READY FOR HIS COMING

John 5:44- How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?

I often talk about what happened to me in the summer of 1994. That was when the Lord came down in my world and shook things up quite dramatically. What I experienced was an encounter with God in a similar way as my original conversion. My conversion was fixed on the person of Jesus Christ, this next encounter was more of a continuous visitation of the Holy Spirit. Now of course the Holy Spirit is constantly pointing to Jesus but I had never had such an awareness of the Holy Spirit as had begun to experience then. One of the first things that this visitation did was give me quite a dose of humility. Over the years my priorities had become a bit skewed and I was focused on success measured by stats and numbers. I had been brought face to face with the Lord and my purpose for doing everything I was doing shifted drastically. Now it was to magnify Him and look for the day I could be with Him forever. Here is how John Piper describes the glory of God vs. the glory of man.

“Jesus describes their heart disposition like this: “You receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God.” What does that mean? It means at least this: you love to be commended by other people more than you want the commendation of God. Why would that be? Because you love to be associated with human greatness more than God’s greatness. Why would that be? Because behind this disinterest in God’s commendation and God’s association is a devaluing of God himself as the greatest treasure in the universe. Which is why Jesus says, “You do not have the love of God within you”. You don’t treasure the glory of God above all things. They would have said they loved God. But Jesus says, “You do not have the love of God within you.” They would have said they loved the coming of God’s Messiah. But he is there in front of them, and Jesus says, “You do not receive me.” What was the problem?”

That is devastating, ‘you love to be associated with human greatness more than God’s greatness’. That is convicting. Why do we want to have a large church, large altar calls, and all that goes with that? Be honest with yourself, is it to be known or to make Him known? Let the Holy Spirit move into your world. Allow Him to fill you, pursue His presence, and fall in love with Him again. How will you know when you begin to get it right? When seeing Jesus return is more important to you than your accomplishments in this life.