As I read through these chapters, my overwhelming impression is that obeying God is not
passive - merely refraining from evil or staying away from other gods. Loving God is incredibly active and
aggressive:
- Place these words on your hearts. Get them deep inside you. Tie them...teach them...talk about them everywhere and all the time...inscribe them. (11:18-21)
- Diligently keep them....stick close to Him (11:22-25)
- Be vigilant. Observe all (11:31-32)
- Be vigilant, listen obediently (12:28)
- Diligently do everything (12:32)
- Hold on to Him for dear life (13:4)
- Obediently listen...keep all His commands...do the right thing (13:18)
- Purge evil (13:5)
- Ruthlessly demolish...tear apart, burn, break up, obliterate other gods (12:2-3)
- Kill them, setting apart for holy destruction (13:15)
If I really examine my thoughts, I have had a passive idea of loving God that did not include vigilance, inscribing, and holding on for dear life. Nor did purging, demolishing and holy destruction enter into my thinking. It is an errant belief that the goal of walking with Him is to achieve "maturity" where I could sit back and relax for the remainder of this earthly life. To arrive at a place where the spiritual life was a downhill coast. Ministry would be at critical mass so that it would smoothly run on auto-pilot. Family life would be all pleasant because we'd done the hard work raising the kids and relating well in marriage, so we would just sit back and enjoy the fruits. Personally, I would ascend to a place of spirituality where the "things below" just didn't matter to me anymore, so I wouldn't be so bothered by people and circumstances. All of these spiritual ideas revolve around
me - not around aggressively pursuing my God.
"It seems we are devoting our best efforts to one central goal: making this life work better so we can feel better. The unchallenged assumption behind our resolve is a delusion. We assume life is supposed to work in ways that make us feel the way we want to feel, the way we intuitively and irresistibly sense we were designed to feel.
"We further assume that if there is a God, His job is to do what we cannot do to make life work as we want. We conceive of the spiritual journey as a cooperative enterprise where we pool our resources with God's to see to it that life works well enough to keep us relatively happy till we reach the world where life works perfectly and we always feel great....
"The belief that there's no higher good than feeling better now, and the top priority urge to feel better now - these represent the single biggest obstacle to our enjoying God's Presence. The Bible calls it the flesh." [Larry Crabb, Shattered Dreams]
Ouch. There it is again - the flesh. My sinfulness. My selfishness. I must actively cooperate with God's holy destruction of my flesh. I must aggressively seek Him and obey Him and love Him.
"If life is a river, then pursuing Christ requires swimming upstream. When we stop swimming, or actively following Him, we automatically begin to be swept downstream." [Francis Chan, Crazy Love]
5 comments:
Another thought on this aggressive pursuit of God -- want to clarify that it's not about doing more for Him, serving Him more, but seeking Him for Himself.
"A person may be moral and upright, or even busy in Christian service, yet have little or no desire to develop an intimate relationship with God. This is a mark of ungodliness." (Jerry Bridges)
On another note, so glad you're back with us, Christine and Amanda! We love hearing how God is speaking to everyone in unique ways through the same passages. It's always a good time to jump back in!
As our small group is doing the Crazy Love study together, I've been challenged to re-examine my heart's motivation for doing the things I do for God. It shouldn't be out of obligation, but out of pure, joyful love for Him!! This was another reminder of how we're either actively growing toward/pursuing Him or we're fading/dying away. There's no fence between the two; no lukewarm, either.
Thanks, Staci, for the post that's reminded me to focus on just loving Him.
Oh my gosh, Stac - I totally relate. I thought that I would learn enough, do enough, be enough to finally "arrive" and be able to rest on my laurels and be the "mature" Christian woman. HA! What a joke!
It seems like the more I learn, the more I grasp how very far I am from "arriving." It certainly won't happen in this lifetime. But rather than being discouraged by that, it amazes me that I'll never be able to get to the end of God. He will always be the deep water for me to continue to explore, and He will always be doing His work in me.
I am totally passive aggressive so the title really got my attention! I could relate to all the stuff about wanting God to partner with me to give me "my best life now"! Problem is, that isn't what it is all about- He wants me to seek Him, love Him, obey Him (ouch) and walk with Him. No matter what the circumstance (whining children, ungrateful children, sickness, harsh words or tones). I feel like God hasn't been my first love lately and that like the Israelites I have been distracted or I have forgotten of His great love for me. I hate that that happens so easily!!! May I remember each morning His great love and actively seek Him first!
I've been shown this a lot too lately!! God pursues me daily. And whether I pursue Him back or not daily, He is still so delighted with me all the time. Hard to believe. Which makes me love Him even more. Which makes me WANT to pursue Him. If I'm really following God, then I'm not just going to follow Him a little. I'm going to follow Him wholeheartedly. What a wake up call when I think about this!!
Daily I want to remember that I am more wicked than I ever dared believed, but more loved than I can ever imagine. I pray that this would RADICALLY CHANGE my identity, the way I see the world, but most of all the LOVE for my Lord. The fight in me for Him. Even that I need help from our God for. Help me to follow hard after You God...the world has yet to see what You could do with people fully surrendered to You. Let that be us, more and more each day!
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