Jon Green
God Focus
10/02/06
God Focus
"Once we had no delight in God, and Christ was just a vague historical figure. What we enjoyed was food and friendships and productivity and investments and vacations and hobbies and games and reading and shopping and sex and sports and art and TV and travel...but not God. He was an idea -even a good one- and a topic for discussion; but He was not a treasuer of delight." -John Piper, Desiring God
I have had a lot of conversations and read a lot of articles lately that all seem to be claiming to think about God, but they are all focused on things that God gives us. Not God.
I had one conversation lately with a man who was very convinced that focusing on his sin was the proper perspective from which to approach everything in the Christian life. If He would just remember his own sin and why he needs grace, he would have the proper attitudes. His ideas about talking to people about God's love started with his own sin. His views about what kinds of songs to sing, prayers to pray, sermons to preach; all of it started with a focus on him as a sinner. The problem is that caused him to never talk to people about God's love, or sing songs, or pray prayers, or listen to sermons.
I think we need to spend more time getting to know God.
It is through knowing Him that I am convicted of my sin. It is through having joy in Him that I am prompted to sing. It is understanding His power and authority which leads me to humility. I think that many times I focus on learning truth, singing joyfully, or being humble about my sin, rather than focusing on knowing God and letting truth, love, humility, and joy follow.
What do you all think out there in the Blogger universe?
Comments, Pingbacks:
It probably would be right up my alley.
Thanks, Jon.
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10/05/06 @ 11:04 It probably would be right up my alley.
Thanks, Jon.
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10/05/06 @ 11:04 I guess my whole goal in this post was just that I was thinking alot about examining motives and thinking about whether I come to God because I want something or because I recognize the power of God, or whether doing both is ok, and wanted to see what other people think.
why again aren't you in the theology discussion? I think it'd be right up your ally.
hope you're having a good week.
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10/04/06 @ 19:03 God's love is very confusing if you step back and look objectively at it. I mean look at how evil and ugly we christians can be, it gets a little confusing. Look at what God's creation throws at us... death, sadness, physical pain, etc... I trust God because I believe he's working out redemption. But I try not to think to highly of myself and one of the ways I do that is to evaluate my motives. Which may come off like I'm 'focusing on sin', but ideally is just me 'taking the log out of my own eye'.
I think I come from this angle because I don't see many people walking around beating themselves up because of what sinners they are.
I tend to see the opposite. More of your pharisaical mentality: "I volunteer, feed the homeless, bible study three times a week, go every sunday, etc..." so I must be a good christian. I think the tendency, at least from my perspective, is to think I'm fine because I act like a Christian is supposed to act. Instead of the truth. "When I want to do good, evil is right there with me." And God could rightly snuff me out at any point.
We're probably coming to the same point. I kind of wanted to somewhat defend the guy you started out talking about who 'focuses on sin'.
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10/04/06 @ 18:00 I've been thinking, and (a creed is coming)I believe that Jesus said seeing Him was seeing the Father, knowing Him was knowing the Father. The Apostle John said at the beginning of his gospel that Jesus was God and was the word of God.
In a certain respect I think that I cannot say, "this is how to know God." or "that is how to know God." However, I do belive that sometimes I am tempted to want truth rather than wanting God because He is truth, or I want humility instead of wanting the Holy Spirit to teach me the humility of Christ.
What does all this mean? I don't know exactly, but I know that I mess too many things up to pay attention to myself with regards to being a godly man. I must strive to be like Christ and keep my eyes on Him. Just thinking, mulling, and processing.
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10/04/06 @ 00:36 I too was very convicted of my sin when I first approached the book of Romans as an adult. However, Paul only spends the first five chapters of Romans outlining man's state of sin. Starting with ch. 6, the rest of the book is about God's grace and our response to that Grace. Also about God's grace extending to the Gentiles. There are moments in the rest of the book where Paul discusses sin, but the point of those discussions is to show God's mercy and love, not to again highlight sin.
I think sometimes we are tempted to focus on only the sin conviction in Romans and not also take into account such verses as ch.12 v.1 where Paul gives those who have accepted God's grace an answer as to what they should do next..."by the mercies of God...". I think I am tempted to stop and spend all my time thinking about my sin when now is the time to offer myself as a worshipful sacrifice; I have already accepted the Grace of God and am a "new creation" living within the protection of His grace.Many of Paul's other letters spend much of their time trying to get Christians to stop thinking and acting like "sinners" and start acting like what they are... "Christians" Rom.6:3-22(Paul speaks of sin in the past tense, and our new life in the present)
"For I am convinced that nothing can ever seperate us from His love..." ch.8 v.38
In regards to knowing God... How do you think we know God?
By the way, why aren't you involved in the theology discussion group?
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10/03/06 @ 18:16 How should we focus on knowing God?
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10/03/06 @ 11:23 Comments are closed for this post.
Jon Green
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