God is God (Authority vs. Authenticity..............knowing our place vs. being honest).

Out of several separate conversations that I've been blessed to have with some fellow Christians, I've noticed two separate ideas forming in my own life, growing as my understanding of them grows.

In learning more about the ideas John Calvin came up with, I am fascinated with how his thoughts acknowledged God's sovereignty, God's place as God, like no other.  I have never come across any other ideas that so powerfully showed me a full, complete, whole picture of how Holy and Righteous God is and how NOT I am.

So, I am learning more and more in my own life how to acknowledge, pray to, draw near to, praise, worship and share God as God.  No disclaimers to make Him more palatable.  God is God.  And I am not.  I am very much...NOT.  But the way this broken, sinful world works is to attack God by attacking His rightful place.  We are constantly being told two things by this broken, evil world.

You are God.

You are worthless.

We are neither of these things.

You are not God.  (Isaiah 45:9 and Romans 9:13-22)

You are not worthless.  (Jeremiah 29:11, Joshua 1:9, John 3:16-17, Romans 5:8, 1 John 4:16, Psalm 118:6, Psalm 139, 1 John 4:10, Ephesians 2:8, Isaiah 53:5, Romans 10:13, John 1:12.........etc).

When you pray, when you read the bible, when you sing praise, when you work as if for God, when you fellowship with each other...let these things have authority in your life.  Make war on your pride and kill it, so that when God speaks to you through these wonderful things, you will be ready to listen.

We are not God.  But we are loved by God, and He gives us meaning.  He gives us purpose.  He is the ultimate authority and as it says in Romans 14:11 (Paul quoting the prophet Isaiah), "As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God."

Every knee will bow.  Every tongue will confess that God is God.  Not just those who, as they live, believed. 

EVERY KNEE.

EVERY TONGUE.

God is God, even if you don't acknowledge Him now.  You will in the end.  We are not God, but don't agree with me too quickly and lose sight of how easy it is to say "amen!" to the Truth and ignore the blindspots in our lives, where we have lied to ourselves and refused to let God in, saying...

"I am good enough."

You're not.

It isn't about achieving a certain level of success, or being a good enough person.  You will fail.  Every.  Single.  Time.

Its about being honest.

So far I've been talking about Authority, God's authority, God's rightful place in our lives...and God' place in relation to everything, above everything, over everything.

But in order for us to interact with this God, we have to be honest, with ourselves and with Him.  He is above.  We are below.  It isn't enough to love the love of God.  You must understand and acknowledge the authority of God, knowing that we are allowed to be honest with Him, but when we question and doubt, we should do so in a way that still acknowledges His place above, and our place below.

And that, I think, is the "vs." part of all this.

David was a man after God's own heart, and I used to think it was because of how honest he was with God.  Read through the Psalms and you'll find plenty of examples of David pouring out the depths of his heart to God.  But lately I've been really convicted of God's authority in our lives.  And I realize now that David lived not just an honest lifestyle, but an obedient one.  And this obedience, I think, was the more important characteristic of David as the man after God's own heart.  It is the first difference between David and Saul that I can think of.

David obeyed, even when he sinned, when God confronted David with his sin, David repented and accepted God's judgement......he accepted and embraced God's authority, all while being an incredibly, radically vulnerably honest man.

And this is the balance that we need to be mindful of in our own lives.  I've heard a lot of talk (from myself as well as others) about, "its not a religion, its a relationship."  And while I get what we're saying, I also think that we're overreacting in a lot of ways to how things have been done.  For many of us, Christianity was an shallow, tasteless over-emphasis of God's authority, but it was an authority that rang hollow because we saw so many people saying one thing and doing another, making a joke of an already poorly represented God.

So we ran to relationship, we ran to honesty and emotional openness.  And while these things are good, we've run too far...at least I have.  I have gotten better at it, but I am so bad at accepting critique and admonishment.  It hurts my feelings and really upsets me when others speak truth into my life in a way that I am living contradictory to.  I've bought into the relationship and lost the perspective of God's place, His Power, His Glory, His Honour...all the things of God that make Him bigger than me.

Because I have easily embraced a cuddly relationship God that makes the God of the Old Testament look cruel and cold and murderous and unforgiving....which is so far from the truth.  All of the horrible things in the Old Testament don't reflect poorly on God's character.

They reflect poorly on mine, yours........ours.

When we seek relationship and lose sight of the power of God honouring religion, we are embracing a dishonest honesty, where we made ourselves comfortable within the promises and pleasures of God, while ignoring good teaching, rejecting rebuke as "judgement" and letting our prayer life and time in the bible fall by the wayside.

Be honest with God.  He sent His Son to knock at the door to your house.  Don't just open the door and tell Him to go sit in the corner.  Invite Him into all the rooms in your house.  And if you're frustrated and ashamed with how some of the rooms look, then tell Him and show Him.

But don't ignore Him when He tells you how to clean those rooms.

Be honest and open with God.  Embrace Him.  Run to Him.  Live in the wondrous depths of falling more deeply in love with a God that deeply loves you.

Respect and honour God and give Him His due...glorify Him.  Tell others how awesome He is.  Live a life that is obedient to scripture...His Living Word, the Bible.  Read it.  And then do it.

The best part about all of this is that even though we so easily make it "Authority" vs. "Authenticity" ...honesty vs. obedience...

We can only honestly acknowledge God's authority if we are obediently authentic.

Give to God what is God's.

Yes.  All of it.  :)

We've robbed God of our tithes (Malachi 3), not just in money, but in Glory and in Honour.  If we would but turn back to Him and give Him what He is due, He will bless us as only God can bless...beyond money, beyond good feelings.

Test the Lord in these things and see if He does not delight in you and pour out His blessings on you.

Go.  Seek God honestly.  Obey Him openly.  And see what happens.