Not long ago, during my morning time with Him, the thought came to me, most certainly from His Holy Spirit, that though He has not "given" me all that I wanted, hoped for and desired, and though many of the events of my life and ministry have not turned out as I may have planned, He has never, in any of the places and instances of both, failed to give me any thing less than the fullness of Himself. He has never ceased to give me all of Himself that I could at any moment receive, if I would but receive Him. The limit was always in what I could or would receive. There was never any limitation in Him.
So many of us walk through life in deep frustration, even anger over what we feel we have missed, or He has not "delivered" on. Things we may have fervently prayed for and sought. This happens because we focus on the answer, the supply, the provision. The result. Our hope, expressed or not, is in them, not on He who is the source. A.W. Tozer once wrote, "Much of our difficulty as seeking Christians is our failure to take God as He is and adjust our lives accordingly. We insist upon trying to modify Him nearer to our own image." A God in our image. God as we think He should be, doing what we think He should do. After all, isn't that what we'd do......if we were God? In our blindness, we can't see that God is exactly who we're trying to be. Through so much of my life and ministry, I've had far more interest in trying to shape Him into my image of Him, who I think He should be, rather than receiving Him, worshiping Him, for who, and as He really is. I don't think I'm the only one. Oswald Chambers said we get so focused on getting to an end, a goal, a place, that we totally miss what He wishes to do in and through us in the process, in the journey. Is that close to the mark for you and I?
I have written in my prayer journal that true spirituality is, "In everything within and without, Christ is all in all." I don't know who said that, but I know it's true. The apostle Paul lived this way, and so must we. In Philippians 3:10 he wrote that it was his determined purpose to know Him. He said this from a prison cell, at the end of his life. Yet even there, at the end of all things here, his passion and focus was in having and knowing all of Him that he could. It was not the cell, the guards, the waiting executioner, the results that he saw. It was Christ. His all for all that Paul was, right where he was. May it be so with you, with me, with all who are His.
Blessings,
Pastor O
So many of us walk through life in deep frustration, even anger over what we feel we have missed, or He has not "delivered" on. Things we may have fervently prayed for and sought. This happens because we focus on the answer, the supply, the provision. The result. Our hope, expressed or not, is in them, not on He who is the source. A.W. Tozer once wrote, "Much of our difficulty as seeking Christians is our failure to take God as He is and adjust our lives accordingly. We insist upon trying to modify Him nearer to our own image." A God in our image. God as we think He should be, doing what we think He should do. After all, isn't that what we'd do......if we were God? In our blindness, we can't see that God is exactly who we're trying to be. Through so much of my life and ministry, I've had far more interest in trying to shape Him into my image of Him, who I think He should be, rather than receiving Him, worshiping Him, for who, and as He really is. I don't think I'm the only one. Oswald Chambers said we get so focused on getting to an end, a goal, a place, that we totally miss what He wishes to do in and through us in the process, in the journey. Is that close to the mark for you and I?
I have written in my prayer journal that true spirituality is, "In everything within and without, Christ is all in all." I don't know who said that, but I know it's true. The apostle Paul lived this way, and so must we. In Philippians 3:10 he wrote that it was his determined purpose to know Him. He said this from a prison cell, at the end of his life. Yet even there, at the end of all things here, his passion and focus was in having and knowing all of Him that he could. It was not the cell, the guards, the waiting executioner, the results that he saw. It was Christ. His all for all that Paul was, right where he was. May it be so with you, with me, with all who are His.
Blessings,
Pastor O
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