Chris' Corner -- Sunday, January 17, 2021
Spending time with our three grandsons through the holidays was educational. Each in their own way said or displayed actions that one of them expressed, “They’re not playing the way I want them to play.” On their way to adulthood, they will learn things won’t always go their way. And we can’t have everything we want.
In our relationship with God, we must come to realize this same truth. It’s not about us. It’s all about Him! If we had our own way about everything we couldn’t be a child of God. We couldn’t be saved. We would never make it to heaven.
But far too often we slip into the mindset of thinking God is like us. We try to bargain with Him. We think we can slack off in our obedience. Surely, He will understand. Right? But He says, “These things you have done, and I kept silent; You thought that I was altogether like you; But I will rebuke you, And set them in order before your eyes” (Psalm 50:21). “God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good? (Numbers 23:19).
As we can see (and should know already), God is not like us. As Creator, He is deserving of our complete obedience. We live to serve Him. He doesn’t live to serve us. We are completely dependent on God for every single thing in this life—even our very existence. “O Lord, I know the way of man is not in himself; It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps” (Jeremiah 10:23).
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8–9).
Complete submission has always been required of the human race. “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deuteronomy 10:12).
After Israel conquered the Promised Land, Joshua reminded them, “But take careful heed to do the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, to keep His commandments, to hold fast to Him, and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul” (Joshua 22:5).
In his wisdom Solomon said, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, For this is man’s all” (Ecclesiastes 12:13). Our whole existence is centered on our obedience and service to God.
Jesus Christ, God’s only-begotten Son, came to this earth to show us how we should think, feel, and act toward the Father in heaven. “Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him” (Hebrews 5:8–9).
Jesus stressed many times, it was not about Him. It was all about the Father. “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me” (John 6:38). “Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner” (John 5:19).
Who am I to think anything is about me? I am so grateful it is not. “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time” (1 Peter 5:6).