SPENDING TIME THINKING ABOUT GOD

In our Sunday morning adult class, we recently discussed God as Jesus’ Father and how they relate to each other and the Holy Spirit, and considered our inadequacy to completely understand the nature of God. Following that discussion, I shared the following story:

Shortly after St. Augustine had finished his theological tome On the Trinity, he was walking along the Mediterranean shore on the coast of North Africa when he chanced upon a boy who kept filling a bucket with seawater and pouring it into a large hole in the sand.

"Why are you doing that?" Augustine asked the boy.

"I'm pouring the Mediterranean Sea into the hole," the boy replied in all seriousness.

"My dear boy, what an impossible thing to try to do!" chided Augustine. "The sea is far too vast, and your hole is far too small."

Then as Augustine continued his walk, it dawned on him that in his efforts to write on the Trinity he was much like that boy: the subject was far too vast, and his mind was far too small!

We may not be able to understand God, but we do need to give constant consideration to God and how he works in our world and in our lives. In his book All That Jesus Asks, Stan Guthrie suggests that we do not study the questions about God as readily as we do matters about things around us. Guthrie comments on and analogy Jesus used in Luke 12:54-56:

He also said to the crowds: “When you see a cloud rising in the west, right away you say, ‘A storm is coming,’ and so it does. And when the south wind is blowing, you say, ‘It’s going to be a scorcher!’ and it is. Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky, but why don’t you know how to interpret this time?

Guthrie says:

Their priorities are wrong. They study the weather, which comes and goes, but this moment, this opportunity to align oneself with God's purposes, will never come again-and yet people don't use their brains to evaluate these unique circumstances and make the right decision. It is damnable ignorance.

Such attitudes are just as prevalent today. People study the stock market, the weather, the baseball box scores, how to land a good job, and many other subjects, some more worthy, some less. But they expend few or no brain cells on the most important matters: Is there a God? What is he like? What does he require of us? How do we get into heaven and stay out of hell?

Most of us know about many things today. There is an extremely large amount of information available to us about every subject imaginable, more than at any time in the world’s history. We know details about our jobs, how to run our computers (some more and some less than others), our cars, the features in our homes, and a myriad of other things. But how much time on a daily basis do we think about God and what he is like and how he needs to affect every aspect of our lives?

Jesus raised just that point in Luke 12. When we know Jesus as Savior, we also need to know him as Lord and open every aspect of our lives for him to influence. That takes constant thought.

Opportunities in a New Year

As a congregation, we will have plenty of opportunity to evaluate our spiritual lives in 2012 as I preach through the Gospel of Luke. There is no more important person to learn about or to measure our lives against than Jesus . He is the center of our faith.

I try to preach at least one series of messages each year that puts the emphasis squarely on Jesus’ life or ministry. In the last three or four years, we have, at various times, examined his teachings through his parables, his miracles, the people he encountered, and the Gospel of Mark.

The salvation that Jesus offers is the beginning and ending point of our faith, so in 2012 we will let Luke teach us about Jesus as our Savior. Luke, more than the other Gospel writers, emphasizes that Jesus came as the Savior for everyone. The key verse in his Gospel is Luke 19:10: “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

So through this year, consider what it means for Jesus to save you and how he can use you to offer his salvation to others. If you have struggled with whether to put your faith fully in Christ, let Luke’s Gospel speak to you about Jesus this year, and determine to trust him completely.

There are other tools that you can use this year to keep your spiritual focus sharp. Here are a couple:

Commit to spending time every day in the Word of God. If you already spend time in God’s Word every day, find a new way to approach Scripture so that it speaks to you in a fresh way.

I have made it my practice most years to read the entire Bible through the year. In recent years, I have used computer Bible apps and online services to determine my reading plan for the year. There are plenty of tools available today for reading the Bible, many of them free. I have one resource that has over twenty Bible reading plans. If you need to find one, I would be glad to help you, but anyone can take a book of the Bible and read through it or just divide the number of pages in your Bible by 365 and read that number of pages per day.

It also helps to change up your Bible reading. I have read and preached from the New International Version of the Bible for many years, but last year I changed and read through the Bible in the English Standard Version and began using an updated NIV that came out in 2010 when I preach. This year I will read the Holman Christian Standard Bible and will read from it when I preach. In just a few days, I have noticed some of the differences in phrasing. That is enabling me to think about the passages I am reading in new ways.

And one more thing: Commit to regular attendance at worship in 2012. If you are out-of-town and cannot attend Westwood, attend church wherever you are. I have learned much from attending other churches over the years. Regular worship keeps you sharp in your Christian walk as you worship, fellowship, and encounter the Word of God.

So meet the Savior in fresh ways in 2012. Keep him at the center of your life.