We all have something we center on. If it’s self, we consider that being self-centered. If it’s family, then you are family-centered. Work-centered, health-centered, fear-centered. We’re all centered on something. What is God centered on? Hmmmmm…..
“Can I do it? Can I really have a day that is totally dedicated to bringing glory to God? I mean, no matter what I do, can I make that my focus, my purpose for an entire day? If you really sit down and think it out, it seems at the least, pretty difficult, at the most – kind of crazy. I’d have to be on my best behavior and treat absolutely everyone with kindness and love. I’d have to drive differently. My conversations will have to be carefully self-monitored. I’d have to work in such a way that takes everyone else into consideration and not myself. I’d have to die to temptation, to laziness, to selfishness.”
(And that’s not even taking into consideration Just How Is Everyone Going To Know Why I’m Behaving This Way.)
I can tell you this much, I wouldn’t be able to do it on my own steam. I would need a lot of spiritual protection and inspiration. I would need constant reminders during the day. And I would need to pray for all these things. But I’m pretty sure that the Spirit would be very helpful because this is how I should be living my whole life!
..purposefully and constantly giving God the glory for everything.
Why? Because that’s why we’re here. We exist for two reasons, to enjoy God’s grace and to extend God’s glory in the process. And in the modern western church we constantly forget this. We focus so much on receiving from God we forget that He is the one truly worthy of receiving. Instead, we bask in God’s grace and forget what it is actually for. It’s not about us. It’s about God and His glory! If we disconnect God’s grace from His glory we have a very self-centered Christianity that bypasses God’s heart.
David Platt, in his book titled “Radical” puts it this way:
“If you were to ask the average Christian sitting in a worship service on Sunday morning to summarize the message of Christianity, you would most likely hear something along the lines of “The message of Christianity is that God loves me.” Or someone might say, “The message of Christianity is that God loves me enough to send his Son, Jesus to die for me.”
As wonderful as this sentiment sounds, is it biblical? Isn’t it incomplete, based on what we have seen in the Bible? “God loves me” is not the essence of biblical Christianity. Because if “God loves me” is the message of Christianity, then who is the object of Christianity?
God loves me.
Me.
Christianity’s object is me.”
So I’m going to try it. I’m going to try to push God to the forefront of everything I do for one day. It’ll take a lot of prayer and effort, but unless I miss my guess, I’ll be a lot happier taking the focus off of..
Me
…..so just what is God centered on? God is centered on one thing.
God.
(Maybe we should follow His example)
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