Our God is a Visionary God

2007-03-03

God has an extreme vision: the Lord Jesus and Him glorified is the goal of everything. The Bible is based on an extreme vision: God’s irruption into a world that does not know or care to know Him, bringing His glorious light to the darkest corners of our world. We forget that our God is a visionary God, and wants all people to know Him and love Him just as He loves all people.

Here are some things to think about I took from a class on the Christian life: When you say “I cannot be content unless...” you put that condition, whether it be a person or thing, in control. We need to be content in all things. For example, James could write otherwise outlandish statements such as “count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations” (James 1:2) because God is the source of our contentment. He is our rest and consolation because: 1) God saved us who were helpless in our sin before Him, 2) He loved us enough to bear this burden Himself, so no matter how we may suffer in this life, His suffering was far worse and without any cause other than love, and 3) anything evil or unpleasant that will come our way will not last forever. In addition, these temptations are an opportunity to trust God and live out the life that we cannot live without Him.

This “I cannot be content unless...” statement truly is a dangerous statement. This means we are telling God that He is not sufficient. Though He unconditionally loved us, we put conditions on loving Him. We also try to obligate God to do what we want, which is the age-old religious system that people buy into daily: If we do this ritual, then God, the gods, or the spirits will do this for us or not do this to us. This perfectly describes the animistic tendencies of people we seek to reach at the ends of the earth, yet we ourselves do the exact same thing.

We must choose to make God’s glory our ultimate value; otherwise we choose something of lesser value. Think of this in terms of the parable of the sower (Matthew 13). In the examples of the middle two soil types, this is the case. The object of lesser value in these cases is comfort. The first case is the one who deviates from the Faith when persecution comes. Coming from a nation where life can be rather comfortable, I have not had to sacrifice comfort very much for the cause of Christ. If you are reading this article on the web, then you very well may be from a similar culture. The second case is the idea of wealth and material items that provide comfort, which is of epidemic proportions in western culture. What are we willing to sacrifice for the cause of the Gospel?

If we keep the vision of Jesus Christ as our vision, then we will not lose heart nearly as much. If we remember that He withheld nothing from us when He suffered and died for us, then we will be able to persevere far more easily.