If I ascend to heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.
If I take up the wings of the dawn,
If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,
Even there Your hand will lead me,
And Your right hand will take hold of me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me,
And the light around me will be night,” Even darkness is not dark to You,
And the night is as bright as the day.
Darkness and light are alike to You.
For You created my innermost parts;
You wove me in my mother’s womb.
I will give thanks to You, because I am awesomely and wonderfully made;
Wonderful are Your works,
And my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from You
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully formed in the depths of the earth;
Your eyes have seen my formless substance;
And in Your book were written
All the days that were ordained for me,
When as yet there was not one of them.
How precious also are Your thoughts for me, God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them, they would outnumber the sand.
When I awake, I am still with You." Psalm 139:1-18 NASB
You are not who you think that you are.
We were learning last night at Bible study of how we really are in this world. Not necessarily in the Biblical sense, but the reality sense.
We are one kind of person to coworkers, another kind of person to certain family members and a different kind to others. We are many kinds of people to different people. We are confident towards some, insecure towards others.
We began all this at an early age. We don't realize it in most cases of our relationships in life.
As Chip Ingram pointed out all this began in the Garden of Eden. It began with the original fear of being exposed before the Lord Jesus Christ.
We get directed, coached, mentored to be a certain way based on what is perceived as our personality. We are one way towards women, another towards men.
This isn't exclusive to believers and the unbelieving. It's humanity as a whole. What makes this complicated is our sin nature will cause those without Christ to behave in far more sinful ways than those who are saved in Christ Jesus.
We can't rely on us to live as we ought to be living. We will find ever more creative ways to deceive ourselves and others. Remember the words of Jesus when He, the Spirit and the Father were talking about mankind at the Tower of Babel. If they didn't do something concerning their language nothing would be impossible for them. They would indeed find more destructive ways to ruin their relationship with Jesus. Mankind already had a penchant for destruction towards itself. But the point of the Tower of Babel was to reach into the Heavens.
Mankind attempting to storm Heaven. Mankind attempting to force it's will upon God. This isn't what we were meant to be.
We read in Psalm 139 of who we really are. It's humbling! It's a right perspective on interpersonal relationships. It's a right perspective on our relationship with our Creator.
We aren't here to be creating solely health, wealth and prosperity. We aren't here for those perfect jobs nor perfect associations with just the right people. We aren't here to waste away time in pursuits that gain the Kingdom of God nothing.
We aren't here to attempt to create paradise on Earth.
We are not here to collect things, nor live for the moment. We aren't here to sit on the sidelines of life seeking a peaceful existence until Christ calls us home.
We aren't here as Children of God to be living as though we were just like the rest of the world.
We come to Christ we gain a right relationship with Jesus, we inherit His mission. We are given a new identity in Christ Jesus. We have responsibilities that align with the workers in the harvest that Jesus said to pray for.
We are meant for so much more than the world tries to convince us of.
We are created in Christ Jesus for good works that we might walk in them.
We are His workmanship. We are to seek His will for our lives. What we could be or should be in life to further the Kingdom of God not to further ourselves.
Do you claim to be a follower of Christ Jesus? Does your life show it?
Do you look around your world and see a life that glorifies You or God?
Do you set your mind on things above or things of this world?
Do you seek first His kingdom and His righteousness? Or do you seek to further your own kingdom?
Do you seek to be who you are as a Child of God or not?
It's not easy to wrap my head around waste. Wasted time, wasted effort, wasted this, wasted that. I feel bad when I find that I wasted money buying something that I already have but wasn't taking the time to put away properly.
I have two types of thoughts in me from both sides of the family. One side likes to collect things, the other has to have a purpose to what is kept. So at least once a year I end up sorting and cleaning out what I have collected.
I struggled greatly with interpersonal relationships in most all my years of life. I was an outsider most of my years in school. People were an enigma to me. I tried to be myself and it wasn't received well. The more I did the more I ended up being bullied or mocked.
God's been working on me greatly in the last decade on my relationships with people. I have been adamant about making sure this second chance in this new home, new hometown, will have me doing what God designed me to be doing.
I want a stronger relationship with Jesus.
I want to be found by Him doing what He meant for me to be doing.
I want relationships that bring out Christ in me.
Possessions come and go. Collecting things is pointless. He calls you home, they are likely seen by others as wasteful spending. The pursuit of success is pointless because it's success as defined by mankind, which might not be the same in God's eyes.
There's a finite amount of time between this very second and the return of Jesus Christ to bring His Bride, the Church, to His Heaven.
There's a finite amount of time given to all who live to make the most of life for God.
There's a finite amount of time per day, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice towards God. You read here in Psalm 139, you read Romans 12, God does NOT say that He gets whatever is left of your life after you get what you want.
Jesus came to seek and save the lost. He commissioned the Disciples to do the same.
He taught the Disciples how to live.
We are created to have a life of purpose before God, in our walk with Jesus. Success as defined by God is likely going to be foolishness to the world. The natural man does not understand the things of God they are not understood by them. That's in 1 Corinthians 2:14.
Mankind keeps trying and trying to live for Self. Sin destroyed the right relationship with Jesus. Sin clouds judgment. Sin ruins relationships. Sin distracts you and I from being who we are to be.
I am reminded of the Charley Pride song "This Highway to Glory". There's all kinds of exits in life to try to get you from being who you were meant to be in Christ Jesus. Temptations abound and temptations are prolific. Temptations are subtle and extremely little pressure is required to get us to take the bait.
As the joke goes about the attention span of a dog...they are fine until a squirrel shows itself. Humans are just as bad.
This or that shapes our thoughts and ideas of life, making our lives more or less difficult.
We are meant to be something, and we need to be in a right relationship with Jesus to find out just what that is. It might mean being pushed through something we fear. It might mean slowing down to keep pace with God's plan. It indeed means being anxious for nothing but to be in prayer.
You indeed were meant to be a part of the body of Christ for a purpose. Romans 12 doesn't say we might have been given gifts from the Spirit. It says we WERE given.
We ARE His workmanship. Not we might be.
We ARE Children of God and ARE meant for more in the Kingdom of God than we know.
We who are in Christ have a God who loves us more than we will ever know. One who knew us before a single hour of our existence was experienced.
Look at your life, is it spent on you or on being a Child of God?
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