I am attempting to suppress an urge: an urge to begin this post with this:
HAVE WE LOST OUR AMAZEMENT OF GOD?
I guess I failed.
Typically I prefer to ease into my topic, but today I want to be clear and straightforward: Have we lost our amazement of God?
This is not to say that we don’t like Him, or that we don’t respect Him as an authoritative figure, but honestly: have we abandoned our amazement of God as our Lord, as Savior, as King?
It bothers me that I can live for several days without really focusing on God and what He has done for me. It bothers me that I can get caught up with life and ignore my conversations with Him. It bothers me that, on some days, I would rather not read my Bible and not discover more treasures about His character.
It bothers me that there are days when I reject my “first love” and act like I’m my own queen on my own throne. (To quote a servant from the movie Ever After, “The only throne I want her sitting on is the one I have to clean every day!”) Yeah, that’s the only throne I really have.
I go through phases where I find myself bored with God and my Christian faith. I get irritated that He’s not exciting or appealing or fantastic in some new way–but shame on me; I am the one who has lost my excitement. I am the one who has changed what appeals to me. God is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).
Reading through Romans 12 this morning reminded me of one way we lose this fascination, and that is when we begin to pattern ourselves after the world (vs 2). The more we look like the world, the less we look like God. The more energy we put in striving to meet the world’s affections, the less energy we invest in pleasing God.
This is so shameful! And I say this in a sorrowful, pitying manner–not in a disdainful, angry tone. Isn’t it sad when we claim earth’s trivialities for our passions, instead of being consumed by a lifestyle spent on God?
Many of us would not wish to be martyrs. We would much rather prefer a quiet, comfortable, pleasant life with no disruptions, no interruptions, and no catastrophic eruptions which might threaten our temporal solitude. Or maybe we’d choose an adrenaline-laced lifestyle and live on the fringe of danger and mortality. Maybe we just want to choose our life, choose our pleasures, and choose our passions.
But then there’s this magnetism…this drive…this force that pulls our cognizance to recognizing a higher power, to acknowledging the emptiness in our soul that screams for fulfillment. We know the gaping hole; we know we cannot fill it.
We plead to not die empty. We beg to be whole.
And at the moment we bare our hearts and admit our barren souls, professing His kingship and confessing our sin to the Lord, He sends the Holy Spirit–His spirit–to indwell our souls, to make us whole.
This should amaze us.
The fact that God nullified our debt to Him–the debt we owed due to our sin and pride and godless nature–should amaze us.
The fact that we are no longer condemned by God, but are reconciled through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, and that when God sees us He no longer sees our sin and instead He sees Jesus…that should amaze us, too.
God is not boring. We might be boring, and our focus might need some fine tuning, but we dare not confuse our casual blindness for a deficiency in God.
May He continue to fascinate us, captivate us, and amaze us.
“Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to Me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to Me; hear Me, that your soul may live…”
– Isaiah 55:2-3a“I am the LORD; that is My name! I will nto give My glory to another or My praise to idols.”
– Isaiah 42:8“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–His eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”
– Romans 1:20“I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God.”
– Isaiah 61:10
jess leigh hanna 