to choose what. (or who)

“And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles…They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen.” Romans 1:23-25

We are not the first group of people to struggle with keeping our focus on God and not what he can give us. Paul revealed to the Romans that they struggled with this as well. The truth is, we all have a God-sized hole in our hearts and if we don’t fill it with Him, we will naturally fill it with something. Maybe it is money, possessions, relationships, fame, addictions, etc. When we aren’t filling out our identity with Christ and who He says we are, we will look to something else to identity who we are.

When we look to man-made things or things of this world or even the blessings that God has given us to fill the identity hole in our lives, we stop reflecting God.

So maybe today you are feeling unfulfilled. Maybe today you are having some sort of identity crisis and left feeling a little empty at the end of the day. It might be time to search yourself and analyze who or what you are giving most of your time and attention to. What are your pursuits? Where do you spend most of your money or time in?

Answering these questions will give you a good idea of what you may be trying to fill your life with instead of God. This will not be a one time decision. Everyday we have a choice to either keep God in the center of our lives or allow temporal substitutes creep in.

Keep God first. It will help everything else make sense.

“Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.” Matthew 6:33 

Allowing our lives to reflect God is worth it. When we reflect God, we know who we are. We are filled with hope, peace, and joy. We can walk through life with confidence.

Waiting is not easy, especially when the stakes can be high. But it is a necessary part of our relationship with God.  But the truth about waiting on God is that there is a right way to wait and a wrong way to wait. The wrong way is to just “do nothing.” Waiting on God is not a passive activity…you need to actively wait.

What does actively waiting on God look like?

Pursue Him.

There is no down side to pursuing God. So why don’t we pursue all the time! Most times it comes down to a simple question, how bad do you want it? How badly do you want to see a change in your life? How badly do you want that breakthrough in your finances? How badly do you want healing, restoration, or peace? If it is truly something that is important to us, we will put time into it.

Our timing is not God’s timing. It is often a hard truth to swallow. But sometimes when our plans are delayed, we perceive them to be denied, but that’s not so. Delayed is not denied. So while you wait, continue to do your job…pursue. My pastor Justin Davis has said, “God is more interested in our character than our calendar.”

Be patient while you wait. Don’t lose your hope. Don’t lose your passions. But don’t sit around.

Every single one of us will at some point wait on God. It doesn’t mean you are necessarily doing something wrong, it is just part of life.

Next time you find yourself in a season of waiting on God, remember you can actively wait on Him.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7

All of the verbs in this verse are action verbs…ask, seek, knock.

I can tell you with absolute confidence that if you honestly seek God, you will find Him. He is not going to play hide and seek with you. If you seek Him, you will find Him.

So as you wait…seek!

Knowing our identity seems like it’s becoming harder and harder. I talk with people all that time that don’t know how to define themselves, who don’t really know who they are, or who will define themselves by what they do.

What you do is not who you are.

Our culture likes to look in all the wrong places to find identity. We have stressed individuality for so long now but now that we have it, it has not solved our identity crisis.

“We have unprecedented personal freedom, but our freedom is accompanied by a haunting sense of being lost.” Mark Sayers

When we can’t figure out how to find our identity by ourselves, we often look to others. But looking towards others for a sense of self and identity will not work either. Looking to your job to define who you are will not work. Looking to culture and celebrities will be a dead-end.

“Peers and society act as a mirror: we look to them to gain a sense of identity, yet they can only relay back to us the messages that we communicate to them.”

Our culture today is obsessed with image and the only way to find our true identity is to look inward and upward…not outward.

• Image does not define you.
• Success or failure does not define you.
• Your job does not define you.
• Your peers can not define you.

I’m sure we all know the answer as to whom defines and identifies us, but it’s so easy to forget or overlook.

Christ gives us our identity. Him and Him alone. We are His children and made in His image. All the identity and defining we need can be found in Him.

Who or what are you trying to find your identity in other than in Christ?

You should remember the words of the Lord Jesus: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ Acts 20:35b

We have all heard that verse or phrase that is better to give than to receive. And truthfully, as a child, I had very little understanding of this…most kids don’t. But as an adult and as a hopefully, ever-growing Christian, I see the power in this verse.

