Location

 "Then the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?” Genesis 3:9...."It's 'location, location, location.' Where am I in relation to Him right now?"  Ann Voskamp

Adam and Eve had sinned, disobeying God, partaking of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. With their disobedience, sin entered the human race and all of creation. They instantly knew they had sinned and their first impulse, as it always is in relation to sin and a holy God, was to hide. God, who knew exactly what had happened and exactly where they were, came looking for Him. He didn't need to know where they were. He needed them to know where they were. Where were they in relation to Him right now? It's a fitting question for each of us.

We are born separated and disoriented to Him. We were created for fellowship and intimacy with Him. The presence of sin in our lives has broken that connection, and nothing we can do of our own efforts can restore it, though so many have tried mightily to do so. All other faith systems provide some path of works and self effort to connect with Him. You must work your way to Him. All those efforts are futile. Only the Christian faith shows forth a God who does not seek to have you come to Him, but who has come to us in His Son, Jesus Christ, and all that exercise true and believing faith in Him, have the barrier of sin broken. We are forgiven, cleansed, freed, and restored. If this has not happened with you, please, my friend, it must, for as Jesus said, "No one comes unto the Father except through Me." 

Yet even those who have entered into this saving, restorative relationship with Him can become disoriented to Him. Open sin and disobedience will certainly cause that, but I think the more common and subtle way it happens is by simply becoming more preoccupied with that which is not Him, than He Himself. We can seek the good things of life over the best that is Him. We can become overly busy or stressed. We can pursue our dreams more than we pursue His dreams for us. We can become captive to destructive attitudes and behaviors that quench His Spirit and diminish His presence. I think more than any of these, we just become lazy in our relationship with Him and slowly have a gulf develop between us. We are not so much hiding as drifting. A drifting that will eventually lead to destruction if not corrected. We lose sight of where we are in regards to where we once were. In the Book of Revelation, Jesus warned the church in Ephesus of how far they had drifted from Him and how their love had grown cold. They were doing all the right things but their hearts were not alive in His. He told them to go back and do again the first works of love and devotion. Might it be that many of us need to do the same? Where is our location to Him right now?

Realtors say that location is everything. How much more is that true in the spiritual realm? Jesus knows right now where you really are. Do you? If you are trapped in the darkness of not knowing Him, you can, as I saw someone say, simply cry out, "Jesus, come get me!" He will come, and you will have the choice of receiving Him or rejecting Him, but He will come. If you are one who simply has drifted from Him, perhaps far from Him, you can cry out with those same words. He will come, and He re-orient you to Himself. Anyone who has been spun about for any real length of time knows the resulting imbalance and disorientation we feel. Life has a way of spinning us about and doing that same thing to us spiritually. The difference is, physically, we can just be still and all around us stops spinning. Not so in the spiritual realm, because it is we who are spinning. Only the Lord can make things balanced again. Do you need that today? All you need do is call out, "Jesus, come get me!"

Blessings,
Pastor O