Are We Too Casual Towards God?
Our culture dislikes formality, in fact we have almost eliminated it.
Everything is taken less seriously and with that we have a so called casual thoughts about well you name it, sex, education, marriage and the list goes on.
This irreverance is most telling in how we think about God.
We are casual about God to the point we have forgotten His Holiness.
Our casual thoughts become sinful as we elevate our needs and ideas above what God has either commanded or indicated through scripture.
We need to recognize that we should fear God for He is Holy and we are not.
It would be instant death to look upon God the Father He is so Holy!
Christ therefore is our mediator before the Father.
Look to Christ today and follow Him!
Are You Chasing Happiness or Holiness?
Such a question actually reveals a common mistake of pitting holiness and happiness against each other. “God is more interested in you being holy than happy,” so the line goes.
Some of my favorite theologians fall prey to this subtle dichotomy. And this includes one of the best thinkers I love (David Wells). In charity, and in much gratitude for everything I have learned from his writings, I’ll post a few paragraphs from his 2014 book where this tension arises, and I’ll make a friendly amendment later.
In attempting to criticize the therapeutic definition of the faith in so many pulpits, he writes:
In this psychological world, the God of love is a God of love precisely and only because he offers us inward balm. Empty, distracted, meandering, and dissatisfied, we come to him for help. Fill us, we ask, with a sense of completeness! Fill our emptiness! Give us a sense of direction amid the mass of competing ways and voices in the modern world! Fill the aching emptiness within!
“By distancing holiness from happiness, we create a false dichotomy.”
This is how many in the church today, especially in the evangelical church, are thinking. It is how they are praying. They are yearning for something more real within themselves than what they currently have. This is true of adults and of teenagers as well. Yes, we say earnestly, hopefully, maybe even a little wistfully, be to us the God of love!
Those who live in this psychological world think differently from those who inhabit a moral world. In a psychological world, we want therapy; in a moral world, a world of right and wrong and good and evil, we want redemption. In a psychological world, we want to be happy. In a moral world, we want to be holy. In the one, we want to feel good but in the other we want to be good. . . .
God stands before us not as our Therapist or our Concierge. He stands before us as the God of utter purity to whom we are morally accountable. He is objective to us and not lost within the misty senses of our internal world. His Word comes to us from outside of our self because it is the Word of his truth. It summons us to stand before the God of the universe, to hear his command that we must love him and love our neighbors as ourselves. He is not before us to be used by us. He is not there begging to enter our internal world and satisfy our therapeutic needs. We are before him to hear his commandment. And his commandment is that we should be holy, which is a much greater thing than being happy. . . .
It is true that there are psychological benefits to following Christ, and happiness may be its by-product. These, though, are not fundamentally what Christian faith is about. It is about the God who is other than ourselves, who is the infinite and gracious God..." from the article: Are You Chasing Happiness or Holiness?
Video from Exposite the Word
"Behold, My Servant.” Those provocative words begin some of the most powerful and moving poetic expressions of grace found anywhere in the Old Testament. The Servant Songs of Isaiah prophesy the highly anticipated ministry of a mysterious figure known as the Servant of Yahweh who would fulfill the greatest divine mission the world will ever see.
Isaiah’s Great Light will lead you through a study of Isaiah’s songs, written from the heart of a pastor desiring to help you see and experience the grace and kindness of God witnessed consistently throughout the ages. .
This book ... will help you to capture the central thrust of these prophecies and show you the biblical roots of God’s unfolding plan of salvation. Kyle Swanson has done an excellent job in helping to survey these breathtaking accounts of the Lord’s Servant and to see them in their intended expression. I believe you will be greatly blessed in reading these pages as Kyle brings clarity to the study and application of Isaiah’s glorious message.
Dr. Steven J Lawson Dallas, TX Founder and President of OnePassion Ministries
Buy the book here - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Isaiahs-Grea..." from full interview video introduction