Lately, more than ever, I feel the Lord is cultivating my heart to be more generous. I can see it in my own life as well as my wife’s. Giving, however, doesn’t come naturally. I have to fight urges all the time to hold tightly to my “things”. That is not what God wants from us. Here’s the truth:

It’s all Gods.

Everything we have, own, want, need…it’s all his. It all belongs to Him. All our money, all our possessions, all our gifts and talents, and all our relationships are His. He created everything and therefore we don’t have actual ownership over anything. That is why I believe God wants us to hold loosely to our “things”. He wants a generous heart in all of us.

“Give freely and become more wealthy; be stingy and lose everything. The generous will prosper; those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed.” Proverbs 11:24-25

God does give us incentives in order to give, but it really isn’t about the incentive, it’s just about developing a generous and more Christ-like heart towards others. Here’s a lie people buy into: “I’ll be generous once I make just a little bit more money.” Ever heard that? Ever said that?

Here is the hard truth that a pastor friend used to say: “If you can’t be generous with $21,000, you won’t be generous when you have $41,000. And you can’t be generous with $41,000, you certainly won’t be generous when you make $141,000.”

We have to choose to be generous now with what we have now.

It’s amazing when you ask God to help you be more generous, how there are all of a sudden a bunch of random opportunities for you to be generous in. (By the way, this spirit of generosity isn’t just with money. A lot of times it is your time or a service, or a gifting or product that you offer.)

God has been definitely moving in my and my wife’s heart lately towards being more generous and more giving of our resources…cause the truth is, we are called to generosity.

How about you?

“Remember: A stingy planter gets a stingy crop; a lavish planter gets a lavish crop. I want each of you to take plenty of time to think it over, and make up your own mind what you will give. That will protect you against sob stories and arm-twisting. God loves it when the giver delights in the giving.” 2 Corinthians 9:6

Has God been calling you to be more generous?

“Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.” Psalm 37:5-6

God wants to bless you!

He is not a cosmic cop waiting for you to screw up so that he can zap you. He is not a cranky old man that you should feel like you are always bothering. He is friend, loving father, protector, Savior.

He is faithful and also unchanging. And being that he is unchanging, he has a perfect track record with keeping his word. He will make your righteousness shine… You may be thinking, “well that’s great, but, I don’t feel very righteous…I’m not good enough to be lifted up.” Thankfully, that is not the truth. The truth is, because of what Christ did on the cross, we are all counted as righteous!

As Christians, our works don’t determine whether or not we receive blessings. We can not earn any of that. Our belief in Christ, makes us children of God and like any parent wanting to bless their own children, God wants to bless us. It brings him joy.

So trust him. Because he is worthy.

Matthew Henry’s Commentary for these verse adds that, God wants to take care of your reputation, and bring you out of your difficulties. Not only with comfort, but with credit and honor.

“Open up before God, keep nothing back; he’ll do whatever needs to be done: He’ll validate your life in the clear light of day and stamp you with approval at high noon.” Psalm 37:5-6 MSG

Freedom is something we all want. Sometimes we think we have it but we actually don’t. I believe there are two major keys to living a life of freedom:

1) Do what you were wired to do!

What are you passionate about? What are your deepest desires? What are your hopes and dreams? The first key to living in freedom is to do those things.

Nothing will make you feel more bound and caged, then when you are doing and pursuing things that you were not meant to do. A very good way to become burnt out and feel boxed in is to live against how you were wired.

I came to realize this truth: God isn’t going to make you do something that He didn’t hardwire in you. We have our passions and our gifts for a reason. He wants us to use them. Your gifts, however, are to ultimately to further His kingdom. God requires of you just one thing with the talents and desires that He gave you, and that is to be willing to give them back to Him. In my life, it was only when I was willing to give back to God the gifts, passions, and dreams that He gave me, that I found total freedom.

This leads me to my second key to living in freedom.

2) Surrender what you have been given.

The thought itself is somewhat counterintuitive. It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the more “control” you have over our lives, the more “free” you will feel. But something that my pastor said really rings true: “The greatest of all illusions is the illusion of control.” The simple truth is that God is the one in control and not us.

