Do you want a
life that is happy and fulfilling?
According to Max Lucado, in his book It’s
Not About Me, that life is found when it is centered on God.
When Moses
found favor with God and could have asked for anything, he asked to see God’s
glory. Lucado describes this glory as
God’s preeminence and priority. God made
everything. Our purpose, the purpose of
all creation, is to show His glory.
How do we
glorify God and experience this happy, fulfilling life? It starts with two steps that go
together. We must stop being
self-centered and start contemplating God.
Self-centeredness
is common. If you think you’ve never
been self-centered, you’re deluding yourself.
Many of us think about ourselves, our problems, our hopes, our needs,
our pains, our pride, or something about ourselves almost all the time. It is very easy to do.
To change
this, we turn our thoughts to God. We
contemplate Him, His glory, His goodness, His power, His holiness, His
accomplishments, His character, His ongoing work in this world, His love, and
more about Him.
Keeping the
eternal God on our minds gives us perspective.
We experience troubles, but those who are His in Christ will experience
unending perfection with Him, making even a lifetime of problems seem like a
brief moment. Our immutable God as good
plan that will not be changed by the shifting sands of human cultures,
governments, and economies. God’s love
is inexhaustible; He chooses to love, He eternally purifies His people in
Christ, and He will not withdraw His love.
This perspective
on God should affect our behavior. We
should reflect His glory. We should talk
about Him. We should express gratitude
to Him, first for saving us and then for everything else He does in our
lives. We should live purely and take
care of our bodies. We should face
problems with equanimity, remembering that problems are temporary and God may
be glorified in surprising ways. Even
when we succeed, we should remember God, recognize His blessings, and imitate
His generosity.
And we should
never get things backwards. We can never
add anything to what God has done for us in Christ. We can never deserve it. We do good because God makes us able, because
we are grateful, and because we love Him who loved us first. It starts with God and He deserves the praise.
*
Yet we get
something out of it anyway. It’s all
about God, but God loves us and wants us to be joyful and deeply
satisfied. Following God is the path to
fulfillment. When we delight ourselves
in God and lift Him up, He readily delights in us and lifts us up.
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