Longing, Love, & Loyalty - 3/22/06

James 4:2-5, 7 & 10, “You do not get what you want, because you do not ask God. Or when you ask, you do no receive because the reason you ask is wrong. You want things so you can use them for your own pleasures. So, you are not loyal to God! You should know that loving the world is the same as hating God. Do you think the scripture means nothing that says, ‘The Spirit that God made to live in us wants us for himself alone?’

So give yourselves completely to God. Stand against the devil, and the devil will run from you. Come near to God, and God will come near to you. Don’t be too proud in the Lord’s presence, and He will make you great.”

There is so much truth here. James 4 is a great chapter. Here, we are reminded that we need only to ask and we shall receive what we need from our loving God. It's possible though that if we have asked and did not receive it's because the reason we asked is wrong. Are we asking Him to provide something that would help us to better serve Him? Or are we asking for something that will serve our own will and our own desires - or for our own plan in our lives rather than His? MY GOD IS NOT MY GENIE. I've had to remind myself of that several times. I serve Him, not the other way around. Yes, he has the power to give me anything, but won’t do so if that thing will replace God in my life.

Read the next part of the above scripture — if you ask of something for your own pleasure, you are not loyal to God. In fact, loyalty to the world makes us God’s enemy. Hmmm...that’s not really a position I want to be in. At some point, every Christian has to face his or her longing for worldly things, and power — absolute control over every aspect of our lives. This is one of the hardest things to give to God; control of our will.

The scripture above also quotes a line from Exodus, reminding us that God wants us for Himself alone. This is from the original Ten Commandments where God admits to being a jealous God. In fact, the very first commandment is to have no other Gods except Him, followed by the commandment to worship no idols. We worship Him and Him alone.

Check, and, check. I’ve never made a Golden Calf or a statue of a man with the head of a jackal. You can come over and check for yourself. Definitely never worshiped either of them.
Except … we can idolize and worship less obvious replacements of God. Fame. Money. Power. Money. Control. Success. Money. Good looks. Talent. Money. Control. These are the true American Idols, Simon.

Read the book of Hosea. He was an Old Testament prophet, and God commanded him to marry a prostitute, Gomer. He made her promise to stop doing her business and devote her love and loyalty to him. So she did. For awhile, then she started to go back to her old ways. Grounds for divorce, right? Nope. God commanded Hosea to take her back and ask her to re-commit herself to him. Whoah! Why? Because the Israelites — and we — have done the exact same thing to God. There is no other human experience that can explain the emotions God has when we replace Him with other things except infidelity. He feels cheated, and rightfully so.

I have been Gomer. I’ve let the devil tempt me in the past to seek out my own will or chase sin; to make my own selfish plans for my life and I know that it hurt God. But He took me back and would a thousand times over. The scripture in James clearly states that if we resist the devil and his temptations, he will flee from us. The One whose Holy Spirit lives within us has already defeated the devil so we need only to declare our allegiance to Jesus and that will chase him away. And if we come near to God, He will come near to us. So we can easily prevent any future "Gomerisms" by making an effort to draw near to God every day.

His love will never fail us, never end, and never give up. We’re human and make mistakes, but we’re forgiven before we even ask for it. That’s living under grace. What’s more, living for Him rather than ourselves will bring about greater blessings than anything we would have chosen for ourselves anyway. “Don’t be too proud in the Lord’s presence, and He will make you great.” Humble yourself enough to serve His will instead of your own, and He will take great joy in elevating you so all can see God’s power in your life. You will have great success and blessings so that He may receive the glory. Then, our longing will not be for material things, but only for Him and His Love, and He will have our Loyalty until that day when we get to be with Him and His other servants for eternity in His love, His peace.