Today, we either seem to reject the existence of God, or we serve Him because of what He can do to make us get ahead in life. It’s not that easy to say with a genuine heart, that God doesn’t exist when you simply look up into the sky at night or see a baby born. Those are way too complicated stuff to happen, by chance. It’s like saying, your smart phone came into existence through a bunch of random occurrences over time. It’s smart, but not smart enough to do that. Or we doubt His existence because of so many cruel things that are happening today. If He’s a God of love, how can He allow bad things to happen too good people – Right?
Well, here’s the thing! First of all, we aren’t good people. We are born into a sinful, messed-up world. God didn’t make us do it – we chose to sin. We have the freedom to choose between right and wrong. If God didn’t give us the freedom to choose, we would have blamed Him for that. Now that He does give us the freedom to choose, we blame Him for our choices. It seems as if God just can’t win when it comes to us. We will always find something to blame Him for!
And when we do believe that He exists, we think He’s there for our pleasure. When I need something, He has to give it to me because I believe in Him. Here’s a lesson we can learn from the book of Daniel. Three guys with funny names were about to be thrown into a really, hot fire because they refused to bow down to a king with an even funnier name. Now their attitude could have easily been, “God, we are doing this for you. Why are you allowing this to happen to us? We are standing up for you!”
Just before they were pushed into the furnace, they said these amazing words… “Our God can save us from this fire, BUT EVEN IF HE DOESN’T, we will still serve Him!” Wow! We need to realise that God isn’t our fairy godmother who must jump just because we want something. He is God! We shouldn’t serve Him for what He can do for us, but because of what He has already done. He sent His Son to die in our place so that we can spend eternity with Him, if we only accept Him. His grace, that He has shown through this single act of love, is already far more than we deserve.
The world is teaching us to do whatever we feel like doing. That everything revolves around ME and MY happiness. Newsflash – Everything revolves around THE SON. Because of Him we are alive and because of Him we are free. And that, my friends, is the best news ever. I choose to worship God and to serve Him – not because of what He can do for me, but simply because of who He is and what He has already done for me through His Son
Have a great day!
Mark Davidson
