We Begin With God

"By him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible ... and he is before all things, and by him all things consist." (Colossians 1:16-17)

Now, I know that some have said about me: "That man is always talking about God!" I can only say in reply that if that is the only charge that anyone can properly bring against me, I will be quite a happy man! I know that I talk a lot about God - about the triune God, because I still believe in God. I believe in Him as God Almighty, the Father, and Jesus Christ, His Son and our Lord, and the Holy Spirit, the Comforter.

We do begin with God here, where all truth begins, for God is the one true and absolute reality. Back of all, and underneath and supporting all things, He girds the universe and holds it up and guides it.

God does that. That is the only explanation for the universe and the only explanation of human life, for as Creator He gives to human life its meaning and significance.

He is the sacred meaning that gives validity to all meaning. Exclude God from your thinking and you will find yourself with no sense of moral values - you will have no standard of right or wrong.

Lord, may I also talk "too much" about You. May I keep You first in everything I do, think or say today. Enable me by Your Spirit, I pray, in Jesus' name. Amen

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The Business of the Church Is God

"And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." (John 17:3)

The Church is born out of the gospel and that gospel has to do with God an man's relation to God. Christianity engages to bring God into human life, to make men right with God, to give them a heart knowledge of God, to teach them to love and obey God and ultimately to restore in them the lost image of God in full and everlasting perfection.

Our Lord, in defining eternal life, summed up the supreme goal of human existence: "That they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." And Paul revealed the one overpowering interest of his life when he wrote "That I may know him."

The business of the Church is God. She is purest when most engaged with God and she is astray just so far as she follows other interests, no matter how "religious" or humanitarian they may be.

Lord, may I make You my business today, and may the lost image of Your perfection be revealed to me in all its fullness. Amen

~A. W. Tozer~