You've heard it before...
"It's not about you."
And they're right.. it's not. But do we really believe it? We say we do. But the way we live shows what we truly believe. And I have to ask... do you live it?
I just started reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan for the second time. The first time I got distracted and stopped reading halfway through and I just needed to take a breather and start over. That book is... wow. I can't recommend it enough. If you are looking to turn your "Christian lifestyle" upside down, please please please pick up a copy of either Radical by David Platt or Crazy Love by Francis Chan. Those books are great.
So in the first chapter of the book, Francis just talks about God in a general sense and there are a few quotes that I found to be incredibly challenging and honestly mind-blowing.
"We don't get to decide who God is."
Wow. It doesn't matter how we perceive Him, what we think of Him, or what we believe He is. Some say that any description of God is accurate as long as we're sincere. And that's just not true. God is who He is and He is who He has always been before time existed and that will never change. Our little minds can't change it. Wow. That's a lot to absorb. It's actually too much for us to completely understand or comprehend, but that's ok. That is the way God designed us to be.
"Not being able to fully understand God is frustrating, but it is ridiculous for us to think we have the right to limit God to something we are capable of comprehending. What a stunted, insignificant god that would be! If my mind is the size of a soda can and God is the size of all the oceans, it would be stupid for me to say He is only the small amount of water I can scoop into my little can. God is so much bigger, so far beyond our time-encased, air/food/sleep-dependent lives."
Wow.
Just reflecting on how incredible God is and our inability to even comprehend or understand who He is, much less, what He's like or what He thinks gives me an awe and reverence for Him that I think we as Christians forget to have most days. We go on about these lives, OUR lives (so we think) and we live like everything is all about us - our jobs, our families, our income, our goals, our dreams, our futures... And if we'd just stop for 10 minutes and reflect on WHO GOD IS, I think it would take us all back a notch and remind us what this life is actually all about.
We were created to bring God glory. I find that in the daily routine most people have, very little glory is given to our Creator. I could go on for hours and pages and days about how we can much better live for God, but the purpose of this post today was just to stop you and remind you what life is about.
It's not about me and it's not about you. Your life isn't yours at all. It's God's. It's all God's. And I challenge you to start living like it, no matter how difficult the transition or the change will be for you.
I'm sure that when Jesus was finished being beaten beyond recognition and spit on and mocked and he was handed that heavy cross to carry to the place he would die for our sins that it was hard. I'm sure it didn't feel good. I'm sure he didn't WANT to. I'm sure it was embarrassing to be parading publicly in the condition that he was in. But he did it because he loves you and he did it as payment so that we could live eternally in Heaven with him if we just accepted that gift of salvation from him.
It wasn't fun and it wasn't easy, but he did it because he loves you. Can you just live for him? Do you love him enough to make that choice, that sacrifice? Can you just take a minute to start over and change your thinking and decide to stop making this life all about you? I challenge you to make the tough decision to give up your self-centered life and turn your attention and focus every day, every hour, every SECOND to bringing glory to God.
I wonder what our lives as Christians would look like if we truly lived solely and simply to bring glory to God.
