The God of Reminders

Yesterday we had staff worship as we do every other Wednesday; for fifteen minutes we lifted our voices in worship and thanksgiving to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the maker of all things, the author and perfecter of our faith. My prayer this morning before leading worship was to let my heart and mind be completely focused on the Lord for that short fifteen minutes; that our time would be full and the Lord would speak and that all of the staff, myself included, would remember our purpose here on this earth. God answers prayers and He responds to our worship when it is done in spirit and in truth.

I've come away with three reminders about who I am, who God is and why there is breath in my lungs this morning.

1. It was very evident to me yesterday that I am a sinner. I fall short of God's standard of perfection. My evil thoughts and actions are repulsive to God; He loathes them because He is a righteous and holy God. There is a colossal gap between my position and God's and yet it made a way to bridge that gap. Out of His great love for me and for the world (which we cannot understand) He took His holy, perfect, righteous son and handed him over to the humiliation and pain of the cross as atonement for my sin, for our sin. I was reminded that I am but a sinner saved only by the grace of God. I deserve nothing that the Lord has given and I definitely don't deserve the honor and privilege of worshiping Him. And let us not forget that it is an honor to boldly go before the throne of God and offer up praises to Him from our unclean lips. I was incredibly humbled and overwhelmed by His mercy and grace. I know that I am sinner, but I also know that now, I am a child of God because He saw fit to bring me into His family because His love for me and because of His good plan for salvation.

2. I was reminded that God is good. All the time and in every situation. There is never a time when He does not act for our good. Sometimes it doesn't feel like it is for our good. Sometimes it really hurts and we can't see how God is good or how He is working. But we must remember that He is God, omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent and we are not. If the work of God causes us temporary, or not so temporary, pain or discomfort but also draws us closer to Him, teaches us to love Him and others more, helps us to see that everything else compared to Christ is filth, pushes us to reconcile with Him or with others, teaches us to forgive, teaches us to worship and overall makes us more like His son, then it is good and it is worth the suffering. God is not idle or distant; He doesn't just sit back and let things happen to us for no reason and nothing catches Him by surprise. God is always working and nothing gets to us without passing through His hands first.

3. Finally, God reminded me what our purpose is here on this earth. Our primary motivation and concern in everything we do is to worship God and bring glory to His name. That is what we were created for and it is our eternal purpose. In my personal experience ( and I'm sure I'm not the only one) I have tried to find my identity in what I thought my purpose in life was. The problem was that I didn't feel like I had a purpose and I had forgotten the purpose that God created in me. Sometimes we are in positions or jobs that we feel like do not carry a lot of weight, they aren't going to change the world and in that we can feel lost because we are not looking at the big picture. No matter where God has placed us, whether as a missionary or at a fast food restaurant, our purpose, our motivation for each day, the impetus that wakes us up in the morning is to worship and glorify God. Our focus should be living a life that shows that we love God and love people and rest assured that God can and will work through our obedience to our everlasting calling.

Those are my morning thoughts. I hope they have been an encouragement to you and the next time you forget who you are, who God is or what your purpose on this earth is, remember that God is a God of Reminders.

P.S. Here are some of the scriptures I had on my heart while writing this:

Romans 7:18-25, 5:8; Ephesians 1:3-14; All of Romans 8 (but specifically verses 12-17, 18, 28-30, 31-39); Job 40-42; Psalm 8:4, 37:23-24, 98-100, 103, 119:68, 136, 138:8, 145, 147-150