Acknowledging God Before Others

Acknowledging God Before Others

Live according to our calling, as a child of God, different from the world.  Do everything we do for the glory of God regardless of context (church, work, home, or elsewhere).  We are not to put our Faith in a box.

Do we deny God explicitly or are we denying God by the way we live?

Do we deny God by what we selectively stand for, versus what we choose to remain silent about?  Truth, reason, and justice are not excused from acknowledgement.  Simply because they are not popular in culture or the church.  Passivity is not a justification.  If we do not fight for truth, it will become irrelevant, and one day we will wake up without any basis for the freedoms or voice we once had for God’s glory and the good of other people.

God has given each of us unique gifts, voices, platforms, and influence to be effective agents of light in a world ruled by darkness.  Our enemy is the darkness and sin of this world that Satan is using to destroy God’s creation.  Man has been deceived by Satan’s demons leading the charge of the culture of death.  Where are we as Christians who should be acknowledging God and Christ in our lives and who led by the Holy Spirit must work to restore the creation of God in preparation of the return of Christ, His Son, to its rightful glory and nature?

Too often we are hiding from God’s presence, just as Adam and Eve did.  We may hear that “still small voice”, but we turn off our minds and just go with the flow, unresistingly following the dictates of our human nature, which has been under Satan’s influence since the Garden.  We believe Satan and the men who follow his direction, corruption, deceit, and destruction.  We fail to be as God made us, intended us to be, wants us to be, following the purpose God mandated for us in His creation and world.

We are told not to love the things of this world because if we do, the love of God is not in us.  James said, “don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God?  Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God?” (James 4:4).  Most Christians spend more time on the computer, watching TV, or spending time on their own hobbies than they do in the Word of God (the Bible) or in prayer.  Of and by themselves, these things are not wrong, but when we spend most of our time doing these things, we are showing God that these are the real priorities in our lives.  How our time is spent shows us where our hearts are.  What absorbs our will, our time, our resources most of all?  Is it careers, material possessions, money, health, even our families?

We should desire to build up our knowledge of God.  We seem to have lost that desire these days.  Apart from the Bible, which we should be reading daily, we need to supplement our knowledge by reading other good books, too.  We need to fill our minds constantly with the things of God; God should always be on our mind, and everything we do should be done with reference to Him.  We need to return to the Garden, walk and talk with God, and be as He intended us and purposed us to be.

The Greek word for “worship” in Romans 12:1 can also mean “service”.  Our daily lives should be considered as worship.  Everyday we should offer ourselves wholly as living sacrifices, being and living as He intended, holy and pleasing to Him.  We, the church, should be impacting the world and Satan’s agenda, but too often it’s the other way around.

We should be living as God created us, how He created us, fulfilling the commission He gave us, and whatever else He may place in our hearts to nurture His creation and each other.  In this way we acknowledge and honor His Son, Christ, who died to redeem us, and give glory to God.