The Kingdom of Me



A philosopher once said, “Know then thyself, presume not God to scan: The proper study of mankind is man.”  He could not have been more wrong.  While the study of man and of all creation is a worthwhile endeavor, such a seeker will lie frustrated on his deathbed because he will not understand the source of his own nature.

We are unique in Creation.  Only humans are made in the image of God.  The greatest enterprise in any person’s life is the contemplation of God.  What we think about God is the most important thing about us.  But thinking about God is challenging because He is unlike any other thing in his Creation.  When we begin to get a glimpse of who God is we will experience moral shock just as the prophet Isaiah did and we considered last week. 

Our sinful moral bent is to avoid contemplation of God.  It is too painful.  It is much easier to put ourselves in place as god and master of our fate.  But such personal enthronement is the source of all that ails us.  When we contemplate and truly encounter the Triune God of the Bible we will step down from our puny self-throne and crown our Maker as our eternal King.  It is there that we will find true purpose and peace in our life.

http://www.fbcgalesburg.org/messages

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I Don't Find Jokes About Worship Music Very Funny

Image
This post is a second attempt on this topic.  The first was pushback on the cartoon above that a friend had posted on Facebook. It was lacking in grace.  I regret that but remain committed to my point.  I have a good sense of humor.  I enjoy the satirical website, Lark News , and even my own copy of A Field Guide toEvangelicals and Their Habitat.  I can laugh at myself and my evangelical tradition.  But I don’t find jokes about worship music very funny. Most of the time, it is contemporary praise and worship songs that are the target of the jokes and cartoons I’ve seen and heard.  There was a variation of Cows in theCorn several years ago that poked fun at hymns.  Nevertheless, the repetition found in praise and worship is the usual target.  It is my experience that people who don’t like the genre think the jokes are really funny.  I don’t.  I never have.  Here’s why: Praise and worship songs are different than hymns. That seems obvious, but the difference lies
Read more

Should the Church Accommodate Its Worship to the Culture?

Image
Yes… and no. Early this morning, I finished reading John D. Witvliet’s essay, Theological Models for the Relationship between Liturgy and Culture in his excellent collection, Worship Seeking Understanding   (Baker, 2003).   Heady and academic stuff, as the title demonstrates.   But the concepts that he unpacks are important for every pastor and worship leader to encounter and grasp. There are some groups who resist the surrounding culture at all costs.   The Orthodox Church, along with certain Anabaptist sects (such as the Amish) are probably the most radical in this regard.   But there are other traditional groups who avoid cultural infiltration like it was the plague.   On the other side of the spectrum are evangelicals who will do most anything and everything in order to satisfy the god of relevance.   Neither pole on the spectrum is to be desired. Cultural influence, or inculturation, in corporate worship is unavoidable and should be, in some measure, embraced and celebrate
Read more

Embracing Conflict in the Church

Image
Our church family is having a bit of a kerfuffle. Since this is a public forum, I won’t share the details. But it’s painful. It’s personal and it’s dangerous. No one likes it. This is not the first time I’ve been in a church family that was having conflict. Come to think of it, I can’t recall a church that I’ve ever been a part of that didn’t have inner conflict. Conflict is part of the landscape of human relationships. And the church, while it is infused with Divine life, is still human. On this side of eternity, we remain broken – in need of God’s grace and work in our collective life together. It’s the same for any family. There are many responses available to us when we enter into conflict. The first and, I must admit, easiest for me to immerse myself in is anger. It is an honest response, especially when one believes that injustice has been done or that the other party is somehow unrighteous. That has usually been my assessment of “the other side” when I’ve been deep in it. I
Read more