Little Need for God

"And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry" (Luke 12:19)

It does not take great wisdom to perceive that we live in a generation of completely self-confident men and women. We are doing so well and flourishing in so many ways that we feel little need for God.

It is my judgment that every one of us should be sure we have had that all-important encounter with God. It is an experience that leaves us delighted in our love for Him. Like Abraham, we become satisfied with the revelation that only God matters.

If you are living only to buy and sell and get gain, that is not enough. If you are living only to sleep and work, that is not enough. If you are living only to prosper and marry and raise a family, that is not enough.

If you live only to get old and die, and never find forgiveness and the daily sense of God's presence in your life, you have missed God's great purpose for you.

Oh, Lord, give me a sense not only of my own mortality, but of the importance of an eternal perspective. Give me a keen sense of forgiveness and of Your presence in m life today. Amen

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God As Honored Guest

"The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together; against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder; and cast away their cords from us" (Psalm 2:2-3)

The old world of fallen nature is the world of human will. There man is king and his decides events. So far as he is able in his weakness he decides how and what and when and where. He fixes values: what is to be esteemed, what despised, what received and what rejected. His will runs through everything.

Yet in their pride men assert their will and claim ownership of the earth. Well, for a time it is true, that is is man's world. God is admitted only by man's sufferance. He is treated as visiting royalty in a democratic country. Everyone takes His name upon his lips and (especially at certain seasons) He is feted and celebrated and hymned. But behind all this flattery men hold firmly to their right of self-determination. As long as man is allowed to play host he will honor God with his attention, but always He must remain a guest and never seek to be Lord. Man will have it understood that this is his world; he will make its laws and decided how it shall be run. God is permitted to decide nothing. Man bows to Him, and as he bows, manages with difficulty to conceal the crown upon his own head.

Lord, I want to heed the admonition of God through the psalmist, "Kiss the Son, lest he be angry ..." (Psalm 2:12). Help me to give You today the supremacy, the throne, the absolute authority that You deserve. Amen

~A. W. Tozer~