I used to fear giving things up to God. I would hold on to my dreams and desires and keep them on a short leash. I would only ask God for help or guidance when I was stuck or at the end of my rope. I thought that if I gave up my desires and dreams, I would lose them, and that God would use me to do something that I was not passionate about. I now know that not to be true.

But Christianity is funny like that. Sometimes the most powerful beliefs we hold to, don’t seem to fit with common sense. In order to be exalted, you must be humbled. In order to be rich, you must be made poor. In order to be filled, you must be emptied. When struck down, you are to turn the other cheek and then go the extra mile.

So why surrender?

I believe a major reason is because we cannot be fully trusted with our gifts unless we are continually surrendering them to Him. Jeremiah 17:9 says, ”The human heart is the most deceitful of all things…” You may start with good and wholesome intentions with your talents and passions, but if you are not continually laying down your pride and laying down your gifts, it is only a matter of time before you get sidetracked. The benefits of trusting God with our passions, however, are well worth it. Verse 7 & 8 say, ”But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit.”

Surrender is not a sign of weakness. Surrender gives God room to work and will allow Him to use you in a mighty way. I’m sure we all want to “never stop producing fruit”, but the key is to always surrender what’s been given to you. Allowing God inside and amongst your gifts is so vital to living a life of freedom. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom (2 Cor. 3:17). You want Him with you. You are better off giving Him your desires, letting God be God, and because of that, living in joyous, complete freedom.

Remember, you are called to be free. And the only string attached to living a life of freedom is more of Christ.

“The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.” Exodus 14:14 [NIV]

“All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet,and it was distributed to anyone who had need.” Acts 4:32-35

We all have “things” in our lives that hold extreme value to us. If I were to guess the two biggest things, it would probably be our finances and our possessions. Those two things usually grip our hearts more than anything. Those two issues very much permeate believers in the Church today.

But what was so radical about the believers in that time?

Firstly, they were one in heart and mind… definitely need to work on that.

Secondly, and this is key, no one claimed their possessions as their own. Everything was Gods. That is a huge lesson to learn in our lives. How many of our valuable possessions can we say are Gods? How tightly do we hold onto our finances, our cars, our houses, our stuff?

We can see what happens when we put our “things” in their rightful place…God’s grace abounds in our lives. (God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them.) The truth is, when we radically give, we open up the door to allow God to radically move in our lives.

Let’s be known as a generous people. Let the truth sink in that our stuff is not really ours but Gods. Let’s give radically, being obedient to the leadings of the holy spirit, and then allow God’s grace to abound in our lives.

“When you bring blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice crippled or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?” says the Lord Almighty. Malachi 1:8

Ask yourself this question: Do I give God my best.

Honestly, I don’t always give my God my best. In fact, sometimes it is just scraps. Thank God for his grace and his love.

The verse above points to a powerful comparison. Now we are under a new covenant and so we are no longer sacrificing animals. Jesus become our ultimate sacrifice and forever covered our sins. But God does still ask us to offer our best to Him.

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God — this is your spiritual act of worship.” Romans 12:1

The truth is, we care so much more about giving our best to others than we do God. I know sometimes I do. We all try to make a great impression with people. We will put on the perfect outfit, a great smile, totally clean our houses (don’t look in the closets), go out of our way to be hospitable and make sure everything is in place. We want the person to feel loved, warm and welcomed. To show them respect, we want them to feel like they are getting our best.

But do we do that with our relationship with Christ?

I’m not sure if groggily reading the same line over and over again in our Bibles and try to pray to Him while slipping in and out of sleep is really our best. But sometimes that’s all I offer.

God deserves better. He deserves more.

If I’m going to give God my best, then maybe it means waking up a few minutes earlier in the morning so that I’m fully present in my time with Him. Maybe it means carving out specific times in the day and protecting those moments with Him like we would if it were any other person, appointment or meeting.

I can tell you that God will totally honor us giving Him our best. He loves blessing His children.

So today, think about what you’re giving God. Is it really your best or is it far from it. We are in no way ever going to be perfect with this but it is something worthy to strive for.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” Matthew 22:37

Are you giving God your best?