Blessed are the single-hearted, for they shall enjoy much peace… If you refuse to be hurried and pressed, if you stay your soul on God, nothing can keep you from that clearness of spirit which is life and peace. In that stillness you know what His will is.
All the believer’s life and all the church’s life requires theocentric thinking. The tragedy is that were someone to hear our thoughts and words in our dangers and troubles they would never guess that we had a living God.
1 Samuel, Focus, 1988, p. 184. Used by Permission. Get this book!
In space, astronauts experience the misery of having no reference point, no force that draws them to the center. Where there is no “moral gravity” – that is, no force that draws us to the center – there is spiritual weightlessness. We float on feelings that will carry us where we were never meant to go; we bubble with emotional experiences that we often take for spiritual ones; and we are puffed up with pride. Instead of seriousness, there is foolishness. Instead of gravity, flippancy. Sentimentality takes the place of theology. Our reference point will never serve to keep our feet on solid rock. Our reference point, until we answer God’s call, is merely ourselves. We cannot possibly tell which end is up.
Our only hope is to return to the God of the Scriptures and the truth that the center of all meaning in life is not ourselves but God. God is the center of the universe and the essence of all wisdom and all truth. The purpose of life derives from God’s desire to see His own glory and behold His own beauty. Thus it is time for Christians to be called back to the truth that the meaning of life is to be found in “the glory of God alone.”
To God be the Glory, Crossway, 2000, p. 22.
Believers may not often realize it, but even as believers we are either centered on man or centered on God. There is no alternative. Either God is the center of our universe and we have become rightly adjusted to Him, or we have made ourselves the center and are attempting to make all else orbit around us and for us (Vern Fromke).
The Ultimate Intention, 1964, p. 10.
If a believer can keep his mind on God, no evil in this world can steal his peace. And that will be enough till heaven (Rick Holland).
Right Thinking in a World Gone Wrong, Grace Community Church, 2009, p. 187.
The proper understanding of everything in life begins with God. No one will ever understand the necessity of conversion who does not know why God created us. He created us “in His image” so that we would image forth his glory in the world. We were made to be prisms refracting the light of God’s glory into all of life. Why God should want to give us a share in shining with His glory is a great mystery. Call it grace or mercy or love – it is an unspeakable wonder. Once we were not. Then we existed – for the glory of God!
Desiring God, Bethlehem Baptist Church, p. 55, used by permission, www.desiringGOD.org. Get this book!
I once read the following definition of a fanatic: “A fanatic is a person who, having lost sight of his goal, redoubles his effort to get there.” The fanatic runs around frantically getting nowhere. He is a basketball player without a basket, a tennis player without a net, a golfer without a green. For a Christian to make progress in…learning to please God, he must have a clear idea of what his goal is… Jesus stated it this way: “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”
Pleasing God. Christianity Today, v. 34, n. 9.
We are called by God to do theology, that is, to live our lives with a moment-by-moment consciousness of God.
Age of Opportunity, P&R Publishing, 1997, p. 54-55, Used by Permission. Get this book!
