I’m looking out of my home office window as the leaves are falling off of this huge Bradford Pear tree Thanksgiving is over and Christmas is just a few days away. I have this question that has been banging around in my head for weeks now but if I’m honest years and just now I think I might be just little closer to the answer. Oh the Question?
What does God want from me?
I have been on all sides of this issue, outside of the church where I was told that there was no God to there might be a God but He really doesn’t care for me. Then inside the church I was told (for awhile i bought it) that God wanted my money, God wanted my service, all I had to do was just believe. But, I need a really big BUT here: BUT
I have discovered a whole lot about church that just leaves me asking the same question:
What Does God Want From Me?
The place where meeting God should be so easy and natural yet we or me have messed it up. God went to a considerable amount of trouble and work to show us what it is that he really wants yet some how we can’t see it.
It is everywhere all of creation points to one thing and one thing only so simple many of us disregarded it. Surly there has to be more, that can’t be all there is, Yet it is true nevertheless. Are you ready? The one thing that opens all the mysteries is: FELLOWSHIP.
It’s true just start with God’s word the bible in chapter one of Genesis the book of beginnings:
Genesis 1:1 (NIV2011)
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
But God is intentional, the world he is creating is designed with purpose for a great purpose so that we would have fellowship. Look Genesis 1:27 (NIV2011)
27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
We are created by God on purpose and for a great purpose. Made like Him so we could know him and theres more. Genesis 2:5-9 (NIV2011)
5 Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground,
6 but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground.
7 Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
8 Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.
9 The LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
God made everything on earth so that the earth would sustain life so that man would be able to have fellowship with God. But God doesn’t stop there he wanted us to have fellowship with each other so he made man a helper: Genesis 2:18 (NIV2011)
18 The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
and there is more, No sin in the original creation to mess up our relationship with God or each other.
Genesis 2:25 (NIV2011)
25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
But this is when things start to go sideways and we doubt God and we start to lose the fellowship that God had worked so hard for. The enemy of our soul steps into the scene and asks a really good question:
Genesis 3:1 (NIV)
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
Puts a point on it! Did God say?
The answer should have been Yes He Did! end of story God said and that settles it. But thats not what happened and doubt led to disobedience that opened the door for sin which quickly destroyed the fellowship that Adam and Eve had.
Now everything is broken and that is why Jesus Christ came to set things right, to pay my sin debt so I can once again enjoy fellowship with my God.
God wants me, all of me to know All of Him. To enjoy His presence, to desire His company, to live with and for Him and to tell anyone who will listen He wants them too. Whosoever will, That none should perish. That is what God wants from me, to have true and meaningful fellowship just like it was before sin in the garden. This is not a complicated thing, but it will require some effort on my part. Look at this:
Genesis 3:14-24 (NIV)
14 So the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
16 To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.“
20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.
21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.
22 And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”
23 So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.
24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
I am not suggesting that we work for salvation is a free gift from God. Salvation is:
Grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone.
But we now have to work at the relationship. What was so easy before now requires effort. I have to learn to bend a knee in prayer I have to open the bible and pray. I have to do that God doesn’t do that for me. If I want to have a deeper relationship God says great! Follow Me.
It is time for surrender it is time for fellowship again are you willing? and thats the way I see it in my market.