Do People See Me or God?
2046-QGA
Joel 02:17 The Context: Like the plague of locusts had devastated their crops, God, through Joel, warned the Jews of God's coming judgment in "The Day of The LORD." While they were superficially "religious" in their traditions, their hearts had strayed far from God. Joel calls them to "rend your hearts and not your garments." (2:13) They were more afraid of the locusts and the threats of the surrounding idolatrous nations than they were of the GOD Who had so powerfully and obviously rescued them from Egypt and prospered them in the homeland He had given them. In their assumed material and religious prosperity they had become just like the nations around them whom God was promising to judge. (chap 3)
God was calling His people to "return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning," (:12) He was calling not just so that they could experience God's blessing again. God was calling them to return to being the witness to the nations around them that there is One True God who redeems repentant people. With this in mind God asked His people:
God Asks Us: "Why should they say among the peoples, ‘where is their God’?"
jne: God continues to ask His People, His True Saints, "Do the people around you see the Rescuing, Redeeming, God at work in you?" Or do they simply see religious people more in love with their traditions, their accomplishments, with themselves, than with the GOD they claim to serve?
We tend to think the world will be impressed if we simply double our religious activities, build more beautiful buildings, have more entertaining productions, exalt our religious leaders. Doing these things probably only makes us look more like the world around us.
What the world needs to see is God rescuing repentant people from their proud and blindly selfish attitudes that exalts themselves just like the world around them. Do the people around me see me or God when they watch my LIFE?
Joel 02:17 The Context: Like the plague of locusts had devastated their crops, God, through Joel, warned the Jews of God's coming judgment in "The Day of The LORD." While they were superficially "religious" in their traditions, their hearts had strayed far from God. Joel calls them to "rend your hearts and not your garments." (2:13) They were more afraid of the locusts and the threats of the surrounding idolatrous nations than they were of the GOD Who had so powerfully and obviously rescued them from Egypt and prospered them in the homeland He had given them. In their assumed material and religious prosperity they had become just like the nations around them whom God was promising to judge. (chap 3)
God was calling His people to "return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning," (:12) He was calling not just so that they could experience God's blessing again. God was calling them to return to being the witness to the nations around them that there is One True God who redeems repentant people. With this in mind God asked His people:
God Asks Us: "Why should they say among the peoples, ‘where is their God’?"
jne: God continues to ask His People, His True Saints, "Do the people around you see the Rescuing, Redeeming, God at work in you?" Or do they simply see religious people more in love with their traditions, their accomplishments, with themselves, than with the GOD they claim to serve?
We tend to think the world will be impressed if we simply double our religious activities, build more beautiful buildings, have more entertaining productions, exalt our religious leaders. Doing these things probably only makes us look more like the world around us.
What the world needs to see is God rescuing repentant people from their proud and blindly selfish attitudes that exalts themselves just like the world around them. Do the people around me see me or God when they watch my LIFE?