Where God is
Where can God be found? In the praises of His children. “But Thou art holy, O Thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.” (Ps. 22:3). And heart-felt praise is primarily the response of one thing—grace.
The first form of worship was the true one—instituted by God in Eden. It required the conviction of sin and the grace of God toward sinners as demonstrated in the death of innocent animals.
So where can God be found? In grace. Grace, whenever manifest between people, as seen through the beauties of nature given to a world of rebellious sinners, or as revealed in the act of redemption at the cross, uncloaks the true character of our Father and Creator.
Why can’t everyone see Him and recognize His works? Why is faith so scarce? Because human nature and the world of self-indulgent sinners in which we live and move, operate from totally different principles than grace. How am I going to be fed? How am I going to stay comfortably dressed and housed? How am I going to get or exceed what the Jones’s have? How am I going to have the best toys and games? How am I going to have prestige and recognition? How can I free myself from all the woes that make up my life and cause me to suffer so?
Whenever we accept God’s grace toward us, then our own personal world of woe and difficulty gets better and better. And in the realm of religion, His other characteristics of wisdom and power become worthy of our praises. We must not do like Cain. We mustn’t skip the grace of God toward us and go directly into praising Him for His generosity, power and wisdom. Such worship is taking the whole religious world by storm. But it leads to proud, dead, empty religion. We need His grace to humble us and to lay our flesh in the dust, so we can rest from all the work it has always taken to protect and defend self.
And why would we want to skip His grace? Why would we not rather put forth every effort and bend all our energies to continually seek out and find the evidences of His grace toward sinners?
The first form of worship was the true one—instituted by God in Eden. It required the conviction of sin and the grace of God toward sinners as demonstrated in the death of innocent animals.
So where can God be found? In grace. Grace, whenever manifest between people, as seen through the beauties of nature given to a world of rebellious sinners, or as revealed in the act of redemption at the cross, uncloaks the true character of our Father and Creator.
Why can’t everyone see Him and recognize His works? Why is faith so scarce? Because human nature and the world of self-indulgent sinners in which we live and move, operate from totally different principles than grace. How am I going to be fed? How am I going to stay comfortably dressed and housed? How am I going to get or exceed what the Jones’s have? How am I going to have the best toys and games? How am I going to have prestige and recognition? How can I free myself from all the woes that make up my life and cause me to suffer so?
Whenever we accept God’s grace toward us, then our own personal world of woe and difficulty gets better and better. And in the realm of religion, His other characteristics of wisdom and power become worthy of our praises. We must not do like Cain. We mustn’t skip the grace of God toward us and go directly into praising Him for His generosity, power and wisdom. Such worship is taking the whole religious world by storm. But it leads to proud, dead, empty religion. We need His grace to humble us and to lay our flesh in the dust, so we can rest from all the work it has always taken to protect and defend self.
And why would we want to skip His grace? Why would we not rather put forth every effort and bend all our energies to continually seek out and find the evidences of His grace toward sinners?
posted by David | 5:13 AM
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