As I journeyed back to Athens from time away in Northern Greece, I found myself reflecting once again on the wonder of the gospel and how easily I forget the One whom life is truly all about. The following came out of that time and I hope it might be an encouragement to you, especially if you are just as forgetful as I am when it comes to remembering our great God and Saviour.
It's all about Him. It's about His Kingdom, His glory, His name, His reputation, His purposes. This is the right order of the world, yet sin turns the order of the world upside down. It's inward looking. I remove God from His rightful place on the throne of the universe, and position myself on the throne. No longer is life all about Him, it's all about me. It's about my Kingdom, my glory, my name, my reputation, my purposes. It's not difficult to see how this will not and cannot work.
Like any designer, they know best how their invention should be used. This is true when it comes to God. He made us. We were made to live with Him at the centre, with Him on the throne. Because this is how we were made to live, only as we live this way will we experience greater satisfaction and fulfillment in life. The universe is as it should be when God is where He should be, the King of my life, the ruler of my heart, the author of my destiny. Without Jesus we would be lost in a pit of self-denial, believing the lie that my life is really my possession, and that there is no higher authority than myself. Do you see how counter-cultural this is? The messages we hear day by day are messages promoting me to a position I was never intended to fulfill. A position I will never be able to fulfill - the position of God. As a self-made deity I try to command my life but if I'm honest it just doesn't work.
In search of comfort, I surround myself with possessions only to find myself falling deeper into debt. And once I've gained my desired possessions, it's not long before I crave new possessions to replace the ones that are now outdated and lacking of my affections. In search of meaning, I pull myself through experience after experience placing all my hopes and dreams on the next big high, yet once I've achieved this experience, I'm left wandering "was that really it?" In search of identity, I carefully fashion and craft my image, all the time knowing that I'm concealing the real me. In search of hope, I attach myself to an idea or a united cause, yet in time ideas fade and get replaced with new ones, and causes rarely ever deliver when they are needed most.
Thankfully, from the moment of humanity's first rebellion, God has been working a plan of salvation, a plan to save humanity from the calamity of itself. A promise was made that one day the designer Himself would come to meet with His work, to correct, train, rebuke and reveal the errors of their way. In a scandalous twist of events, the anger facing those who defiled God's Kingdom, glory, name, reputation and purposes would fall upon God Himself. Like any designer, any inventor, He loves His creation and is willing to do anything to win it back, even die upon a cross. A world once turned upside down by sin is now re-positioned with God calling sinners to repentance and faith in Christ. A call to surrender that God would once again sit in His rightful place on the throne of my life.
Such mercy and self-sacrificial love of the Creator God requires but only one response from His rebellious creatures, a life lived to the praise and glory of the One who is and always will be Lord, God and Saviour. And with God on the throne, and His Spirit dwelling within us, we are free and able to live as we were meant to live, a life for His Kingdom, His glory, His name, His reputation, His purposes. Only as we live out our true calling, our purpose to be children of the living God, only then will we know true comfort, true meaning, true identity and true hope.
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