Created for God’s Pleasure
IT’S WORTH CONSIDERING
We recently looked at the purpose of life-no small topic to delve into. We concluded that our purpose in life is to know, to love, and to walk with God Today, I’d like to fine tune that conclusion. Rev. 4:11 says, “Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created.” While most of my translations simply say that by God’s will they exist and were created, a little digging (into Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance) reveals that the original Greek says “for God’s pleasure.” That’s worth contemplating. Since we are part of God’s creation, God created us to be His delight and the object of His affection. The bottom line: we exist for God’s pleasure. News flash! It’s not all about us. God doesn’t exist for our pleasure. We exist for His.

AS I SEE IT
In case you’re thinking that you already know this and are living your life accordingly, stop and take inventory of your prayers. It’s a very revealing exercise. Let’s face it, most of our prayers are requests for God to make our (or someone else’s) life better in some way. Bring me some work. Heal my aching body. Give me wisdom in the decision I’m facing. Give me strength to accomplish your will. The list goes on.

Don’t get me wrong. We are to pray for these things. We are, indeed, dependent on God and He wants us to realize that. The problem is that we spend too much time focusing on blessings from God and not nearly enough time on God Himself. We spend our lives seeking after what God can provide while missing the most important thing-God Himself. This seems to be the default setting in our fallen state-me and my needs. It’s part of the continual battle between the Spirit and the flesh. The flesh always wants its needs met and couldn’t care less about anyone else, including God.

What this means is that we have to make a concerted effort to overcome our natural selfish inclination and to focus on knowing and pleasing God instead of having our needs met. After all, this is why we’re here-for God’s pleasure. The good news is that God is committed to bringing us back to Him. The bad news is that this probably will require a trial, a health issue, shattered dreams, a huge failure, whatever it takes, to bring us back to Him. As long as we understand that His purpose is to restore us and not to punish us, we can actually enjoy the ride and watch Him work. This is why James tells us to “consider it all joy when we encounter various trials (James 1:2).

I’m not saying this will be easy. From personal experience, I know that it’s not. But I do know that it’s worth the effort to change our focus whatever the cost. What is God doing in your life right now? Could your current problem be God fine tuning your life so that you will learn to enjoy God as He enjoys you? This is what life was like in the garden before sin entered the picture. It is also the condition to which God will restore us. The question is Will we cooperate with Him or fight Him every step of the way?

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ON THE LIGHTER SIDE
I stayed up all night to see where the sun went. Then it dawned on me.