It’s so easy to focus on things here on earth but this takes our eyes off the heavenly prize and Christ Jesus.
Priorities
The problem with this world and humanity as a whole has always been that people only seek bonuses, only what they like, trying to build their lives on all kinds of favorable terms. The problems with world Christianity and religious movements are not much different. Masses of believers today come to church only to receive God’s blessings for their lives. People in churches pray and ask God for healing or to give them jobs. Those who are smarter just ask for finances, others ask for a wife, a husband, and many other things. In reality, all of us need only one thing – to seek the One who blesses us, to sit at His feet and listen, learning God’s will for our lives so that we can carry it out in the future. God reveals His will to man to bring him into eternal life.
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God With Us
God’s secret is that if we walk in the way of Truth, work out our Salvation here on earth under the guidance of the Holy Spirit in fear and with reverence if we abide in God, He will be with us in everything. God’s Word teaches that if we do that, we will be successful in everything we do in our lives. God led His people out of Egypt and out of the slavery of sin, but Israel, led by God in a pillar of fire and cloud, kept looking back constantly, remembering the Egyptian land full of onions, garlic, and meat. As they followed the Lord through the wilderness, they kept complaining, lamenting their situation and could only see giants and problems and not God’s promises. This, even as they approached the promised land, Instead of pitying our flesh and seeing only problems in our lives, we should look to the Prince and Finisher of faith, enjoying His presence, resting at His feet, trusting in Him, trusting Him in everything, because the Lord knows what He is doing.
Earthly Things
What was Israel’s problem? All that mattered to them was the land or the territory. Maybe that’s why they didn’t care which “god” would give it to them. They would worship the golden calf, as long as it solved their problems, so they made themselves a calf out of the Egyptian gold which they had taken out of the land of sin. No matter how you look at what you take out of the world, no matter how you twist that Egyptian gold, it will still make a calf. This is because when we care or worry about earthly things, we don’t see God and His sure provisions.
The Carnal Mind
In Matthew’s gospel, we find the following words of Jesus: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matt. 11:30). God’s work is very simple – it is simply listening to God and obeying Him, but it is incomprehensible and almost impossible for the flesh to please God because the work requires that we deny ourselves. It seems simple, but it is not easy at all. It is not enough to give the example of any two people, one of whom was able to reject and the other not. It is much more complicated than that, for we are talking about a type or way of thinking: the religious, carnal mind of man and the spiritual, reborn man who has the “mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16).
Repentance
[2]Religious people perceive the Great Creator as a servant who only has to listen attentively to all their requests, problems and then solve them, but He is the Creator – He is God! So what happens? A religious person asks God for healing so that an illness will not prevent him from going even deeper, and in essence, he doesn’t care why the illness has caught up with him. Such a man will bombard heaven, begging God for healing, maybe even involving the whole church he attends in his prayer. But God expects them to truly repent, which means abandoning all human ways and religions, forsaking our own way, including our sins, and abandoning worldly wealth which always turns into a golden calf anyway. It is necessary to stop all attempts to solve our own problems and begin to seek the face of God, to be an instrument in God’s hands to carry out His plan for our lives. We simply need to let God be God Who is the Lord of all things. Can the clay tell the Potter what to mold out of it (Isaiah 45:9, 64:6)?
God as Head
When followers of Christ, His true disciples, begin to grow spiritually, submitting to the leading of the Holy Spirit, constantly abiding in His teachings, they gradually begin to have spiritual discernment and see from the outside what other people who live by religious thinking and tradition are really doing. How they relate to God like little children who are always crying out to heaven, “Give this and give that.” In our heads, there are always prejudices, various obstacles, neuroses, and fears. That is why it is so important for all of us to understand one truth: It is necessary to allow God to be God, to be the Head of His own Church.
Made to See
God is the only One who loves us with an infinite love and always desires the absolute best for all of us. Man in the flesh is the one who always succeeds in cutting someone off or rejecting him. Man cannot see everything as clearly as God does, but we very often think we know and understand everything, however we can’t see what is behind the wall or around the corner of time. We have no idea what is going to happen in half an hour, so we’re blind in that sense, but God sees everything. The Bible asks, “Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit” (Luke. 6:39). Only God has eyes like a flame of fire and sees the hidden things.
The Holy Spirit
If we want to reach our goal and be invited to the Marriage Feast of the Lamb of God, we need to become disciples and followers of Jesus Christ in this life. To do this, we must constantly seek His face, come into His presence under the covering of the sacrificial blood. We need to grow in the doctrine of Christ, feeding on the Revelations of the Holy Spirit sent to us from heaven, having a prayerful life, and giving praise to the Lord. To make this a reality in our lives, the Lord unites us by the Holy Spirit into the Body of Christ, the Church. Only God can ensure unity among us.
[3]Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity! (Psalms 133:1)
Unity of the Spirit
Each of us needs to leave our own way and cling personally to the Lord rather than to like-minded people or friends. True unity is the unity of the Spirit and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Only when each and every one of us clings to the Lord can we be one – because there is one God and one Mediator between God and man – Jesus Christ! Jesus and his heavenly Father are one. It is this unity that allowed Jesus to represent His Father here on earth and to put His plan of salvation into practice through the Church of God.
Conclusion
When we learn to contemplate the heavenly and seek first the Kingdom of God (Matt 6:33), we can be participants in God’s Work. This will allow us to be strengthened and grow in God every day. Many people think that to grow means to be exalted above others, but with God, to grow means for us to diminish so that He can be exalted. We must decrease: He must increase (John 3:30). It is given to man to decrease so that God can become God and Lord of his whole life. Jesus is already the victor! And we will have victory when He is victorious in us so let us continue to pray and seek God’s kingdom and His righteousness so that the Lord will do His work through us.
Here is some related reading for you: 10 Bible Facts About Heaven [4]
Resource – Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), Crossway Bibles. (2007). ESV: Study Bible: English standard version. Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Bibles. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Author’s Bio: Karen J. Frost was marketing specialist before, but now she is into essay writing at Essaywriteronline.co [5]. She is happy to meet such a plot twist that her life offers to her. She is an educated person ready to share her thoughts and ideas with other people.